Perhaps they’ll listen now

The National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) released a statement in 2015: “Pigs scream in ‘ínhumane’ gas pits before slaughter“. Sounds dramatic. What was the commotion about?

It is usual practice in abattoirs to stun an animal before slaughter. This renders the beast unconscious before it is dispatched. (Of course inefficiency here leads to suffering, but more about that another time. Mostly, meat inspectors ensure that things happen as they ought to). To save money, some bright spark came up with the idea of gassing pigs: lowering caged animals into carbon dioxide.

The nuisance was that the pesky animals took too long to die. Instead, they clamoured and squealed for nearly a minute as they fought for oxygen. A greater irritation was that animal rights people poked their noses into what was happening.

In February 2016 the NSPCA took Tiger Brands to court. See “Tiger Brands faces criminal charges over pig slaughtering methods“. Tiger Brands, puffing indignation and innocence, protested that the method had been approved by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries (DALRRD) … so there, they weren’t doing anything wrong!

We never heard what the outcome was. But this week when we see headlines like “#Listeriosis: How much money is Tiger Brands losing?”, we wonder if there isn’t some kind of grim poetic justice being served. It comes at a terrible price, of course: the toll for the listeriosis outbreak was 180 humans dead last time we looked. And there are a lot more people on the case of Tiger Brands now than a few from an animal rights organisation.