SHAMBO SHAMBLES GIVES FOOD FOR THOUGHT

27-07-2007

Amazing how the life and death of one animal can suddenly capture the zeitgeist. Remember the Tamworth Two? Now it's Shambo the sacred bullock. So how come we can empathise with one slaughtered beast while turning a blind eye to the rest?

The Stirrer’s seen figures suggesting that as many as 750 million animals are killed for food every year in Britain - a scale of which leads some vegetarians to talk about a “holocaust”.

The vast majority of these beasts have dramatically shortened lives, but at least they will be humanely despatched - unless, that is, they are reared for consumption by Jews or Muslims.

For this is where the law makes an exception on religious grounds; animals reared in the kosher and halal traditions will be “ritually” slaughtered by having their throats cut so that they can bleed to death, and there’s no requirement that they should even be stunned before they are put to death.

Even the government’s own agriculture advisor, the Farm Animal Welfare Advisory council has spoken out against the practice claiming that it results in “very significant pain and distress”.

It should be recognised that in some cases the ten million animals used annually for kosher and halal meat are pre-stunned; but in many cases they are not.

Can this really be considered civilised behaviour in 2007?

At least poor old Shambo was sent to his maker with a lethal injection; sadly many others in his positions will not be treated with such delicacy.

With campaigners like Viva calling for a change in the law (see here) the death of this supposedly sacred bullock should at least give us food for thought.