Makeshift slaughterhouse in a residential garage points to growing concerns about illicit meat sales

Inside a garage in an established Edmonton neighbourhood, animals were being slaughtered and the meat was advertised for sale to consumers, a CBC News investigation has learned.

Police entered the rented garage in the quiet residential Woodcroft community in February 2023. Images shared with CBC News show piles of goat carcasses, tubs of blood and the remains of a skinned baby goat on a makeshift slaughter table.

Neighbour John Bos told CBC News that the sounds of bleating goats first alerted him to unusual activity in the garage. 

He contacted the owner of the property when he saw goats being unloaded from a truck. Bos said he was surprised by the way the goats were handled.

"They're using two-by-fours, prodding them along. Like, I thought that's kind of weird," he said.

The next morning, things got stranger when he saw several goats bolting down the back alley. Bos says he called Edmonton's animal control officers and then stepped outside to get a closer look. 

Through the open garage door, he witnessed what he calls a shocking sight.

"What I seen almost made me throw up. There was goat parts everywhere. Blood on the wall. It was gross," he said. 

"Like legs, heads.… There was a little one on the table, it was all skinned, but you could tell it was a little baby lamb or baby goat. It just made my heart sick."

Edmonton animal control officers arrived and rounded up four goats that had escaped, as well as several live goats from the garage, Bos said.

A post published at the time to a Facebook group for the Edmonton Muslim community offered "young fresh goats" and beef for $6 per kilogram. "Everything is halal," the post stated. It included a phone number and the address of the Woodcroft garage. 

The Facebook post was taken down soon after police cleared out the garage. 

CBC contacted the renter, Yusef Izairi, by phone on Wednesday. Izairi said he was slaughtering the animals for friends, given the high meat prices at commercial butchers and grocery stores. When asked several times about offering meat for purchase on social media, he repeated that he was helping to serve his community and that he was not selling it.

Izairi says between 10 and 12 goats were slaughtered in the garage. He says friends purchased the animals from farms.