Religious slaughter: A current controversial animal welfare issue

Abstract

• Religious slaughter is a major current animal welfare issue. Significant numbers of Muslim and Jewish people demand meat products from animals killed using practices according to religious requirements. • There are differences between conventional and religious slaughter practices. Although both methods have been subjected to criticism on animal welfare grounds, religious slaughter has received much recent attention. • Current concerns about religious slaughter focus on stress of preslaughter handling using certain devices, pain and distress that may be felt during and after neck cutting, as well as prolonged times to loss of brain function and death if stunning is not applied. • Universally agreed correct religious slaughter rules and practices are still under debate, and certification and labeling of meat products remain as other issues to be addressed. Because of the above, moves to minimize welfare problems are under way to improve slaughter practices by providing more training and new regulations.