Feathers fly after secret exposé of ostriches’ pain
Animal-rights group goes undercover to bring home the beating birds suffer for our luxuries
SHOCKING footage of ostriches being hit over the head in a truck and manhandled at processing facilities in the Western Cape has sparked a government investigation.
The video, secretly filmed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has also sparked a global petition against cruelty in the local ostrich industry that has drawn nearly 115 000 signatures.
Prada and Hermès ostrich leather bags, which are sourced at the facilities in question, sell for R500 000 each, and according to Peta they are made at the cost of huge suffering to the animals.
But the head of the country’s biggest ostrich abattoir said the footage was obtained to “create a sensation”, and ostriches experienced “minimal stress” during farming, transport and slaughter.
Footage shot at Klein Karoo International in Oudtshoorn and Mosstrich in Mossel Bay shows the ostriches being hit over the head in a crowded cattle truck. At the abattoir, they are physically forced into a clamping machine to be stunned before their throats are slit.
In a state of panic, many slip on the floor or resist their handlers, who push them into the “box” to clamp their feet and bodies so that their heads can be placed in the stunner.
After their throats are slit, feathers are torn off the birds while they are still warm, and they are then skinned and dismembered.
According to Peta, ostriches have a highly complex social system but are treated like “nothing more than walking merchandise”.
Bomikazi Molapo, spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said the electric shock and throat-slitting ostrich slaughter method was permissible and regulated, but “the inhumane treatment of the birds as evidenced on the video clip is unacceptable”.
She said the matter would be referred to the provincial veterinary authority in the West- ern Cape “for appropriate remedial action”, and the authority would report back to the department.
A woman’s voice on the video says luxury brands like Hermès, whose ostrich leather Birkin bags are adored by celebrities such as Victoria Beckham, do not want the public to know how the products are made.
Many local tourist traps and shops are also making a killing from the skinned ostriches.
On one farm near Cape Town, ostrich breeding has been turned into a picture-perfect spectacle for tourists.
Eggs from the 40 breeding pairs are placed in an industrialsized rotating incubator until they are ready to hatch.
Tourists pay to see the eggs, feed the adults, and visit the 200 chicks produced each season in their concrete enclosure away from the adults. The guide tells them: “These ostriches are so lucky compared to the ones in nature. They have us to incubate their eggs and help break them out of the shell.”
But the big money is “off stage”: at 18 months the ostriches are packed into a cattle truck for the five-hour drive to the abattoir in Mossel Bay.
When they return, it’s as luxury goods for the curio shop — handbags that cost up to R30 000, R5 000 shoes, R2 000 wallets and R600 feather boas. The egg shells are turned into lampshades and ornaments.
Each ostrich also produces about 40kg of steak, but 60% of the income is from the skin.
Environmental lawyer Cormac Cullinan said that even if farms and abattoirs were found to be acting within the law, it was important for footage such as Peta’s to be publicised because “we are now so far removed from the realities of animal farming” that people saw steak on a plate or bags in a shop
❛ These ostriches are so lucky. They have us to help break them out of the shell
without knowing if the animals had lived or died in cruelty. Legislation had to change. “It is out of date and has a strange relationship with what’s ethical when it comes to animals. They are treated as mere property, yet if there was more transparency around slaughterhouses, there would be more pressure on those running them,” Cullinan said.
Grace de Lange, a manager at the National Council of SPCAs, said the organisation was “opposed to all forms of farming and animal husbandry practices which cause suffering or distress to animals” and that it was “not acceptable for animals to be beaten”.
She added: “If whoever took the footage advises us of when and where this was filmed, we advise that criminal charges can be laid in terms of the Animals Protection Act against those responsible.”
Charl du Plessis, executive director of Klein Karoo International, which makes up nearly two-thirds of South Africa’s ostrich leather industry, said his abattoir complied with all five forms of freedom laid out in animal welfare guidelines.
These included “freedom from pain, injury and disease”, and freedom from distress and discomfort. “As far as slaughter is concerned, you will not find a more ethical process,” he said, adding that his facilities “adhere to strict standards”.