[208] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
a commentary on the slaughterhouse piece - forwarded
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (elsiedee@MIT.EDU)
Thu Oct 13 00:40:21 1994
From: elsiedee@MIT.EDU
To: vsg@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 00:39:26 EDT
Here's a reaction to that piece that i picked up as well. The
author of the commentary seems to think that the person who
wrote the slaughterhouse piece was too emotionally charged to
really be objective.
Laura
P.S. if anybody's got a lighter post, it would almost be
refreshing (!)
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Date: 11 Oct 1994 15:44:05 -0500 (EST)
From: JEFF RUSHEN <RUSHENJ@NCCCOT.AGR.CA>
Subject: Re: a day in the life/ slaughter houses
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The piece sent over this network by D. Fishman vividly conveys the
sense of revulsion felt by a student upon visiting a slaughter
house. The largest section deals with the student's reaction to the
sight and smell of blood, urine and feces, and large amounts of raw
flesh. This is irrelevent to the issue of animal rights and animal
welfare. People who do not like the sight of blood should not visit
a slaughter house.
For someone who feels that it is wrong to kill animals for
food, a slaughter house is the embodiment of an unethical use of
animals, and that is the end of it. However, there is also the
question of how much suffering the animals are experiencing, and
whether this is inevitable in a slaughter house, or whether the
design of the slaughter house can be improved to reduce this amount
of suffering.
The student mentions a number of signs of `terror' in the
cattle and ascribes these largely to the fact that the cows know
they are going to die. I have no idea whether cattle and sheep have
a concept of death, but they do not react very much to blood
itself. Rodents and pigs, when frightened, produce a pheromone
which is apparent in the urine (and possibly their blood), and
these animals will avoid urine from a rat or pig that has been
stressed. This maybe true for cattle, in which case cattle waiting
for slaughter should probably not be exposed to the blood or urine
of cattle that have been slaughtered. There is no doubt that there
is a great deal of stress on cattle in slaughter houses. This can
reduce meat quality and is a major economic loss for the meat
industry. Use of electric cattle prods exacerbates this stress and
they should not be allowed: passageways can easily be redesigned to
faciliate the movement of the cattle. Much of stress comes from the
transport and mixing of unfamiliar animals, and is not peculiar to
slaughter houses. I suspect that these are more likely the causes
of any terror the animals may feel than is any knowledge of their
imminent death. A major problem with slaughter houses is that there
are now too few of them: animals have to be transported over quite
incredible distances and large numbers of unfamiliar animals are
mixed together. Attempts by AR supporters to close down individual
slaughter houses, unless these are particularly bad examples, are
likely to be counter-productive.
Since the majority of the population approve of the killing of
animals for meat, then slaughter houses are likely to stay with us
for quite some time. To reduce the suffering felt by the animals,
we need to have a realistic knowledge of what the real problems
are.
Jeff Rushen
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