MERAMIST ABATTOIR INVESTIGATED FOR HORSE ABUSE

… horror at what happens next door.

The Meramist Abattoir in Caboolture is now at the centre of an animal cruelty scandal, but those who live near it say they have tried to raise concerns for years.

“It wasn’t always noisy,” says neighbour Naomi Rizniak.

At least not until they started to bring horses in at night.

Naomi Rizniak and her family moved into a quiet cul de sac in Caboolture about four years ago.

The property backs onto a reserve, where there’s a creek that is home to a platypus.

It seems the perfect place for her and her husband to raise their three young children, with their two friendly rescue pups.

A locked gate at the end of the street, though, is a disused back entrance to the Meramist Abattoir.

Meramist slaughters cattle, camels and horses — exporting horsemeat to Russia, Japan and parts of Europe for human consumption.

Multiple industry analysts estimate the business to be making $10 million to $20 million a year.

The slaughtering of racehorses [or for that matter ANY horses] is not illegal in Australia.

Last week, footage obtained by the ABC’s 7.30 program seemed to show some staff at Meramist kicking, beating, shocking, and verbally abusing former racehorses before they were slaughtered.

READ the FULL article here.

Further down the article continues…

Residents say it is under the cover of darkness that the truckloads of seemingly distressed horses arrive at the abattoir to be killed.

“It’s frantic … they’re scared … they could probably be walked off a truck into a paddock anywhere else, but here they’re not being walked off,” Naomi Rizniak says.

She says she hears staff swearing and yelling at the animals.

“They’re about to be killed. Isn’t that bad enough? Can’t they be given a bit of dignity?” she says.

Then there’s the sound of the hooves.

She describes the frantic clanging, like things hitting a steel fence. Enough to wake her at 2:00am, from 100 metres away, through fences, bushland and her home’s brick walls.