Undercover investigations captured more animal suffering – but their plight is being kept in the dark.

Most people would be shocked by the reality of ‘standard practice’ animal slaughter. Slaughterhouses, whose entire business relies on killing animals, can’t change these practices – so what do they do? They try to hide them.

When Farm Transparency Project (FTP) investigators captured footage in a Victorian slaughterhouse showing “goats having their throats cut while they appear to be still alive”, FTP submitted a cruelty complaint to the federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Determined to show the plight of goats being killed in Australia, FTP published extracts online and sent the footage to the media when authorities failed to act.

What happened next?

Rather than condemning the cruelty, the slaughterhouse took action to sue the investigators who exposed it. A temporary injunction was ordered to prevent the footage from being shown to the public, and FTP was ordered to pay $100,000 in damages.  

For the past year, FTP has been arguing in court for the public’s right to know what happens inside Australian farms and slaughterhouses. 

Now, the Federal Court of Australia has ruled on appeal to permanently prohibit the use of the investigation footage, and the charity has been ordered to delete it. The Court’s decision is a devastating loss for the animals whose suffering will remain unseen.  

ABC’s Media Watch explained the deeply concerning implications that this ruling could have for investigators, whistleblowers and journalists.  

In this instance, we don’t need to stretch our imagination to gauge what the footage entails. Sadly, there is ample evidence already of the terror animals experience behind the closed doors of Australia’s slaughterhouses…

…there’s no ‘humane’ end in a slaughterhouse.

Covert cameras and undercover investigators continue to capture the distressing final moments of farmed animals across Australia. While there’s no doubt investigation footage is distressing to watch, a light must be shone on what’s really going on behind slaughterhouse walls.

More recently, FTP’s hidden cameras captured deeply disturbing footage inside another Victorian slaughterhouse, this time of a mother goat forced to give birth while trapped within a restraint device, moments before she was killed. Investigators also documented baby goats who had survived slaughter, and yet were still crying for their mothers and attempting to stand more than six hours after they had been shot with a captive bolt gun. Publishing this footage is also an offence.

The list of documented cruelty goes on.

Slaughterhouses exist for one reason: to kill animals as ‘efficiently’ as possible. The meat industry relies on keeping the reality of its operations hidden from consumers – as people would likely choose differently if they knew what was going on.

When we pass animals crowded in trucks on the road, our hearts sink a little; we know where they are going. But most of us, through no fault of our own, have little knowledge or exposure to the legal and routine ways animals suffer to be sold as food products in Australia. Neatly packaged animal products are available on supermarket shelves without transparency around who these products are made from, and what they were forced to endure for these ‘products’ to get there. Consumers have a right to know.

Often, mandatory CCTV in slaughterhouses is suggested as a ‘solution’ to address slaughterhouse cruelty. When the default response of animal industries is to stop any footage of suffering from being publicly aired, rather than actually addressing the cause of that suffering, it raises an important question: who would actually be monitoring any enforced video footage? 

It is clear that unless there is true transparency, which can only come from that footage being made publicly available, slaughterhouses will continue to operate with minimal oversight, and animals will remain at high risk of the most extreme cruelty.

Sadly, with or without CCTV, even the strictest adherence to regulations wouldn’t remove the fear and suffering animals endure.

Goats, pigs, sheep, cows, and chickens think and feel, just like the companion animals we share our homes and our hearts with. But for these animals bred only to be killed, there is no ‘humane’ end – unless people choose differently.

The more we learn about our food system – and the reality for animals trapped in that system – the more empowered we are to make food choices that better align with our values. By opting to eat more kindly, you can help reduce the demand that’s driving industries to breed and kill more animals for meat, egg and dairy products, and spare them from ever having to set foot inside a slaughterhouse.