Animal Aid Campaigns : Market Action Demanded

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MARKETS
Government Advisory Body Demands Action On Water

A new report by the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) on farmed animals at gatherings* gives recommendations for improved animal welfare at livestock markets. The most noteworthy recommendations include; establishing a system of ongoing monitoring and training for market staff; and the provision of water to all animals when not involved in a "defined activity", such as movement prior to or following sale.

A pig in a market cage that the industry said didn’t exist.

Although Animal Aid welcomes this development, we would like to see not only the ‘provision' of, but direct access for animals to the water - which of course would be difficult in pens with high stocking densities. Even if the government accepts its own advisory body’s recommendations and makes it obligatory for markets to ensure no animal suffers from thirst, livestock markets will remain a problem. This is because they are incredibly stressful for animals and represent a totally unnecessary stage in the cycle of abuse to which farmed animals are subjected. Encouragingly, however, in the last ten years, the number of livestock markets in Great Britain has decreased by two thirds, and the number of ‘slaughter animals’ sold through markets has also declined significantly. (Others pass through markets en route to another farm for further fattening.)

Other important recommendations in the report include:

As a Legal requirement
Formal designation of an Animal Welfare Officer.
Ensuring ‘duty of care’ within the Animal Welfare Bill encompasses animals at gatherings.
Specific prohibition of hitting, poking or prodding with a stick any animal around the head, eyes or other sensitive part of the body.
Electric goads avoided as far as possible.
Prohibition of certain methods of handling calves; including dragging by neck strings, tail twisting and ‘wheelbarrowing’.
When not involved in a defined ‘activity’, all animals should be provided with sufficient space to lie down, get up and turn around without difficulty.
To provide bedding for all animals held in the market overnight.
Unfit animals not to be brought to a market premises.
Markets selling dairy cattle must have facilities for milking.
To provide an adequate number of permanent loading and unloading bays which allow animals to enter and leave all vehicles at the minimum possible incline.
All animals have non-slip flooring in areas of animal movement

To be included in the Code of Practice
Fractious animals that have become distressed should be sold from the pen and not the sales ring.

Markets Exposed

Back in April the Daily Express ran our campaign advert on ‘livestock’ markets. The ad illustrated some of the shocking cruelty that takes place in UK animal sales every week. Express readers were asked to send an attached coupon asking Ben Bradshaw MP - Minister for Animal Welfare at the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to ban livestock markets.

We had calls and letters from irate members of the farming industry, declaring that our photos were untruthful. There was also a threat to refer it to the Advertising Standards Association. The photos were taken from the many hours of undercover footage gathered by our market investigators at various locations across the country. Extensive evidence of abuse has been documented in our major reports; ‘A Dirty Business’, ‘Bartered Lives’ and ‘A Brutal Business’.

The picture of a sick and exhausted pig lying squashed in a metal barred pen on bare concrete, seemed to irritate the farming industry the most. (Obviously, this is not the kind of image they would like splashed all over a major national newspaper.) We were told countless times that we had faked the photo and that this image could not be seen at livestock markets. So we visited a market in the north of England. There we found distressing scenes of sad and frightened pigs, kept solitary in metal barred pens barely large enough to hold them, with concrete floors and no bedding.
Animal Aid has been monitoring markets for more than 10 years and has consistently recorded animals being kicked and punched by callous and untrained handlers. Even in the height of the summer, animals are rarely given water.

Animals at markets need your help. Please support our call for a ban on livestock sales. Contact us to order a FREE markets pack for more information.

* Other gatherings include: staging points and gatherings at dealers’ and hauliers’ yards, agricultural shows and exhibitions; and also centres where animals await collection - for example cattle for destruction under the BSE rules.

Action

If you have a livestock market in your town, why not pay a visit and say what you have seen in a letter to your local paper.

Write to

Ben Bradshaw MP, Animal Welfare Minister, Defra, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3JR. Ask for a ban on all livestock markets.

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