Halal Slaughter of Cattle: To Stun or Not to Stun?

The rules governing halal slaughter are derived from the Quran, Hadith and Sunnah. These rules stipulate that at the time of neck cutting and exsanguination, animals must be alive. As a result, many practicing Muslims do not accept pre-slaughter stunning because they believe it can result in the death of animals before bleeding. Those who accept stunning insist that it must be none-lethal, electrical head-only stunning is the only method that has been scientifically validated to be fully reversible (non-lethal). Due to its full reversibility, electrical head-only stunning is widely used and accepted for the halal slaughter of small ruminants (i.e., sheep and goats), however, it is not widely approved for the slaughter of cattle. This is due to the size of cattle and the bone structure of their heads, electrical head-only stunning in cattle induces a relatively short duration of unconsciousness which presents a risk of cattle recovering during the period they are bled out. Animals will experience the pain of the neck cut if they recover from consciousness during bleeding (due to the short duration of unconsciousness). Due to this animal welfare concern, most cattle are stunned with a penetrative captive bolt, this is, however, not fully reversible, hence many Muslims do not recognise it as a halal-compliant method of stunning. Opponents of halal stunning hold a belief that all forms of stunning are inconsistent with the rules of halal meat production, while proponents interpret the rules to mean that stunning is permissible for halal slaughter on condition that animals remain alive prior to neck cutting and bleeding. This paper considers the main methods of stunning used for cattle and discusses the lack of acceptability of some methods of stunning and how this hinders the growth of the halal beef market. The paper further discusses ongoing research into developing animal welfare-friendly and halal compatible beef stunning methods.