 Food Standards Agency figures from 2012 showed that more than 80% of animals are stunned before slaughter for halal meat in the UK.The debate in the UK resurfaced in spring 2014 after Denmark prohibited unstunned slaughter in February that year.It began with a 6 March 2014 article of three page long in "The Times" by the British Veterinary Association's president John Blackwell, who claimed that in ritual slaughter the animal must be alive when its throat is cut and die from loss of blood, annually causing more than 600,000 animals in Britain unnecessary suffering.