Hopeful news! We have successfully convinced another slaughterhouse in Turkey to adopt stunning- a sheep slaughterhouse is ready to electric stun the sheep to render them unconscious before restraining and slaughtering them. In Turkey it is common to hoist animals alive and hang them up by one leg fully off the floor, and then they have their throats cut while fully conscious. The animals are very fearful and suffer greatly.
After 10 years of consistent work in Turkey, and respectfully talking with Imams, slaughtermen and meat companies, we are really seeing some fruit of our efforts. We have bought an electric stunner and have a skilled and humane French slaughterman and Termet with us to help teach the workers how to use it. The photos are still hard to look at but Asalet (with Termet) is making a big difference. He has been busy all week teaching electric stunning also to 5 other sheep abattoirs, showing the importance of rendering animals unconscious and insensitive to pain. Stunning is still very new in Turkey. One small step at a time, we are really trying to change that. We remain hopeful that after this week several plants will decide to adopt stunning permanently. There are still concerns about blood spots in the meat that we need to solve but are working on it.
We will remain in touch with them and be always ready to help out and organize trainings for them. Thank you to all those that are helping us out there, you know who you are !
