More massive-scale animal abuse found in Israel. This time the kosher status of the company is at stake: Following news that cattle and sheep are being severely mistreated at a large kosher slaughterhouse, Israel’s Kolbotek consumer watchdog program has again revealed large scale animal abuse at the country’s leading poultry processing plant, Soglowek. The shocking finds by Kolbotek’s hidden cameras, as shown last Tuesday night on Channel 10TV, revealed truly “fowl play ” in the manner that as many as 30,000 chickens and turkeys are dealt with daily at the plant, located near Nahariya.
Although broadcasted in Hebrew, the scenes of chickens and turkeys caught in bars of their cages and left for long hours in the heat of the day without food or water are graphic for anyone as shown in the following streamer clip. Watch the video below.
Although Soglowek General Manager Phini Kamari apologized for the alleged abuse of poultry being processed at the plant, comments by prominent veterinarians like Dr. Moshe Raflowitz, Chief Veterinarian for the country’s Central Region, indicates that something terribly wrong has been occurring at the plant as to the insensitive manner that the foul have been dealt with prior to being slaughtered.
Some of the abusive treatment includes keeping chickens and turkeys in crowded cages at the plant for as long as 19 hours without food or water, causing many of them to die before being subjected to the ritual slaughterer’s knife.
Graphic scenes show poultry caught by their heads or feet in the bars of the cages and then being beheaded by plant employees who removed them in order to clean the cages for the next batch to be brought in.
Mr. Kamari, when interviewed afterwards by Kolbotek’s Rafi Ginat, said that he “takes full responsibility to correct the situation occurring at the plant.”
This responsibility supposedly will include instructing the plant employees to be more sensitive to the suffering being caused to the animals as well as improving the manner in which the poultry are unceremoniously dumped from the cages onto the conveyor belts that carry them to their fate.
Israel’s Animal Abuse Law (1994) although condoning the slaughter of animals for food, clearlry stipulates that animals cannot be physically abused prior to their being slaughtered. In regards to poultry, this stipulation is clearly shown in Article 2A of the law.
In the aftermath of these revelations, Israel’s Chief Rabbi may sanction Soglowek by pulling the company’s kosher certificate. In any case, changes will definitely have to occur there in regards to the the manner that poultry is dealt with, prior to being “processed”.
This is the kind of abuse that Israel’s animal rights activists at 269Life have been talking about.
Read more on animal abuse and other consumer issues:
Israel’s Cruel Meat Industry Exposed by Watchdog TV Show
Fake Organic Olive Oil is Latest Food Scam in Israel
Ceramic Coated Cooking Pans May be Killing You With Color
Poultry Photos from Kolbotek video screenshot
[…] Influential American animal-rights activist Gary Yourofsky’s recent visits to Israel, and his videos, tipped the balance towards veganism for many. Another factor is cruelty to animals in slaughterhouses and poultry farms, exposed on the consumer-awareness Kolbotek program in 2012 (link to the animal abuse video in Israel here). […]
This is uncivilised cruelty they are Gods creatures.
Most other countries are no better when it comes to slaughtering animals, especially poultry. A few years back, there was a lot of controversy in the US involving the way big fast food chains like KFC “processed” the poultry they use for their restaurants. I haven’t checked back to see if any improvements have been made, but stories of dumping live chickens into scalding water to remove their feathers easier were going around then.
One wonders how better it can be to deal with 30,000 chickens and turkeys on a daily basis.? Still, leaving these pitiful creatures in crowded cages in hot weather for nearly 24 hours w/o food or water is terrible enough; let alone some of them getting caught by their heads or feet in the cages prior being unloaded.
No surprise there about animal abuse in the middle east. What is wrong with these people???? They say you can tell how great a nation is by the way it treats isn’t animals. Obviously this nation is not great. Very sad for the animals and there really is no excuse for the barbaric acts of these people. Disgusting.
There is no industrial kosher animal product in the world! This I know first hand!
Aviva, I’m wondering how big ‘industrial’ size is relative to treatment of animals. It seems to me that larger facilities would be more focused on money rather than how animals are treated prior to slaughter.