Hidden cameras capture gas stunning in Australia's pork industry

The use of carbon dioxide to stun pigs before slaughter is legal and widespread — but activists believe the industry doesn't want you to know what it looks like.

Warning: This story contains distressing content. 

Chris Delforce is remarkably calm for someone who knows this story could put him in jail.

"This is always the risk whenever you go out to capture this kind of footage," he told 7.30.

"You might get caught, you might end up in prison for it, you might end up being physically attacked. There are all sorts of risks that go into getting this kind of footage.

"Unfortunately, it's the only way that anything like this is going to see the light of day."

The long-time animal activist and Farm Transparency Project director once spent nights breaking into factory farms to release animals. Now he releases footage instead.

"I thought that if people can just find out what's happening, they'll make the decision … to stop paying for it to happen," he said.

At the start of 2023, Chris Delforce set out to do just that.

The activists wear balaclavas when they enter the abattoirs to avoid being identified and risk having their homes raided and footage confiscated.

But today, they're taking off the masks to tell this story at huge personal risk.

Under the cover of darkness, they wanted to bring to light a practice that is legal and widespread but something they believe the industry doesn't want you to know what it looks like — the use of carbon dioxide gas to stun pigs before slaughter.

"People still don't know that this is happening," he said. 

"Almost all pigs killed in Australia now, and increasingly around the world, are [stunned] in these gas chamber systems.

"And the fact that people don't know about it, to me, is inexcusable."

In Australia, animals have to be stunned before they're killed and carbon dioxide stunning is the most common method used here and in Europe.

The animals are moved into steel cages called "gondolas" and then lowered into a high concentration of CO2, where in around 20-30 seconds they lose consciousness.

Dr Ellen Jongman from the Animal Welfare Science Centre, who's researched the animal welfare implications of the process for 20 years, acknowledges it's not a perfect method.

"We've always recognised that there were advantages to the CO2 stunning system, but there were also some disadvantages. So fairly early on, research started in alternative gases."

Mr Delforce believes the pork industry hasn't been straight with consumers about what that process looks like.

"The industry is saying these pigs … [are] going into the chamber, they're coming out asleep. And that it's perfectly humane," he said.

"The only way anyone is going to be able to see that and make a decision for themselves as to whether that's something they want to support … is if people like me take these risks to capture that footage and expose it."

So he decided he would spend a night filming the inside of a gas chamber in an abattoir.

'What am I doing? This is crazy'

In late January, after several days of reconnaissance and surveillance using drones and hidden cameras, Chris Delforce made his move.

After climbing through the machinery, he reached the ceiling area of a gas chamber where he would spend around nine and a half hours, as hundreds of pigs were slaughtered just metres below him.

Carbon dioxide is heavier than air, so he was out of reach of the gas — but it was still risky.

"At that moment, I'm thinking I'm the world's biggest idiot. What am I doing? This is crazy," he said.

"Feeling a little bit sick. Feeling like maybe we don't have to do this, we've got the hidden camera footage, maybe that's good enough.

"Maybe this is just not going to work, and in a few hours from now I'm going to be in a jail cell, or who knows what's going to happen. 

"There are so many things that might go wrong."

What he captured is hard to watch.

The pigs enter a "gondola" a few at a time and are lowered into the carbon dioxide gas.

The squealing is intense. The thrashing is violent. Some appear to froth at the mouth as they reach their noses up through the bars. Eventually, they succumb to the gas.

Eighty-five per cent of Australian pigs are stunned for slaughter using carbon dioxide.

'What we saw on the footage is not really acceptable'

Australian Pork Limited, the body that represents pork producers, declined an interview with 7.30, wouldn't respond to written questions and hasn't seen this footage. 

But what it shows should come as no surprise to the industry.

Extensive research including some commissioned by Australian Pork Limited confirms the kind of reactions that can result from CO2 stunning.

"You see the gasping, which is an indication that they are lacking oxygen," Dr Ellen Jongman told 7.30.

"And you see some escape behaviours when the animals try to escape out of the crate."

Dr Jongman reviewed some of the undercover vision captured by Chris Delforce.

"We also see variation between pigs. So in this footage, we see a lot of pigs react, responding, sometimes we see very few responses in pigs.

