Inside the slaughterhouse. Undercover investigation in spanish slaughterhouses.

Modern slaughterhouses have been designed to take the highest number of animal lives, as fast as possible. Industrialised animal slaughter is a huge business, and some of these factories —which are becoming increasingly technological and are using equipment’s ever more modern and specialised—, take thousands of animals to their deaths every day. The slaughterhouse owned by Grupo Jorge, Le Porc Gourmet, kills 13,000 pigs a day; Veravic, owned by the society Ibergallus, 80,000 chickens; Faccsa has recently initiated formalities to build a slaughterhouse in Andalusia with the capacity to kill up to 40,000 pigs. These are some of the highest production rate slaughterhouses within the Spanish State, and they help us get an approximate idea of the industry’s exploitation and extermination pace.

Between November 2016 and October 2018, I gained access into 16 slaughterhouses in the Spanish State. Inside them, I was able to document the slaughter of cows, pigs, lambs, chickens, and rabbits.

The material I’m including in my investigation is aimed to show —as opposed to the meat industry’s obscurantism and propaganda— the institutional and systematic violence suffered by animals in slaughterhouses. It provides relevant information for the debate that, promoted by the anti-speciesist movement, questions the legitimacy of animal exploitation and advocates for its abolition.

For more information visit: traslosmuros.com/mataderos-espana-investigacion.php

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(*) Part of the investigation has been carried out in collaboration with NOR, an association against speciesism.