Today the Eyes on Animals team in Turkey held two meetings. One with the highest Religious Authority from Dyanet office in Goenen and one with an official from the Goenen office of Ministry of Agriculture. The city of Goenen has a cattle and sheep slaughterhouse where many animals pass through, in the past also ones form Europe. Eyes on Animals has been there many times. As is the norm in Turkey, cattle and sheep are hoisted by one leg with chains and have their throats slit while fully conscious.
Today we brought a captive bolt pistol to the meetings and explained to both of these local authoritative people the welfare advantages of first rendering the animals unconscious to pain. We showed them how a captive bolt pistol works and let them use it. They were very impressed with it and had never seen one up close before. We settled some misconceptions about stunning and feel confident that by talking directly with the many local authorities we can get people in Turkey to better understand stunning and accept it in more of their slaughterplants.
