DOCSLIB.ORG

Auditing Animal Welfare at Slaughter Plants

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Auditing Animal Welfare at Slaughter Plants Meat Science 86 (2010) 56–65 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Meat Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/meatsci Review Auditing animal welfare at slaughter plants Temple Grandin Department of Animal Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO 80523, USA article info abstract Article history: The OIE Welfare Standards on slaughter transport, and killing of animals for disease control are basic minimum Received 9 January 2010 standards that every country should follow. The OIE, European Union, and many private standards used by Received in revised form 8 April 2010 commercial industry have an emphasis on animal based outcome standards instead of engineering based Accepted 15 April 2010 standards. Numerical scoring is used by both private industry and some governments to access animal welfare at slaughter plants. Five variables are measured. They are: 1) Percentage of animals effectively stunned on the first Keywords: attempt, 2) Percentage rendered insensible, 3) Percentage that vocalize (bellow, moo, squeal) during handling Slaughter welfare Cattle and stunning, 4) Percentage that fall during handling, and 5) Percentage moved with an electric goad. Each one of Pigs these critical control points measures the outcome of many problems. A good animal welfare auditing system also Stunning has standards that prohibit really bad practices such as dragging, dropping, throwing, puntilla, and hoisting live animals before ritual slaughter. On farm and transport problems that can be measured at the slaughter plant are: percentage of lame animals, percentage of thin animals, percentage of dirty animals, percentage with sores, bruises or lesions, death losses, morbidity, and percentage of birds with broken wings and legs. © 2010 The American Meat Science Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction ...............................................................57 2. Different types of standards ........................................................57 2.1. Animal based outcome standards ..................................................57 2.2. Prohibited practices ........................................................57 2.3. Input based engineering standards also called resource based ....................................57 2.4. Documentation standards and paperwork ..............................................58 3. Vague wording in standards leads to inconsistent enforcement .......................................58 4. Numerical scoring system for slaughter plants ...............................................58 4.1. Percentage of livestock or poultry stunned effectively on the first attempt. ............................58 4.1.1. Captive bolt ........................................................58 4.1.2. Electrical stunning.....................................................58 4.1.3. Controlled atmosphere stunning (CAS) ...........................................58 4.2. Percentage of livestock or poultry with no signs of return to sensibility ................................59 4.2.1. Evaluating insensibility in cattle, pigs, sheep, and other mammals . ............................59 4.2.3. Evaluating insensibility in chickens, turkeys, and other poultry................................59 4.3. Percentage of cattle, pigs, sheep, and other livestock that fall during handling . ............................59 4.4. Percentage of cattle, pigs, sheep, and other livestock that are moved with an electric goad .......................59 4.5. Percentage of cattle and pigs that vocalize (bellow or squeal) during handling before stunning .....................59 5. Slaughter without stunning (kosher and halal) ...............................................60 5.1. Restrain the animal in a comfortable, upright position ........................................60 5.2. Use a very sharp knife that is twice the width of the neck ......................................60 5.3. Score the interval from the cut to loss of sensibility .........................................60 5.4. Cattle, sheep, and goats must be unconscious before removal from the restrainer ...........................60 6.2. Expensive plant renovations not required in most slaughter plants ..................................60 7. Video auditing to maintain the improvements ...............................................60 8. Clear comments are essential .......................................................61 E-mail address: [email protected]. 0309-1740/$ – see front matter © 2010 The American Meat Science Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.meatsci.2010.04.022 T. Grandin / Meat Science 86 (2010) 56–65 57 9. On-farm and transport animal welfare problems that can be measured in the slaughter plant in cattle, pigs, sheep, and poultry ........ 61 9.1. Body condition score (BCS) .................................................... 61 9.2. Lameness measure ........................................................ 61 9.3. Foot, leg, and body lesions caused by poor housing or disease .................................... 61 9.4. Broken wings and legs on chickens and turkeys ........................................... 61 9.5. Dead animals on arrival at the slaughter plant (DOAs)........................................ 61 9.6. Dirty soiled livestock and poultry.................................................. 62 9.7. Scoring of bruised carcasses .................................................... 62 10. Non-ambulatory downed animals ..................................................... 