Specifying the Risks to Animal Welfare Associated with Livestock Slaughter without Induced Insensibility

This paper was prepared and finalised in late 2008 to help inform Australia's review of policy on slaughter practices and seeks to make sense of the animal welfare issues associated with all forms of slaughter.  It draws on broad concepts of physiology and risk management to identify hazards animals are exposed to during slaughter and then applies the processes of risk management to identify options that may reduce the associated animal welfare risks. It makes no ethical value judgement about slaughtering practices per se as it was prepared to inform an existing debate rather than to take a position within it.