For the past 5 years Eyes on Animals and WACPAW (West Africa Center for the Protection of Animal Welfare) have been visiting the Cape Coast cattle slaughter slab in Cape Coast, Ghana. The purpose of our visits was to check on the handling of the cattle and provide assistance and advice where possible, in the hope to decrease stress and suffering of the animals. On our first visit, cattle were forced to fall down and had their four legs tethered tightly together and then had their neck “sawed” open. The suffering was severe, particularly because many of the cattle had also first endured a grueling transport journey, crammed on the back of a small truck without suspension, often also tethered to the point of not being able to stand up after being thrusted off the truck. Fortunately, things have changed here. Conditions are improving, greatly due to on-going presence by WACPAW’s inspector in Cape Coast and equipment from EonA. The butchers of this slaughter slab were trained by WACPAW/EonA on how to use a captive bolt pistol to render the cattle first unconscious before bleeding them out. As well, the teams persuaded them successfully to allow the cattle to remain standing on all 4 legs, putting an end to tripping the cattle and tethering their legs up. They were given 2 captive bolt pistols and several thousand of cartridges. Today the WACPAW inspector returned to the slaughter slab and was pleased to see the cattle continue to be rendered unconscious before slaughter and are kept upright.
We are also very pleased that the butchers are very skilled now in stunning correctly. They are not impatient or anxious anymore around the cattle, but rather wait for the right moment to aim and stay calm around the large cattle.
