Shocking claims about pork industry

The method intended to make the slaughter of pigs humane may be more brutal than previously thought, according to hidden camera footage that allegedly captures what’s going on in Australian abattoirs.

Animal activists say they broke into multiple abattoirs to capture the secret footage in what’s intended to shine a light on the Australian pork industry.

Australian pigs undergo a process called “stunning” where they lose consciousness before they are killed, with 85 per cent of pigs undergoing carbon dioxide stunning.

Animal activist Chris Delforce, who took his footage to the ABC, said the fact that people don’t know about how pigs are stunned is “inexcusable”.

“Every pig that goes into that gas is screaming and thrashing and fighting desperately with every last breath to get out of there, pushing their snouts up through the bars because they know the air is up,” he said.

Mr Delforce hid above the gas chambers at three different abattoirs to capture the footage, where he says he stared pigs in the eyes while they were fighting to breathe.

Various pieces of footage show the pigs squealing and trying to break free of their confines.

One pig farmer who was shown the footage by 7.30 said there was “something wrong” with the footage as it did not align with what he had seen at other abattoirs.

“They go into the gondola awake, they come out unconscious and they don’t shake, they’re not jumping up and down and thrashing,” John Bourke said.

“From my knowledge, and I’ve been pig farming for a long time, that’s just rubbish.

“Would the industry be doing something that’s so horrific?”

The RSPCA has recommended that the stunning of pigs with high concentrations of carbon dioxide should be “phased out and replaced with a more humane alternative”.

They reviewed studies that found that “high concentrations of CO2 gas can cause significant pain and distress to pigs when inhaled (due to acute respiratory distress, i.e. difficulty breathing)”.

A former chief scientist at the RSPCA, who later co-founded national charity Australian Alliance for Animals, said she hoped the footage prompted change.

“You don’t want to feel that animals are suffering every time they’re slaughtered,” she said on the program.

“The concept for the Australian consumer should be that if they’re consuming an animal product, that animal has had a good life and a good death.”