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Veterinary Students’ Perception and Understanding of Issues Surrounding the Slaughter of Animals According to the Rules of Halal: A Survey of Students from Four English Universities

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Veterinarians play a vital role in safeguarding the welfare of animals and protecting public health during the slaughter of farm animals for human consumption. With the continued increase in the number of animals slaughtered for religious communities in the UK, this study evaluates t...

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Autores principales: Fuseini, Awal, Grist, Andrew, Knowles, Toby G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6617289/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31151178
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani9060293
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author Fuseini, Awal
Grist, Andrew
Knowles, Toby G.
author_facet Fuseini, Awal
Grist, Andrew
Knowles, Toby G.
author_sort Fuseini, Awal
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Veterinarians play a vital role in safeguarding the welfare of animals and protecting public health during the slaughter of farm animals for human consumption. With the continued increase in the number of animals slaughtered for religious communities in the UK, this study evaluates the perception and level of understanding of religious slaughter issues by veterinary students at various stages of their studies. The results showed a significant effect of the year of study on respondents’ understanding of the regulations governing Halal slaughter and other related issues. Whilst the prevalence of vegetarianism and veganism were higher than the general UK population, the majority of respondents were meat eaters who indicated that they prefer meat from humanely slaughtered (pre-stunned) animals, irrespective of whether slaughter was performed with an Islamic prayer (Halal) or not. ABSTRACT: The objective of this study was to evaluate the perception and level of understanding of religious slaughter issues, and the regulations governing the process, amongst veterinary students in England. A total of 459 veterinary students in different levels, or years of study (years 1–5), were surveyed. On whether there is a need for food animals to be stunned prior to slaughter, the majority of respondents 437 (95.2%) indicated that they would want all animals to be stunned before slaughter, including during religious slaughter, 17 (3.6%) either did not have an opinion or indicated ‘other’ as their preferred option and 5 (1.1%) indicated that religious slaughter should be exempt from stunning in order to comply with traditional religious values. The results showed a significant association between respondents’ year of study and (i) their understanding of UK animal welfare (at slaughter) regulations, (ii) their recognition of stunning as a pain-abolishing procedure and (iii) the likelihood of them wittingly purchasing and consuming meat from animals that have been stunned prior to slaughter, and also classified as Halal.
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spelling pubmed-66172892019-07-18 Veterinary Students’ Perception and Understanding of Issues Surrounding the Slaughter of Animals According to the Rules of Halal: A Survey of Students from Four English Universities Fuseini, Awal Grist, Andrew Knowles, Toby G. Animals (Basel) Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Veterinarians play a vital role in safeguarding the welfare of animals and protecting public health during the slaughter of farm animals for human consumption. With the continued increase in the number of animals slaughtered for religious communities in the UK, this study evaluates the perception and level of understanding of religious slaughter issues by veterinary students at various stages of their studies. The results showed a significant effect of the year of study on respondents’ understanding of the regulations governing Halal slaughter and other related issues. Whilst the prevalence of vegetarianism and veganism were higher than the general UK population, the majority of respondents were meat eaters who indicated that they prefer meat from humanely slaughtered (pre-stunned) animals, irrespective of whether slaughter was performed with an Islamic prayer (Halal) or not. ABSTRACT: The objective of this study was to evaluate the perception and level of understanding of religious slaughter issues, and the regulations governing the process, amongst veterinary students in England. A total of 459 veterinary students in different levels, or years of study (years 1–5), were surveyed. On whether there is a need for food animals to be stunned prior to slaughter, the majority of respondents 437 (95.2%) indicated that they would want all animals to be stunned before slaughter, including during religious slaughter, 17 (3.6%) either did not have an opinion or indicated ‘other’ as their preferred option and 5 (1.1%) indicated that religious slaughter should be exempt from stunning in order to comply with traditional religious values. The results showed a significant association between respondents’ year of study and (i) their understanding of UK animal welfare (at slaughter) regulations, (ii) their recognition of stunning as a pain-abolishing procedure and (iii) the likelihood of them wittingly purchasing and consuming meat from animals that have been stunned prior to slaughter, and also classified as Halal. MDPI 2019-05-30 /pmc/articles/PMC6617289/ /pubmed/31151178 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani9060293 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Fuseini, Awal
Grist, Andrew
Knowles, Toby G.
Veterinary Students’ Perception and Understanding of Issues Surrounding the Slaughter of Animals According to the Rules of Halal: A Survey of Students from Four English Universities
title Veterinary Students’ Perception and Understanding of Issues Surrounding the Slaughter of Animals According to the Rules of Halal: A Survey of Students from Four English Universities
title_full Veterinary Students’ Perception and Understanding of Issues Surrounding the Slaughter of Animals According to the Rules of Halal: A Survey of Students from Four English Universities
title_fullStr Veterinary Students’ Perception and Understanding of Issues Surrounding the Slaughter of Animals According to the Rules of Halal: A Survey of Students from Four English Universities
title_full_unstemmed Veterinary Students’ Perception and Understanding of Issues Surrounding the Slaughter of Animals According to the Rules of Halal: A Survey of Students from Four English Universities
title_short Veterinary Students’ Perception and Understanding of Issues Surrounding the Slaughter of Animals According to the Rules of Halal: A Survey of Students from Four English Universities
title_sort veterinary students’ perception and understanding of issues surrounding the slaughter of animals according to the rules of halal: a survey of students from four english universities
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6617289/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31151178
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani9060293
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