Abstract
Simple SummaryPreslaughter stunning is a technical process by which animals are rendered unconscious prior to slaughter, as to avoid the pain and fear of being slaughtered. While it is a legislative requirement in some countries, it is not yet regularly practised in many countries. To better understand why this might be the case, this study conducted focus group sessions with leaders from the livestock industries in China, Vietnam, India, Thailand, Malaysia and Bangladesh. Leaders were asked to rate the willingness of livestock stakeholders to adopt preslaughter stunning, in addition to their suggested solutions for increasing the level of willingness, and their thoughts as to why they were or were not willing to adopt stunning. This data was analysed and presented within this manuscript. The findings were specific to each country, with similar themes shared across some of the countries. The findings of this study may aid in the development of programs that aim to increase the adoption of preslaughter stunning practices, with the purpose of improving animal welfare during slaughter.Preslaughter stunning; the induction of unconsciousness and insensibility of animals prior to slaughter, is an important process for the welfare of livestock. The application of stunning is required by legislation in some countries, and rarely practised in others. In order to effectively advocate the implementation of stunning in the regions that do not include the practice as standard, it is first important to understand attitudes towards stunning, barriers to implementing stunning, and stakeholder willingness to embrace the practice. To this purpose, 17 focus group sessions were held with leaders in livestock production in China, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, India and Bangladesh. Leaders were asked to rate their perceived willingness of livestock stakeholders to embrace stunning, and their rationales were discussed. In addition to this, the leaders were asked to present ideas to improve the willingness of stakeholders to embrace stunning. The data were qualitatively analysed used thematic analysis, quantified, and presented within this manuscript. Importantly, different attitudes and solutions existed by country, mostly in line with the predominating religion within the country, and the stage of economic development. Concerns around nonstatic and constantly evolving animal welfare benchmarks were also presented as important factors impacting the adoption of stunning, and the technical methods used. The findings of this study may aid in the development of programs that aim to increase the adoption of preslaughter stunning practices, to the purpose of improving animal welfare during slaughter.
Highlights
Stunning is defined as a technical preslaughter process subjected to individual animals to induce unconsciousness and insensibility, so that slaughter can be performed without avoidable fear, anxiety, pain, suffering or distress [1]
The purpose of this study is to investigate the willingness of livestock stakeholders in Asia to embrace stunning and to expose the barriers to adopting stunning practices
‘how likely are stakeholders within the industry to adopt preslaughter stunning’, followed by the key words identified with the highest frequency when participants justified the rating they gave
Summary
Stunning is defined as a technical preslaughter process subjected to individual animals to induce unconsciousness and insensibility, so that slaughter can be performed without avoidable fear, anxiety, pain, suffering or distress [1]. Originally developed as a method of immobilisation for ease of processing, stunning is advocated primarily for animal welfare reasons, as a method of avoiding the stress of restraint for slaughter, the pain of the knife cut to the throat, and distress experienced during exsanguination [3,4,5,6]. While some European states, alongside countries such as Australia [8] and the United States of America [9] legislated obligatory stunning, they make exceptions for slaughter that omits the practice for ritual, or religious, reasons.
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