"This is probably the worst of what we see. And we see, like I said, we see a large variation."

In a paper funded by Australian Pork Limited, Dr Jongman studied the responses of pigs to CO2 in five Australian abattoirs that use it.

"I think what we saw on the footage is not really acceptable and we should see lower aversive responses," she said. 

"And it is possible by reducing stress prior to stunning, and perhaps selecting some genetic lines that are less responsive to CO2 exposure, and maybe also some of the farm factors."

She believes the industry is working hard to find alternatives, including funding studies into the possible use of gases like argon or nitrogen instead of CO2.

"A lot of work has gone into it. At this stage, I can't see anything that's even close to being commercially available."

When asked if she'd like to see CO2 stunning phased out, Dr Jongman is clear.

"If we had a better alternative? Absolutely. But I think at this stage, there's still a lot of work that can be done to make CO2 better."

Pig farmers like John Bourke say the industry has a strong commitment to improving welfare standards for pigs and CO2 stunning is the most humane system available if implemented correctly. 

"I've been and seen my pigs being put through the gondola, put through the kill train and it's pretty quick and painless," he said of his experience observing the process.

Despite 7.30 verifying the location and timing of the footage, John Bourke wasn't convinced it was in fact filmed in Australian abattoirs in 2023 based on the practices he has seen.

"There's something wrong with that footage. And from my knowledge — and I've been in pig farming for a long time — that's just rubbish," he said.

"They don't shake. They're not jumping up and down and thrashing like that footage showed that. I just don't believe … so they haven't got the CO2 right. 

"Would the industry be doing something that's so horrific? The actual stress on the animals would make the actual meat useless. You couldn't sell it."

'Nothing seems to have changed'

This is not the first time footage has emerged showing the reality of carbon dioxide stunning for pigs at some Australian abattoirs. 

In 2014, Mr Delforce published the first footage ever seen from inside a CO2 stunner.

Dr Bidda Jones was the RSPCA's chief scientist at the time.

"It was clearly really important that the industry developed a strategy to try and deal with this issue and minimise and mitigate the suffering that those pigs were going through," she told 7.30.

"So it's been very disappointing how little progress has been made since then. Over the last nine years, really, nothing seems to have changed."

One of the problems is a lack of commercially viable alternatives.

Dr Jones, who now works for the Australian Alliance for Animals, says that is no excuse for inaction.

"This isn't an easy problem to tackle. There is no clear alternative to this method that's been introduced on a commercial scale yet," she said.

"But … that's not an excuse to do nothing.

"It's up to the industry, who are making money from the rearing and growing and slaughtering of pigs, to address this."

But good lives are no guarantee of good deaths.

The RSPCA recommends a phasing out of carbon dioxide stunning and a move towards "a more humane alternative", but Dr Jones says even its own accredited pork products can be stunned using the method.

"When you're buying an RSPCA-approved product, that's really applying to the rest of the life of the pig. But it's not possible at this stage with most abattoirs to avoid this method. That's the thing that needs to change."

Activists hope footage will prompt change

Back in Chris Delforce's apartment, he's reviewing the footage from recent raids.

It's clear the work he does has taken a toll.

"When I'm around animals, I don't connect to them in the same way. I don't get as much out of being around them as I did 10 years ago," he said.

"It's not that kind of catharsis that it once was, for me.

"If anything, I see them and I'm reminded of how many … [others are] locked in a cage somewhere for months on end and then sent to a horrible slaughter."

He's hoping that when the Australian public sees what he's seen, they'll agree.

"I think this footage is so hard to argue against … Anyone who has ever seen this footage, I think it's completely shocked them to their core," he said.

"But yes, if people see it, I think they will 100 per cent be on our side.

"They will understand why we had to [take] these pretty enormous risks to capture it and put it out there."

Dr Bidda Jones hopes the footage prompts change in the industry.

"You don't want to feel that animals are suffering every time they're slaughtered," she said.

"The concept for the Australian consumer should be that if they're consuming an animal product, that animal has had a good life and a good death.

"You cannot describe this as a good death."

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Credits

• Reporter: Lauren Day
• Photography/video: Margaret Burin
• Graphic Design: Nina Gordon
• Digital Production: Jenny Ky and Myles Wearring