62 11. Conclusions ............................................................... 62 References ................................................................... 62 1. Introduction records the percentage of animals that fall down, the percentage lame, or the percentage where the stunner fails on the first attempt. Animal welfare is becoming an increasing concern around the One of the first animal based scoring systems for evaluating world (Seng & Laporte, 2005). Managers, veterinarians, and scientists stunning and handling of cattle and pigs at the slaughter plant was need to become more knowledgeable on how to assess and audit developed by Grandin (1997, 1998a). Systems using numerical animal welfare at the slaughter plant. The World Organization for scoring of animal handling are also described in Maria, Villarrael Animal Health (OIE) now has welfare standards for slaughter, and Gebresentbet (2004) and Edge and Barnett (2008). The European transport, and killing animals for disease control (OIE, 2009a,b,c; Union now has a major emphasis on the use of animal based methods Shimshony & Chaudry, 2005). Standards for on farm welfare of beef for evaluating animal welfare (European Union Welfare Quality, cattle and meat (broiler) chicken have preliminary drafts. The OIE 2009). In these programs, animals are evaluated for body condition, standards are basic minimum standards that both the developed and lameness, lesions, abnormal behavior, and many other measures. The developing countries have agreed on. In addition to OIE standards, OIE slaughter and transport guidelines also have animal based each country has its own animal welfare laws and standards (Defra, numerical scoring on the percentage of animals falling and electric 2010; USDA, 2010; MAF, 1996). A third type of standards are private goad use. In both OIE (2009a,b) and Grandin (2010a), handling standards that have been created by either large meat buying practices need improvement if more than 1% of the animals fall during customers, livestock producer groups, or scientific societies (Barnett handling. The Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA has now & Hemsworth, 2009; Grandin, 2010a; FASS, 2010, National Pork adopted the use of the numerical scoring system that was developed Board (2008), Soil Association (no date). Some of these are stricter by Grandin (1997, 1998a)(FSIS/USDA, 2009). The use of animal based than either legislated standards or OIE standards. Legislative scoring systems has resulted in great improvements in handling and standards and private standards should avoid being in direct conflict stunning when it was used by restaurant companies to audit slaughter with OIE by allowing practices that should not be used according to plants (Grandin, 2005, 2006). This system has been in use for over ten OIE standards. years by large meat buying customers in many different countries (Grandin, 2010b). 2. Different types of standards Each animal is scored as either acceptable or not acceptable. For example, the percentage of animals where stunning failed on the first 2.1. Animal based outcome standards attempt or the percentage of cattle or pigs falling during handling is tabulated. Draft documents for the OIE on the welfare of beef cattle Animal based standards measure conditions that are outcomes of and broiler chickens also have a heavy emphasis on animal based either poor management practices, neglect, abuse of animals, or poorly outcome measures. designed equipment. The use of animal based standards is recom- mended by many researchers (Main, 2009; Hewson, 2003; Wray, 2.2. Prohibited practices Main, Green & Webster, 2003; Wray, Leeb, Main, Green & Webster, 2007, and Webster, 2005). Some examples of welfare problems that To insure a minimum level of basic animal welfare some really bad can be measured with outcome standards are the percentage of practices such as beating or dragging animals are prohibited in both animals that
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Broiler Chickens
    The Life of: Broiler Chickens Chickens reared for meat are called broilers or broiler chickens. They originate from the jungle fowl of the Indian Subcontinent. The broiler industry has grown due to consumer demand for affordable poultry meat. Breeding for production traits and improved nutrition have been used to increase the weight of the breast muscle. Commercial broiler chickens are bred to be very fast growing in order to gain weight quickly. In their natural environment, chickens spend much of their time foraging for food. This means that they are highly motivated to perform species specific behaviours that are typical for chickens (natural behaviours), such as foraging, pecking, scratching and feather maintenance behaviours like preening and dust-bathing. Trees are used for perching at night to avoid predators. The life of chickens destined for meat production consists of two distinct phases. They are born in a hatchery and moved to a grow-out farm at 1 day-old. They remain here until they are heavy enough to be slaughtered. This document gives an overview of a typical broiler chicken’s life. The Hatchery The parent birds (breeder birds - see section at the end) used to produce meat chickens have their eggs removed and placed in an incubator. In the incubator, the eggs are kept under optimum atmosphere conditions and highly regulated temperatures. At 21 days, the chicks are ready to hatch, using their egg tooth to break out of their shell (in a natural situation, the mother would help with this). Chicks are precocial, meaning that immediately after hatching they are relatively mature and can walk around.
