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There are many associations that, in recent years, have fought against the drama experienced by animals within intensive farming, documenting the violence to which chickens and pigs in particular are often subjected during their lives and before slaughter.The violence, however, also affects other species.This was effectively demonstrated by the latest investigation byessereanimali, which certified with video material the enormous suffering of the animals and the irregularities in veterinary checks within a breeding of trout, sturgeon and eels of the province of Treviso.This precious document constitutes yet another proof of how highly unsustainable the intensive fish farming system is, as many researches and investigations have demonstrated in recent years, placing emphasis not only on the unprecedented suffering suffered by animals, but also on the environmental repercussions of the phenomenon.
The images released byessereanimali, shot by a former employee of the farm, they testify the macroscopic irregularities of the operators' conduct in the various phases of their activity.During the culling phase, workers can be seen placing the clamps of the electrical cables directly on the animals' gills, an extremely sensitive part of the body, as well as vigorously slamming still conscious specimens on the ground.The images also captured the words of the production manager, filmed secretly, who admits that most of the trout raised in the plant are not stunned, but caused to die of asphyxiation.«By law the animal shouldn't suffer, to avoid suffering you put electricity on it, it knocks it down and it dies.Here we never put the current on the trout... there would be a little black speck left here, and it's ugly to look at, isn't it?", we hear him say.According to his words, the veterinarians are well aware of this situation and have failed to contest the illicit practices and have notified the company before proceeding with the checks.«By now we know our vet, he already knows it.When the vets come for visits outside they already know it, they fish a little before (the checks, ed.)", he adds.During suffocation, the fish wriggle and injure each other.The unloading phase, which sees the fish being thrown directly from the truck tank into the storage tanks at very high speed and from a great height, is also extremely problematic.In fact, as the investigation videos attest, the fish often suffer serious injuries.In some cases, animals have even been found broken in half.The operators then hook the animals that have fallen on the floor to their mouths with an iron, throwing them into the baskets, or kicking them directly.essereanimalihasdecidedtodenouncebreedingformistreatmentofanimals(art.544 ter c.p.), abandonment of animals (art.727, paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code) and numerous labor violations, as well as for the hypothesis of an environmental crime.
Being Animals recently launched the Unsustainable Aquaculture campaign, through which they ask greater protections for farmed fish and regulatory changes to address the enormous critical issues of intensive fish farming.In our country, aquaculture production focuses on three species, namely sea bream, sea bass and rainbow trout.The Ministry of Agriculture, hand in hand with the associations of fish (API) and shellfish producers (AMA), has developed a certification that allows the labeling of fish products from Sustainable Aquaculture, which however does not guarantee that the problems emerging from the investigation on the breeding of Treviso are overcome.In fact, the regulations do not outline a clear definition of "animal welfare", nor is it covered the requirement for effective stunning of the animal being killed, nor outlined formal parameters on maximum densities and water quality in sea cages and in land-based farms.Fish are therefore forced to live in unnatural and stressful conditions, characterized by overcrowding and poor water quality and subject to food deprivation, as well as the action of parasites.
In any case, the problem is not just Italian.Three years ago, Being Animals, in collaboration with We Animals Media, had documented the cruel practices to which sea bream and sea bass are subjected in intensive farming in Greece, attesting to how they are immersed while still alive in water and ice, where they can spend tens of minutes in agony before dying.Many of the fish spent up to two years confined at very high densities in bare cages, with a mortality rate of 15-20%, half of which was due to the proliferation of diseases.Furthermore, as revealed by research carried out in Greece by the Archipelagos Institute for the Protection of the Sea, aquaculture activities would have "produced heavy impacts on marine ecosystems".The results of the study, conducted through photos, surveys and sampling of the waters and seabeds, have in fact revealed “a dead landscape, with damaged marine ecosystems from the fish farming activities that have existed there for decades", wrote the authors of the investigation in a report.Last October, the CIWF (Compassion in World Farming), a non-profit organization that works for the protection and well-being of animals bred for food, had widespread images from an undercover investigation into intensive farming in Poland showing fish crowded into overcrowded tanks of dirty water - often amidst faeces floating on the surface - which were gutted while still alive or crushed by barrels.“These animals have the right to be protected by comprehensive species-specific legislation, which is why we urge the EU to introduce one without further delay,” commented the CIWF.And now Italy also has valid elements to join the appeal.
[by Stefano Baudino]