Re: Temple/transport/slaughter

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

> > Also, we must remember, Temple is not against slaughter at all.

Temple is against animals being poorly handled, and does what she does to
alleviate the suffering.  She doesn't bury her head in the sand thinking
that her personal feelings for or against slaughter would make any
difference whatsoever.  Just out of curiousity (seriously, no flames), have
you ever actually met her and talked with her face to face, or are these
conclusions drawn from somewhere else?  If you ever met her firsthand, you'd
know just how much she does care.  She cares alot, she just doesn't allow it
to cloud her judgment.

> >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.

Does it make a difference what the producers motives are, as long as the
result is that the animals are handled better and with less trauma?  Saying
that she only gets the animals calmer is just a small part of what she does.
And I would disagree that *all* the slaughterhouse people couldn't care
less.  My information is that plant managers care very much how the animals
are handled, for a variety of reasons, including efficiency and profit.  The
people on the kill floor often don't care, and there have been a lot of
requests for help in solving handling problems---for example, Temple has
said that if you put an electric cattle prod in the hands of someone, they
will use it whether its needed or not.  So she took away the prods and gave
them little flags instead.  Lo and behold, the cattle move on in without
having to be shocked, and in one fell swoop, their treatment is greatly
improved.  Pretty nifty if you ask me.

Rather than criticizing Temple because her research wasn't good enough, or
didn't adequately blast the slaughter industry to everyone's liking, let's
look at what Temple has done for animal welfare.  Because of the
recommendations she made at numerous slaughterhouses worldwide, McDonalds
for numerous reasons decided they were only going to contract for meat from
plants that met the standards she recommended for humane handling and
treatment of cattle and market hogs.  Virtually every slaughter plant in
North America contracts to one extent or another with McDonalds and alot of
plants send 100% of their output to McDonalds, so when Micky D speaks, the
plants listen.  If the plants don't meet Temple's standards for handling,
they lose the McD contract.  I don't care if their motive is profit, the
result is that the final day of millions of animal's lives are better
directly because of Temple.  I can't think of one other single person who
can come close to saying the same thing.

JMO.

Susan G