dpa/ | In larger slaughterhouses, cameras should become mandatory to monitor adherence to animal welfare provisions. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture has now presented a draft law for the introduction of video surveillance. This would oblige slaughter facilities to document “animal-welfare-sensitive procedures” and to make the recordings available to the authorities. The intended focus includes the required stunning of the animals.
Minister Alois Rainer (CSU) told the German Press Agency: “With the mandatory video surveillance in slaughterhouses we close a blind spot in animal protection.” Associations and the states can now give their views on the draft. “We want to move this rapidly into the cabinet,” said Rainer.
No Covert Recordings
The obligation to make video recordings is deemed necessary to enable a more comprehensive and effective monitoring of slaughter facilities, the draft states. On-site inspections could typically review only selected areas and time periods. Especially in large slaughterhouses, numerous processes involving live animals run simultaneously.
The cameras should be visibly installed, so that the workers – unlike with covert recordings – can adjust their behavior accordingly, as the ministry explains. The steps from unloading the transport vehicles through waiting areas for the animals, the stunning and the “bleeding cut” to the first further slaughter steps are to be monitored by video.
Animal Welfare Groups Are Skeptical
Specifically, the aim is to monitor how the animals are treated and cared for before stunning. In case of injuries, it should be clarified whether they occurred at the slaughterhouse or earlier. It should also show how effective the stunning is and how companies monitor this themselves. The video recordings should be stored for the last 30 slaughter days and be available to the competent authority for retrieval on working days.
Animal welfare groups have in the past been skeptical that video surveillance would lead to better penalties for violations or even more animal welfare. They argue that effective controls already fail because official veterinarians do not pursue tips sufficiently. In Lower Saxony, a similar legislative initiative was halted again in 2019 for data-protection reasons.
Obligation to Apply to Around 230 Slaughterhouses
The obligation should apply to operations that slaughter annually at least 150,000 poultry or rabbits or 1,000 “large livestock units” of animals such as pigs or cattle. This figure roughly corresponds to a mature cow weighing about 500 kilograms right before slaughter. From this threshold, slaughterhouses must generally also have animal welfare officers. Smaller operations should be exempt from the video requirement. In case of a concrete suspicion of violations, the authority can also order it.
Until the obligation takes effect, a transition period of one year from the law’s entry into force is planned—as setting up the systems requires additional effort in the operations. Nationwide, the obligation would affect 232 larger slaughter facilities, according to the draft. The ministry estimates that installing the systems costs about €1,000 per site. There would also be annual ongoing costs of €172,000 for all 232 facilities.
Rainer said: “The traffic-light government had announced video surveillance but did not deliver. We are doing this now swiftly — as agreed in our coalition agreement.” The then-minister Cem Özdemir (Greens) had planned such an obligation in a reform of the Animal Welfare Act. Before the coalition breakup, it could not be implemented.