    [Show full text]
  • Backyard Farming and Slaughtering 2 Keeping Tradition Safe
    Backyard farming and slaughtering 2 Keeping tradition safe FOOD SAFETY TECHNICAL TOOLKIT FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Backyard farming and slaughtering – Keeping tradition safe Backyard farming and slaughtering 2 Keeping tradition safe FOOD SAFETY TECHNICAL TOOLKIT FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Bangkok, 2021 FAO. 2021. Backyard farming and slaughtering – Keeping tradition safe. Food safety technical toolkit for Asia and the Pacific No. 2. Bangkok. The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers, whether or not these have been patented, does not imply that these have been endorsed or recommended by FAO in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned. © FAO, 2021 Some rights reserved. This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo). Under the terms of this license, this work may be copied, redistributed and adapted for non- commercial purposes, provided that the work is appropriately cited. In any use of this work, there should be no suggestion that FAO endorses any specific organization, products or services. The use of the FAO logo is not permitted.
    [Show full text]
  • Parashat Behar 5774 by Jacob Siegel May 10, 2014
    Parashat Behar 5774 By Jacob Siegel May 10, 2014 While the Israelites are still wandering in the desert, God instructs them in the laws of the shmita year, which will take effect once they enter the Promised Land. Once every seven years, instead of farming, they are to let the land lie fallow. The people of Israel will forage communally from the trees and the fields, eating the fruits that grow naturally in the land. The shmita year, we learn in Parashat Behar , parallels Shabbat—the seventh day of rest—on a grander scale: a year of rest for the land, once every seven years. In the midst of the section describing the shmita year comes a strangely-worded verse that puzzled the rabbis with their deeply sensitive literary ears: “There shall be a Sabbath of the land for you to eat from.” 1 The verse inspires a number of questions. For example, what does it mean that the Sabbath is "to eat from"? One of the most perplexing parts of the verse is the seemingly unnecessary phrase "for you." Why not just say that there should be a Sabbath of the land? This question is answered by the 19th-century Lithuanian rabbi the Netziv. He writes that “for you” is the Torah’s clever way of saying “equally.” In most structures of Jewish communal life 3,000 years ago, the owner of a piece of property had the first claim on any food grown on that property. Even when slaves and servants needed to be fed, they came second to the owner’s needs.
    [Show full text]
  • Statement Concerning the Finnish Governments’ Proposal for New Legislation on Animal Wellbeing
    STATEMENT CONCERNING THE FINNISH GOVERNMENTS’ PROPOSAL FOR NEW LEGISLATION ON ANIMAL WELLBEING Helsinki, 27.2.2018 - The Finnish government is proposing new legislation on animal wellbeing, which would replace the current law on Animal Protection. In the suggested legislation bleeding of an animal could only be started once the animal has been appropriately stunned or killed with a method suitable for the species in question. The new legislation would require so-called pre-cut stunning. The current law on Animal Protection allows starting of the bleeding of the animal simultaneously with its stunning. Under the new law, the animal would always have to be stunned prior to slaughtering it. Slaughter according to Jewish practice (shechita) and the commandments concerning purity of food (kashrut) are absolutely central in Judaism and religiously binding for Jews. There are many commandments on proper humane treatment of animals in Judaism; the aim of shechita is to produce the minimal amount of suffering and pain to an animal during slaughter. Thus, the harming of an animal by stunning it prior to bleeding, is absolutely forbidden in Judaism. Shechita has been shown in numerous studies, to be at least as swift and painless a slaughtering method as e.g. bolt pistol stunning conjoined with bloodletting. (See. S. D. Rosen: Physiological insights into Shechita, The Veterinary Record, June 12, 2004). Because stunning methods such as bolt pistols destroy part of the animal’s brain, using such a method can in no way be considered humane and is at odds with the principle of keeping the animal uninjured. There is also no clear evidence that bolt pistol stunning would be less painful than the fast and efficient method used in Judaism.
