🐷Letter of the Week - 18th June, 2023 🐷
Our letter of the week is to support the campaign by Farm Transparency Project to ban the use of gas chambers at pig slaughterhouses.
SUGGESTED ACTIONS
1. Write to the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Murray Watt, asking him to support a Federal Parliamentary Inquiry into gas chambers and, ultimately, a ban on the cruel practice.
Email: Murray Watt- minister.watt@aph.gov.au
2. Send a copy of the same email to your local Federal MP. Use this link to find your MP's details - https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Members
3. You may also wish to call Murray's office - call (02) 6277 7190
4. Educate yourself on gas chambers, visit the Farm Transparency Project website to learn more https://www.farmtransparency.org/campaigns/gas-chambers.
5. Please join our new Facebook group - One Action a Week, where we support pressure campaigns to make positive changes for animals where ever and whenever we can. https://www.facebook.com/groups/224593413652548
MORE INFOMATION
Most Australian slaughterhouses now use carbon dioxide (CO2) gas chambers to render pigs unconscious prior to slitting their throats. Referred to by the industry as "controlled atmosphere
stunning" this process involves lowering pigs into a chamber which is pumped full of deadly CO2 gas. The pigs are exposed to the gas for 2-4 minutes depending on the chamber. In most cases, this is long enough that they are functionally dead, unable to be woken up - making gas chambers a form of killing, rather than purely a stunning method.
While the industry claims that gas chambers are the most humane method of stunning when dealing with a large number of pigs, numerous investigations show how pigs frantically fight to escape the chamber, gasping for air and screaming in agony. In 2023, investigators exposed themselves to CO2 gas inside one of the industry's gas chambers to experience what the pigs would be feeling. Even after a short time with low concentrations of gas, they experienced burning eyes and lungs, extreme panic and light-headedness. In reality, gassing pigs only has one benefit to the industry - that it's the most efficient method of immobilising pigs for slaughter, meaning that they are able to kill more pigs at a faster rate.
For more detailed information, please read the FTP website -
Further suggested actions are listed here -