Temple/transport/slaughter

[Antoinette Smith <broknbel@compuwise.net>]

Comment:
If Temple Grandin went to the slaughterhouse


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Reply:
Just for clarification, Temple went to the auction houses, the one I am
mainly referring to is the famous New Holland auction in Pennsylvania.

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Comment:
Temple's experience is not limited to this one situation

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Reply:
To my knowledge, Temple has only done a study of this kind on horses one
time, and one time only.  Temple is famous for her work with cattle,
mostly, and then she has transformed that fame into work with other
slaughter-bound animals.  Much of what Temple preaches comes from
Temple's own handicap, she is Autistic and has written many books on
Autism.  She discovered one day that she felt better when she was being
squeezed, so she designed a device that squeezes Autistic children, and
it is widely used in therapy today, and also used on cattle.  She did an
interview on Good Morning America a few years back and it showed film
footage of this.

Also, we must remember, Temple is not against slaughter at all.  She
does what she does, teaching slaughter houses how to better calm animals
prior to being slaughtered because it makes the meat more tender, less
bruised, etc.  The slaughterhouse people listen to her because they
think she can improve their profits, not because they give a darn
whether the animal being slaughtered is stressed out at the time it gets
it's head bashed in.

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Comment:
I've never had my question regarding what would happen to slaughter
horses
if slaughter was abolished answered to my satisfaction.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reply:
Good question.  Slaughter rates are actually at an all time low, even
considering that the rate may be up due to Mad Cow disease.  These days,
as opposed to the days when the number of horses going to slaughter was
almost double, there are many, many more horses being bred.  The market
has absorbed the difference.  There is not one single horse that "has"
to go to slaughter, so we should consider the reasons they do go - poor
training leading to "problem" horses, owners who don't want to take the
time to sell the horse in a conventional way, owners who are duped into
selling to killer buyers posing as innocents looking for an old horse to
eat grass in the pasture or to use for some made-up reason, theft, and I
was talking to someone at work tonight about a horse this person's
friend has.  My friend wants this horse so bad she can taste it but
doesn't have the money to buy it, her friend won't sell it to her (it's
really her mother's friend who has the horse), and she lives in an
apartment & her mother doesn't want to have to care for her horse.  The
reason for the friend not selling the horse to my friend is because the
horse is has a history of colic and the friend tells my friend that the
horse is "seasonal" (Heidi, what in the world does that have to do with
colic?) & she believes that when she sells the horse, whoever gets it
won't take proper care of it & it will colic & die & the friend doesn't
want to know about it when it happens, and she would if she sold the
horse to my friend.  I asked why my friend's friend doesn't just donate
the horse to my rescue where we could carefully screen adopters & she
said that the woman wants the money from the sale.

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Comment:
>3-legged, half dead horses headed for slaughter spell profit for all
> >involved, from auction owner to transporter, to truck drivers and
> >auction employees as well.

How so?  It's my understanding that slaughter houses will not accept
dead
horses, and 4-D (Dead, Dying, Diseased, Decayed) meat is marked as
unsuitable for human consumption.

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Reply:

Wrong.  EIA positive horses are slaughtered for human consumption all
the time.  Take a look at your wormer, your vaccinations, and other
products you put into your horse.  They say, "Not intended for animals
for human consumption", but who keeps track?  With cattle, they cannot
have been vaccinated within a certain amount of time prior to being
slaughtered, but who keeps track of this with horses?   You comment does
make me wonder about what is done with the dead horses pulled off of the
trucks, but I have heard of people here locally taking thier horses to
Bel Tex (I live near Ft.Worth, where Bel Tex is located) because they
have severe injuries & the people don't want to or can't afford to pay
the vet bills.  I can only surmise in such cases that infection has
already set in, and Bel Tex does take them.  I did get that second hand
but can call Bel Tex tomorrow & ask them.  They are pretty good about
answering questions like that.  They just don't go for letting people in
or giving formal interviews to the media.

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Comment:

isn't there supposed to be a
USDA inspector present?  So, theoretically, that should inhibit illegal
activities.

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Reply:

Yes, there is supposed to be an inspector present, but it's not the
USDA's job to ensure that anything is done except that the meat is
properly graded.  They are not at the slaughterhouses full time.
They're only there when the slaughter is taking place.  Bel Tex accepts
horses 24/7 but only slaughters horses certain days of the week.  Dallas
Crown accepts deliveries during hours when it isn't actually
slaughtering, too.  Also, what inspector who is inside the building
doing his or her job can watch outside to see what vehicles are bringing
what horses in?