    [Show full text]
  • Cutting Through the Confusion About Shechita By: Rabbi Jeremy Rosen
    Cutting through the Confusion about Shechita by: Rabbi Jeremy Rosen Although it has been several weeks since the gruesome videos taken inside the AgriProcessors abattoir were released, the controversy continues. The videos were taken surreptitiously by a PETA volunteer employed at the plant, and can be viewed at PETA’s website. While PETA clearly has it’s own agenda, no one has denied that the scenes on the videos are real. They show animals, after shechita has taken place, having their trachea and esophagus pulled out of the neck, being ejected from the holding pens while still conscious, and, in at least one case, actually getting up and wandering around. Although these scenes are sickening, I have to say that no way of killing animals is pleasant. Nowadays we like to sanitize the process and put the reality out of our minds. But I grew up in the English countryside and often saw the way animals were barbarically butchered out in the paddock, behind the barn, or in the butcher’s yard. The butcher would simply stick a knife in and wrench, or take a hatchet and hack away to a blood-curdling cacophony of squeals and protests. In contrast, shechita, the halachic method of putting an animal to death for food, is designed to be as painless as possible. The knife used to sever the main arteries in the neck is kept razor-sharp, and the slightest imperfection makes it forbidden to use. We know that a cut to our own flesh from such a sharp blade cannot be felt initially.
    [Show full text]
  • Religious and Non-Religious Slaughter
    Religious and Non-Religious Slaughter Joe M. Regenstein Professor of Food Science Head: Cornell Kosher and Halal Food Initiative Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853-7201, USA [email protected] American Meat Institute Animal Welfare Conference March 26, 2010 Kansas City, MO Dialog on Religious Slaughter A European Union project of the Health and Consumer Policy Commission The Importance of Religious Slaughter Obtaining meat by means of religious slaughter is an integral part of being an observant Jew or Muslim for many practitioners of these religions. Although some Jews and Muslims may opt for a vegetarian diet, and some are observant of food laws to varying degrees, major religious events and many other meals often center around a meal involving meat. The loss of the right to slaughter meat is viewed as a direct attack on the religion –as highlighted by Nazi Germany’s first restrictions on Jews being the prohibition of religious slaughter. Responsibilities The scientific/engineering community needs to work together with the Jewish and Muslim Communities to make sure that the animal welfare during religious slaughter is done in the best possible way consistent with religious requirements as determined by the local religious leadership. Religious diversity both within a religious community and of other religious communities deserves to be respected as their needs are protected by the European Union. The religious community needs to organize themselves and then take on responsibility for assuring the best possible religious slaughter procedures are used. The Bottom Line 1. The animal welfare of religious slaughter needs to be improved consistent with and respectful of all religious rules.
