Hi, I'm new here. I have this book from 1979 called, "What's Wrong With Eating Animals" or something like that. It has a passage in it where it refers to scientific proof that animals feel fear and pain while being slaughtered. It quotes the Encyclopedia Britannica as saying beef has, "a 56% impure water content," and also says that beef has a lot of uric acid and natural hormones (especially adrenalin) in it because the animal goes into shock while being slaughtered, and that's when these toxins are released into the flesh.

I'm looking for some more modern information or research on this. In other words, scientific proof that animals are traumatized by being slaughtered.

(Of course it's obvious to US that slaughter is painful and traumatic to the animal, but not so clear to the idiots I'm trying to explain this to).


Edited for grammar.

welcome to veggieboards! :)

shouldn't the fact that they have sophisticated central nervous systems be enough for people? i mean, are there really major differences in the central nervous systems of humans and other animals? i don't know much about anatomy but...this seems obvious to me.

the issue i have had with many people who want to argue is just that they don't believe nonhuman animals are sentient. and although i can't grasp how they can actually arrive at this conclusion, it seems that no scientific evidence will change that belief.

welcome to veggieboards! :)

shouldn't the fact that they have sophisticated central nervous systems be enough for people?

Absolutely. But people say that since cows, for instance, are stunned with a bolt of electricity before slaughter, they are "insensible" to any pain felt. They also are too stupid or too stunned to comprehend that they and their brothers and sisters are being slaughtered.

OK, I've looked over what I've just typed. I'm trying to reason with people who think stunning animals with electricity is a humane thing to do. I realize it is hopeless.

It would be interesting to see some non-technical, non-biased info about what goes on in livestock handling and in slaughterhouses. Temple Grandin's website (http://www.grandin.com) is the most thorough site that I have seen, but it's way too technical for me.

if you haven't already viewed the peta video "meet your meet" i would recommend it. whether or not it comes from a biased source, it is actual video footage. and i think that's pretty hard to argue with.

it has several clips showing animals who are being killed and are obviously still aware of what's going on. my understanding of a "stunned" animal is not an animal that screams and flails in a puddle of its own blood.

http://www.meetyourmeat.com/

Dr. Temple Grandin
Associate Professor
Colorado State University
Dept. of Animal Sciences
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1171
Paper presented at a discussion on whether or not animals should be property, with Marc Hauser, Dept. of Psychology, Harvard University, 2002

“…From many hours of observing the behavior of cattle at slaughter plants and feedlots, I have learned that cattle do not understand that they will be slaughtered. During handling they behave the same way at both a slaughter plant and in a feedlot veterinary chute. If they knew they were going to die they should be wilder and more agitated during handling at a slaughter plant (Grandin, 2001).
A reviewer of this paper asked me to address the possibility that the observation that the animal’s behavior is the same in both places is learned helplessness. It is not learned helplessness because in both the slaughter plant and the feedlot, cattle sometimes make active attempts to jump fences or run away from people.….”

I think what you mean is some scientific evidence that stress hormones are released into their blood at the time of slaughter. As far as what Temple grandin says, I was reading in another book that many animals, including cows act less agitated when fearful as a sort of "playing dead".

Temple Grandin is certainly a well-respected livestock behaviorist, but supposedly she has this "special insight" because she is mildly autistic. I have never heard any scientific support of why we should believe that an autistic person somehow knows more than a non-autistic person would know about animals. It's supposedly because she and animals both think in pictures instead of words, but I don't know.

She can't speak highly enough about McDonald's. :rolleyes:

http://www.mcdonalds.com/corporate/social/marketplace/welfare/update/interview/

“…From many hours of observing the behavior of cattle at slaughter plants and feedlots, I have learned that cattle do not understand that they will be slaughtered.."

what is she saying in this quote? that animals feel just fine up into they are killed, so it doesn't really matter as long as they are treated well?

This article appeared in the Washington Post, a well-respected mainstream publication. It deals with the cruelty cows can suffer at slaughter.
http://www.hfa.org/hot_topic/wash_post.html

I think Equipro has some ideas/info about this. She mentioned it in something she wrote on Drweil.com. Hopefully she'll stop by here... or you could PM her.

"This article appeared in the Washington Post, "



Ugh ... this stuff is hard to read :-(

Temple Grandin is certainly a well-respected livestock behaviorist, but supposedly she has this "special insight" because she is mildly autistic.

Yeah. I really admire Grandin because I think she's done a great service to people with autism by telling her story. I don't think she has done a great service to animals though, try as she may.

This article appeared in the Washington Post, a well-respected mainstream publication. It deals with the cruelty cows can suffer at slaughter.
http://www.hfa.org/hot_topic/wash_post.html

Thanks Peace. Hard to read (due to its content) but very informative.

Ouch. They die piece by piece. Ouch. Awful stuff...

This article appeared in the Washington Post, a well-respected mainstream publication. It deals with the cruelty cows can suffer at slaughter.
http://www.hfa.org/hot_topic/wash_post.html

holy crap.. I suppose if I'd thought about it I could've guessed, but that's some horrible stuff. truely. I had to donate $20.00. But what can really be done? someone should make commercials addressing this stuff. I mean how can these workers just slice parts off of cows streaming by at 300+ mph all the while hearing moaning and other sounds? how can they do that?

that's just sad

rigmarole

I posted this info on another thread, but it seems useful to post it here as well. Virgil Butler, who worked at Tyson slaughterhouse (slaughtering chickens) has begun a blog that gives an insider's view of what the work is like, for humans and animals both. You can visit his blog at: http://cyberactivist.blogspot.com/

Since I've posted this info twice - and in case anyone out there is wondering: No, I am not Virgil Butler. But I do think his story should be heard.