Fw: Follow-up

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" Merritt Clifton, editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE. " <anmlpepl

<anpeople

Monday, 04 March, 2002 15:59

Follow-up

 

 

At 4:25 AM +0000 3/4/02, It's Their Destiny wrote:

At ITD, we are concerned with ending the abysmal treatment of companion

animals in South Korea. To talk of farm-animals being killed in an English

abattoir in the same breath as a dog being tortured to death, or a cat being

skinned alive at Taiga market defies belief!

 

 

Maybe Russ hasn't seen the Humane Farming Association undercover

video of cattle being skinned alive rather routinely, albeit by accident,

at the IBP slaughterhouse in Wallula, Washington--supposedly one of the

most modern mechanized slaughtering plants in the whole U.S.

 

 

Maybe Russ hasn't seen the full-page close-up of one such cow's face

that HFA recently published as an ad in several editions of ANIMAL PEOPLE

and The New York Times.

 

 

Maybe Russ also has not seen what goes on every day all winter on

traplines and at mink and fox farms across North America, Scandinavia, and

the former Soviet Union.

 

 

I saw some of it, though, first hand, during the 12 winters that

I spent six or seven mornings a week detecting and removing illegal

traplines as volunteer assistant to a Quebec deputy game warden. If the

animal revives from a knock on the head in mid-skinning, the trapper just

knocks the critter again.

 

 

I don't imagine the British and Australian trappers are any kinder

to the feral mink and beaver, and the " nuisance " rabbits and foxes, whom

they catch.

 

 

The point is, these kinds of institutionalized cruelty are still a

lot more ubiquitous than a lot of people who are shocked at the Korean live

markets realize--and in terms of millions of animals affected, as hideous

as the Korean situation is, it is not fairly or accurately postulated as

" worse " than the assembly-line slaughter at IBP or the skinning of

half-stunned animals on a trapline or at a fur farm.

 

 

What makes it hideous, actually, is that it is the same thing,

done deliberately, as is very commonly done in the western meat and fur

trades just through " accidental " indifference. Either way, regardless of

the human motive, the outcome is equally horrendous for the animal.

 

 

 

 

At 4:25 AM +0000 3/4/02, It's Their Destiny wrote:

If we are ever to improve the lot of animals, surely it makes sense that

we start with the poorest victims of Man's abuse and work up from there?

 

 

Start wherever you can start, wherever you see the opportunity to

reduce the total universe of suffering. Bear in mind that you will be

better received as a critic of the atrocities of other peoples, nations,

and cultures if you clearly and consistently oppose all atrocities, instead

of coming across as merely trying to replace one type of atrocity with

another.

 

 

 

 

At 2:36 PM +1000 3/4/02, Young, Briony wrote:

I have seen many abbotoirs here in NSW and Victoria and the turn around

time is quick and painless. The workers who I have spoken to are quite

heartfelt to the animals and get things done asap for the animals sake,

including sanitised areas and humane treatment.

 

 

Frankly, I do not believe a word of this. The Australian meat

industry does not use any techniques that are remarkably different from

those of the U.S. and Canada, where slaughtering and meat processing have

some of the highest rates of job turnover, occupational injury, and

on-the-job drug and alcohol abuse of any occupation. Psychological research

done by Temple Grandin of the Psychology and Agricultural Sciences

departments at Colorado State University (she holds a dual Ph.D. and

professorship) eventually established why: people who kill for a living,

whether whether at war, in slaughterhouses, or in animal shelters, tend

to handle the psychological stress in either of three ways--

 

 

1) Detachment, often drug-or-alcohol-assisted. If animals suffer,

they don't notice.

 

 

2) They become sadistic.

 

 

3) They ritualize it, pretending it is all for the greater good.

 

 

#3 is commonly seen in soldiers and shelter workers, but is rare in

slaughterhouses except for kosher and hallal slaughterhouses.

 

 

These psychological tendencies, together with the high rate of job

turnover, work directly against the likelihood of any slaughterhouse

maintaining good attitudes among the workforce for very long.

 

 

Grandin recommended frequently rotating employees' assignments, but

that is rarely done because the labor unions don't like it.

 

 

 

 

At 2:36 PM +1000 3/4/02, Young, Briony wrote:

I hate the fact that Korea treat the animals this way but like I have

stated - that is their choice of meat, these dogs know no love, they wont

fetch a ball, just like a cow wont let you pat it or a pig squeals when you

pick it up.

 

 

I can testify that this is untrue from direct experience. I have

yet to meet a dairy cow, having met hundreds and maybe thousands, who

would not quickly accept a pat. I have met some who just about licked my

shirt off, and met one Hereford/Angus free-range beef cow who had just been

captured after eight years at large in the hills of western Washington, who

was perfectly willing to be friendly and be taken to the Wild Burro Rescue

sanctuary after just the briefest of introductions.

 

 

Many of the dogs going to slaughter in Korea and elsewhere would

gladly and avidly chase a ball. At my feet right now is a very happy little

yellow dog named Simon, who came from Taiwan and looks identical to the

typical " meat dog " of dog-eating areas. We don't know his story before Mina

Sharpe of the Taiwan Abandoned Animal Rescue Foundation picked him up after

he had been hit by a taxi, and dogs are no longer commonly eaten in Taiwan,

but it is an excellent bet that his forebears were " meat dogs, " not many

canine generations ago.

 

 

Jill Robinson, a friend of ours, has adopted some " meat dogs "

right out of the markets--ready to accept affection and play as soon as they

are out of their cages.

 

Not every " meat dog " responds the same way. Not every pampered

purebred poodle does, either. Some dogs are just plain more naturally

gregarious than others.

 

 

But all you have to do is walk through the Moran Market south of

Seoul and watch the dogs awaiting slaughter to see some of

them--stereotypical " meat dogs " --making attempts to play and to get a pat

from passers-by.

 

 

There really is no behavioral distinction between a " meat " dog and

any other, or a " meat " pig and any other, or a " meat " cow and any other.

 

 

There is only the difference that humans who eat animals concoct in

their own minds to rationalize atrocity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

[ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original

investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide, founded in 1992.

Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the decision-makers at more than

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