    [Show full text]
  • “Food for Peace”: the Vegan Religion of the Hebrews of Jerusalem
    IDEA – Studia nad strukturą i rozwojem pojęć filozoficznych XXVI Białystok 2014 SHELLEY ELKAYAM (Getynga, Niemcy, Jerozolima, Izrael) “FOOD FOR PEACE”: THE VEGAN RELIGION OF THE HEBREWS OF JERUSALEM Food, eschatology and sacred chronology Abraham Elqayam, a great scholar of Jewish mysticism and Jewish Philos- ophy, presented food as key in designing sacred chronology 1 (2006:239). Ruth Tsoffar Mizrahi, who studies Israeli society and culture, argues that in Jewish culture ‘eating’ is ‘believing’ (2006:35), just as in American culture ‘seeing is be- lieving’. (Dundes 1977). Such usage of ‘eating’ as ‘believing’ appears commonly within today’s Hebrew slang. Eating has a religious context of accepting, such as in the Passover ceremony where ‘eating’ becomes ‘believing’ through the symbolic food set on Passover table – from haroset (a blend of fruits and nuts) to maror (bitter herbs) to matza (unleavened bread). These Hebrew words point to specific foods of Passover that serve as instrumental symbols in a ‘tactile’ conservation and in the memorizing of religious collective experience. In this paper I will elu- cidate three major messianic ‘tactile’ terms in the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem (AHIJ) religion: Food and Bio-Evolution. The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem (AHIJ) re-emerged during the civil rights movement, in a time when black pride was salient amongst political 1 Sacred chronology is the system of holidays and Shabbat. For example, for Sabbatians in Shabbat there are three meals: Friday evening, Saturday breakfast and Saturday lunch. See Elqayam’s discussion on the Freedom Redemption via food, where the redemption of the individual and the community go through eating the “sacred meat” (Elqayam 2006:243–248).
    [Show full text]
  • Draft News Release
    A Guide To Shechita © Copyright 2016 Shechita UK. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or for any purpose without the express permission of Shechita UK. 2 Contents Shechita in Judaism 3 The Shechita Process 5 Stunning 8 Science 10 Labelling 10 Further information 11 Third Edition. Dedicated to the memory of Shlomo Weingarten zt’’l 3 SHECHITA IN JUDAISM Shechita is the Jewish religious, humane method of slaughtering permitted animals and poultry for food. It is mandated in the Torah – the source of all Jewish Law. It is the only method of producing kosher meat and poultry allowed by Jewish law. The source for the method of Shechita is found in the Torah in Deuteronomy 12:21. The rules governing Shechita are codified and defined and are as binding and valued today as ever. The rules ensure a swift and humane dispatch of the animal. Infringing the laws of Shechita renders the meat unconditionally forbidden as food to Jews. The practice of Shechita, marked as it is by compassion and consideration for the welfare of animals, has been a central pillar in the sustaining of Jewish life for millennia. Shechita is performed by a highly trained shochet (the individual who performs Shechita). The procedure consists of a rapid and expert transverse incision with an instrument of surgical sharpness (a chalaf), which severs the major structures and vessels at the neck. This causes an instant drop in blood pressure in the brain and results in the irreversible cessation of consciousness. Therefore, Shechita renders the animal insensible to pain and dispatches and exsanguinates in one swift action.
    [Show full text]
  • Government Regulations of Shechita (Jewish Religious Slaughter) in the Twenty-First Century: Are They Ethical?
    J Agric Environ Ethics (2012) 25:747–763 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9324-4 ARTICLES Government Regulations of Shechita (Jewish Religious Slaughter) in the Twenty-First Century: Are They Ethical? Ari Z. Zivotofsky Accepted: 1 July 2011 / Published online: 15 July 2011 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 Abstract Human beings have engaged in animal husbandry and have slaughtered animals for food for thousands of years. During the majority of that time most societies had no animal welfare regulations that governed the care or slaughter of animals. Judaism is a notable exception in that from its earliest days it has included such rules. Among the Jewish dietary laws is a prohibition to consume meat from an animal that dies in any manner other than through the rigorously defined method of slaughter known as shechita. In recent decades more and more attempts have been initiated by governments around the world to either outright ban or to control and modify the practice of shechita. This paper presents the requisite background about shechita and then analyzes the ethics of some of the recent legislation. The analysis includes a rebuttal of the assertion that shechita is an inhumane method of slaughter. It further presents the consequences on the Jewish community of legislation to impose pre-slaughter stunning and explains why such legislation is unethical. The actual effect of labeling laws is discussed and it is shown why such laws are also un- ethical. Keywords Animal welfare Á Ethics Á Government regulations Á Religious slaughter Á Shechita Introduction Human beings have historically maintained animals for food production, labor, and companionship.
