The Animal Equality Foundation has sent a letter to the National Association of Porcine Veterinarians requesting their involvement to put an end to the practice of “tail-tapping” on Spanish farms.

The EU ban on routinely tail docking is now included in Directive 120/2008 / EC (Pig Directive). However, it first came into force almost 27 years ago.
Despite this, the vast majority of piglets are still routinely mutilated.

A presentation by the European Commission last year reported on the audits they carried out in nine Member States in 2017-19.
The Commission said that 99.5-100% of pigs still have their tails docked. This constitutes a violation of the specific provisions of the Directive.

In the letter, Animal Equality also states that the European Commission has recently confirmed that the enforcement measures adopted by the Member States in relation to the requirements of the Pig Directive for the prevention of tail biting are unsatisfactory.
In particular, even the action plans submitted to date by most Member States do not address one or more known risk factors for tail biting.

In such a bleak context, their role as pig veterinarians becomes even more vital in educating, mentoring and providing solutions to avoid routine tail docking.

Animal Equality demands the involvement of the National Association of Swine Veterinarians to put an end to this cruel practice.

This practice causes suffering to the animals and infections derived from its execution, often carried out by untrained workers.

It is done because due to the crowded conditions that the pigs endure, bite each other.

Animal Equality denounces that it is carried out routinely and that the focus should be on the extreme hygienic-sanitary and overcrowded conditions that animals endure, which cause them to attack each other.

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