A couple of years ago when Cavel International was trying to open a new
slaughterhouse in Big Foot, Illinois, they admitted that horses brands
weren't inspected until after they were slaughtered.  Theft is one law
that is not being enforced or properly attended to, because it's not the
USDA brand inspectors job to keep an eye out for stolen horses.  In
Texas, it is the law that the slaughterhouse is supposed to keep records
of the license plate, drivers license number of the person dropping off
horses, and descriptions of the horses being brought in and to file that
information at the County Records Building where it is to be public
knowledge, but it doesn't happen.  That is certainly not because the
USDA doesn't inspect horses in the Texas slaughterhouses; it's because
it's not thier job to make sure laws aren't being broken, & it's not
thier job to enforce laws.  For more information on this topic, go to
the dallasobserver.com & search the archives for the article entitled,
"A Horse Is A Course, In Belgium, Anyway".

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Comment:
Has anyone got the text of whatever report Dr. Grandin allegedly  wrote?
I
doubts she would say that there were no horses being transported in
double-deckers at all.  She may well have stated she saw none there at
the
time.
It seems to be a reasonably common, albeit  inappropriate occurrence.
(Is
it not illegal as well?)

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Reply:

I didn't mean to imply that Temple said there weren't any double
deckers.  There were.  They are illegal now, but when she did the study,
they were not.
Her report is at:
http://www.grandin.com/references/horse.transport.html

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Comment:
I'm not saying that other people, like the owners of the facility, might

not well have put their own spin on what she said, though.

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Reply:

No, they didn't.  This was a formal study by Temple and two colleagues
and was done on behalf of the University of Colorado.  I believe that
Temple fully believes in the findings of her studies.  I believe that
what she says she saw and observed is indeed what she saw and observed.
I am not disputing her findings on the basis of what she found, but
rather the circumstances under which her study was performed,
specifically, she told them she was comming and they did indeed clean up
thier act.


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Comment:

From personal conversations with Temple, she did some surprise visits as
well and didn't see significant
differences (her words).  At the very least, Temple deserves alot of
credit for the work she's done in
animal behavior and improving the treatment of slaughter animals
immeasurably.  This isn't secondhand
opinion, I've been there and seen it myself (she's faculty at Colorado
State, where I am).  I don't know of
any other one individual who's done the constructive work she has.

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Reply:

Honestly, I hadn't heard anything about any return visits on her part.
I haven't had as much time in the past 14 months to stay in the loop of
things and I do not know for sure how many rescuers would recognize her
and e able to pick her out of a crowd.  No offense to her looks, but
they are very unassuming.  She looks like the lady next door who waters
her flowers each morning, picks up the newspaper off the front porch,
then goes back inside to her quiet life.  I don't know how people
recognize Tiger Woods at the movies around here, but they do.  Me, I'd
say to myself, "That guy looks just like Tiger Woods!" and then I'd go
on about my business, never expecting Tiger to appear at my local movie
theater, even if he was in town for the Byron Nelson.

Reports do come to me, though, such as the one about the horse that
arrived at New Holland, bandaged from stifle to toe, dripping so much
blood that it pooled up under the trailer when the owners went in to get
it onto the killer trucks without having to put it through the ring.
Someone actually agreed to load it & it was left at New Holland
overnight to ship in the morning, but it died during the night.  I got a
lot more details, I'm just shortening it for this post.

I agree, Temple deserves a lot of praise for what she has done for the
slaughter industry and for Autistic people/kids.  I did find the EPN's
web site & it is loaded with reports documenting arrests at New Holland
and of transporters getting their double decker loads confiscated, of
court dates and fines imposed, and everything else associated with the
transport of horses to slaughter.  It is where I read about a year and a
half ago about a little blanket Appaloosa colt who was spotted by
rescuers hours before the auction began.  He was being held in a pen
with several other, older horses, including stallions.  The rescuers
left & got something to eat or something before the auction began. When
they returned, they checked in on the little guy & he'd been kicked and
his leg was broken.  This was after Temple's report.  I wonder if Temple
has reviewed the EPN web site and what her thoughts are on it, in
general.

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Comment:

 If you're going to point fingers, you have to point it at a lot
more people than just the slaughterhouses that are cleaning up the
messes left by others.

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Reply:

I do.  I wouldn't put it quite that way, about them cleaning up other
people's messes, though.  Almost makes them sound heroic, but if they
are heroic, it's like the vulture or the rat who eat trash and garbage,
but they aren't like the vulture or the rat because they don't just "eat
the garbage", they "eat" the good, the beautiful, the talented, the
famous, the beloved, and everything else they can devour.  When I point
my finger regarding slaughter, I never point it at the slaughterhouses.
As I said earlier in this post, it is the fault of the people and only
of the people.

I hope I haven't offended anyone whose comments I used here.  If any of
my statements were offensive, I truly apologize and I do want to thank
everyone for keeping this discussion healthy and polite so that we can
all benefit from each others opinions and beliefs.  As you can see, I'm
not much of the or for the hysterical type; becaue of this, I have been
called "black hearted" by other rescuers.

Thanks, everyone.

Antoinette