"Our inspection of slaughterhouses is rising to the next level…we must increase monitoring and enforcement or else these cases will not change," says agriculture minister.
Aiming to curb abuse cases at the country\’s slaughterhouses, the Agriculture Ministry has ordered the installation of cameras at all such facilities, which will stream live footage to a central ministry control room.
The "smart camera" system, which will include about 400 cameras and 50 digital recording systems at about 50 slaughterhouses, will be filming workers as they handle animals on a 24-7 basis, an Agriculture Ministry statement said. A supervisory team from the ministry\’s Veterinary Services will be tasked with monitoring the video feed from the cameras at the central control room, the statement added.
"Our inspection of slaughterhouses is rising to the next level," Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel said. "We were witnesses to various severe cases at slaughterhouses around Israel. On the one hand we cannot generalize, but on the other hand we must increase monitoring and enforcement or else these cases will not change.”
Ariel first called for the installation of cameras as well as control room\’s establishment in July, after Channel 10 aired a report revealing abusive activities at a Soglowek poultry abbatoir. The continuation of a Channel 10 Kolbotek investigation in October 2013, prompted by Anonymous for Animal Rights activist Ronen Bar, July\’s expose showed images of employees dancing in circles with chickens and throwing them around to each other as if they were balls.
Other such incidents have been reported at slaughterhouses in the past, such as an abuse case at Tnuva’s Adom Adom cattle slaughterhouse in December 2012. In June, the Agriculture Ministry temporarily shut down the Dabbah company slaughterhouse, also due to animal rights violations.