Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Most of the larger slaughterhouses in Baden-Württemberg are now filming the processes in order to be able to better control the employees when stunning and killing the animals. However, not all larger companies still have video surveillance. According to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture, 30 out of 36 slaughterhouses in the country have installed a system at the points relevant to animal welfare. Two are preparing video surveillance, four operators do not want the cameras in their company, according to a response from the ministry to a request from the SPD in the state parliament. Monitoring is on a voluntary basis.
However, the Ministry for Food, Rural Areas and Consumer Protection under Peter Hauk (CDU) is convinced that it can also ensure a high level of animal welfare in these cases without video surveillance - provided that the processes are closely monitored by animal welfare officers from the slaughterhouse and official inspectors be in action. When it comes to questions about video surveillance systems in smaller slaughterhouses, the ministry has always appealed to the responsibility of butchers who slaughter themselves. Many small slaughterhouses only slaughter once or twice a week.
This is a thorn in the side of the opposition SPD: "Hauk's voluntary video surveillance in the country's slaughterhouses is a toothless tiger," said Jonas Weber, spokesman for animal welfare for the SPD parliamentary group. In total there are more than 800 slaughterhouses in the country, but only 3.5 percent of the companies have video surveillance. "And where the method is used, it doesn't necessarily bring anything," criticized Weber. The case in a slaughterhouse in Backnang showed that.
After several slaughterhouse scandals in the Southwest in the past, Hauk had come under pressure. In August, hidden recordings from a slaughterhouse in Backnang caused unrest in the meat industry, which was already plagued by scandals. "The recordings document possible irregularities when cattle are brought in and when individual animals are stunned," the company said. The pictures are said to have been taken secretly by the animal rights organization "Soko Tierschutz".
