This footage shows EU animal transport workers beating, throwing and stuffing live turkeys into lorry cages.
German animal activist organisation SOKO Tierschutz secretly filmed turkeys being transported by the Truthahn AG Slaughter House in Bavaria from Szarvaskend, a village in Vas county, Hungary.
Video Credit: CEN/Soko Tierschutz
Friedrich Muelln from SOKO Tierschutz said: “We followed an animal transporter from the southern German Truthahn AG through to Hungary.”
In Hungary they secretly filmed the treatment of the animals including them being loaded into the transporters.
The footage shows workers forcefully throwing the turkeys into the transport cages and stuffing them inside.
Muelln said: “Turkeys are being transported in excessive summer heat up to 547 km (339 miles) through Europe. We witnessed excessive violence against the Turkeys. They are being forced into cages, brutally thrown into the transporters and often being seriously injured or even killed in the process.”
The animals are then transported to Bavaria, Germany where they are slaughtered.
Dieter Bockhorn, a director at Truthahn AG, said: “We have been made aware of the video footage showing possible animal abuse during the loading of the animals at the turkey rearing farm in Szarvaskend, Hungary. Following the allegations we have ordered independent controls at all of the rearing farms in Hungary.
“Until the investigation is complete we have temporarily stopped working with the company. If we find further animal abuse cases, we will stop using this company as a supplier altogether.”
Muelln from Soko Tierschutz said: “The animals which are so brutally loaded onto the transporters, are then subjected to long journeys in excessive heat. It is pure torture. In France for example such transport in hot weather is banned.
“These farms in Hungary and the Czech Republic are examples of companies that are working for just maximum profit whilst exploiting the animals.”
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Story By: Kathryn Quinn, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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Just disgusting how the world treats animals. Humans are entitled and have no respect for anything, especially the animals that give their lives for us to eat.