The Humane Slaughter Association (HSA) has announced that Dr Bert Lambooij DVM, of the Animal Science Group, Wageningen University, in the Netherlands, has won its 2014 award for significant advances in humane slaughter.
The award recognises individuals or organisations that have made significant scientific, technical or other advances that have led to improvements in the humane slaughter of livestock.
Dr Lambooij’s work, which has resulted in the publishing of more than 100 peer-reviewed papers since 1995, has covered both fundamental research on aspects of neurophysiology and research into novel technologies for improved stunning including for fish, broiler chickens and pigs – the latter, for example, leading to the development of a new restraining system that not only improves animal welfare, but also meat quality and consequently is now used in slaughterhouses worldwide.
Much of Dr Lambooij’s work has also related to refining existing slaughter and husbandry techniques. He has shown, for example, that improvement of pig welfare through environmental enrichment improves ability to cope with stressful situations at slaughter.