Five Freedoms

Although some of the fresh meat and poultry offered for sale in Hong Kong is from animals reared locally, the bulk comes from live animals imported into Hong Kong, mostly from China. Many of these – pigs, goats, cattle and poultry – are transported long distances with limited provision for food and water. This can easily lead to hunger, dehydration and distress. To combat this, cattle are sometimes “force fed” water by having a hose passed down their oesophagus and into the stomach, causing obvious discomfort and suffering.

Many of the food animals in Hong Kong spend their lives in conditions which cause obvious discomfort. This ranges from fish in wet markets or restaurants kept in shallow tanks to pigs being reared in conditions with no bedding and poor ventilation. Often, only small changes need to be made to alleviate a great deal of their suffering.

Chickens raised for meat are intensively reared, kept in sheds often containing several thousand animals. Dirty litter and poor ventilation leads to burns on the bird’s hocks and respiratory diseases. They also grow three or four times quicker than other chickens, sometimes reaching slaughter weight in just six weeks. This can lead to all sorts of complications including fractures caused by bones unable to hold up their weight.

The intensive rearing of food animals in abnormally large groups or in very cramped and often barren conditions, removes the freedom of animals to perform much of their normal behaviour. Breeding sows, for example, are often kept either tethered or in very small stalls without enough room to turn around. These approaches deny animals the opportunity to display even the most basic of behaviours and often create abnormal behaviours, such as cannibalism and aggression. To prevent this from happening, many animals face mutilations such as beak trimming and tail docking – both usually carried out without anaesthesia.

A large portion of the poultry and fish consumed every day in Hong Kong is purchased in wet markets. In most cases live animals are killed as they are purchased. Almost without exception, poultry in Hong Kong wet markets are slaughtered by having their throats cut and bleed to death while fully conscious. This causes considerable fear and distress and the SPCA firmly believes that all animals should be rendered unconscious before slaughter to prevent this degree of suffering.