Originally Posted by
Giants11
Yeah Cow's don't bite each other to death, true.
Excerpts from a Washington Post article:
Under a 23-year-old federal law, slaughtered cattle and hogs first must be “stunned” — rendered insensible to pain — with a blow to the head or an electric shock. But at overtaxed plants, the law is sometimes broken, with cruel consequences for animals as well as workers. Enforcement records, interviews, videos and worker affidavits describe repeated violations of the Humane Slaughter Act at dozens of slaughterhouses, ranging from the smallest, custom butcheries to modern, automated es-tablishments such as the sprawling IBP Inc. plant here where Moreno works.
For example, the government took no action against a Texas beef company that was cited 22 times in 1998 for violations that included chopping hooves off live cattle. In another case, agency supervisors failed to take action on multiple complaints of animal cruelty at a Florida beef plant and fired an animal health technician for reporting the problems. The dismissal letter sent to the technician, Tim Walker, said his dislosure had “irreparably damaged” the agency’s relations with the packing plant.
“I complained to everyone — I said, ‘Lookit, they’re skinning live cows in there,’ “ Walker said. “Always it was the same answer: ‘We know it’s true. But there’s nothing we can do about it.’
One Texas plant, Supreme Beef Packers in Ladonia, had 22 violations in six months. During one inspection, federal officials found nine live cattle dangling from an overhead chain. But managers at the plant, which an-nounced last fall it was ceasing opera-tions, resisted USDA warnings, saying its practices were no different than oth-ers in the industry. “Other plants are not subject to such extensive scrutiny of their stunning activities,” the plant complained in a 1997 letter to the USDA.
Hogs, unlike cattle, are dunked in tanks of hot water after they are stunned to soften the hides for skinning. As a result, a botched slaughter condemns some hogs to being scalded and drowned. Secret videotape from an Iowa pork plant [provided by the Humane Farming Association] shows hogs squealing and kicking as they are being lowered into the water. USDA documents and interviews with inspectors and plant workers attributed many of the problems to poor training, faulty or poorly maintained equipment or excessive production speeds. Those problems were identified five years ago in an industry-wide audit by Temple Grandin, an assistant professor with Colorado State University’s animal sciences department. . . .
Like I said I understand that dogs are man's best friend. But anyone who thinks this kind of treatment is acceptable while dog fighting is somehow different and "more" brutal, if one can even compare which offense is worse. But there is some blatant hypocrisy going down here.
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Think about what your saying. You want to lock this guy up, and throw away the key, without a trial. How civilized is that?