    [Show full text]
  • Religious Standpoints
    Animal Welfare in Context 4. Religion Introduction Positive Attitudes Towards Animal A Brief Summary of Major Religions and their Attitudes Towards Animals Religion Causing Animal Welfare Problems Further Resources Introduction Religion is all about beliefs - beliefs about creation, purpose, destiny, life, and love. What people believe or disbelieve about God and the world affects all aspects of their being, including their day-to-day behaviour. The animal protection movement is about changing and shaping people’s belief systems about animals. Religion can affect attitudes towards animals, and the way in which animals are treated, either positively or negatively. Religion can be important to the animal protection movement in different ways: - Firstly, it can be used in support of the animal protection cause. This can be particularly useful and powerful in countries where religion is important and influential. Secondly, religion is sometimes used to justify cruel treatment – and even sacrifices – of animals. Some animal protectionists fight against these cruelties carried out in the name of religion. Positive Attitudes Towards Animal All major religions of the world praise creation and acknowledge that humankind depends on nature for its own survival. They also teach compassion and love of all living creatures. Nearly all religions recognise the inherent value of animal life and the need to avoid animal suffering. Positive attitudes are probably generated from two main factors: - Firstly, because such attitudes are included in the religious texts and scriptures. Secondly, because caring and compassionate people who have become revered as religious leaders have consistently recognised that a loving and compassionate God would care about beings who desire to live and are able to experience pleasure and pain.
    [Show full text]
  • Principles of Jewish and Islamic Slaughter with Respect To
    Review Article Principles of Jewish and Islamic Slaughter with Respect to OIE (World Organization for Animal Health) Recommendations Pozzi, P.S.,1* Geraisy, W.,2 Barakeh, S.3 and Azaran, M.4 1 Veterinary Services and Animal Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Israel. 2 Chief Inspector, “BakarTnuva” Slaughter Plant, Beit Shean, Israel. 3 Inspector, “Dabbach” Slaughter Plant, Dir El Assad, Israel. 4 Director, “Moreshet Avot”, Sho”b, Jerusalem, Israel. * Corresponding Author: Dr. P.S. Pozzi, P.O.B. 12, Beit Dagan 50250, Israel. Tel: (+972) 50-6243951, Fax: (+972) 3-9681795. Email: [email protected]. ABSTRACT Israel is member of OIE (Organization for Animal Health) which since May 2005 has adopted animal welfare standards, including the slaughter of animals. Finalities of these standards are to ensure the welfare of animals, destined to food production, during pre-slaughter and slaughter processes, until their death. In Israel, slaughter is practiced without prior stunning as required by shechita and halal slaughtering, due to the vast majority of the population requesting kosher and halal meat. In both Jewish (Halacha) and Islamic (Sharia) Laws, particular attention is given to avoid unnecessary pain to animals in general and, in particular, in the course of slaughtering. Jewish shechita and Islamic dbach/halal slaughtering, when applied in the correct manner result in comparable, or even better, than large scale slaughters with prior stunning with respect to the avoidance of unnecessary pain. Shechita and halal, due to their intrinsic nature and due to their routine controls on every step and for every individual animal, cannot be regarded as negligent or intentionally painful, distressing or inducing sufferance to animals.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Ritual Slaughter
    Shehitah: Jewish Ritual Slaughter The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Shehitah: Jewish Ritual Slaughter (2005 Third Year Paper) Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:8852091 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Shehitah: Jewish Ritual Slaughter Ronit Gurtman Class of 2005 April 2005 Combined Course and Third-Year Work Abstract The laws pertaining to shehitah, Jewish ritual slaughter, are explored. The laws derive from the oral law, stemming from the prohibition to eat the flesh of live animals, in combination with the general Biblical obligation for humane treatment of animals. The first part of this paper is an exposition of the origins of shehitah, and the laws for correctly carrying out the process. The second part of this paper addresses the history of the practice of these laws in select European countries and the United States. This history includes a discussion of anti-shehitah campaigns and legislation through modern times. 2 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................ 2 Part I: The Laws of Shehitah ..............................................................................................
    [Show full text]