Four Corners Tonight - A Bloody Business

[Sir Stinkalot]

I have just finished watching the Four Corners story - A Bloody Business, to quote their website ..... "An explosive exposé of the cruelty inflicted on Australian cattle exported to the slaughterhouses of Indonesia."

Certainly some of the most disturbing tv I have seen in some time and it was enough to make me feel sick. Certainly not for the faint of heart. Whilst I am fully aware that animals need to be slaughtered for food and that it is all part of life, surely there is a responsibility as humans to ensure that this is undertaken as humanely as possible.

Whilst there will be arguments that animals do not have the same emotional feelings as humans (this is arguable), there would be no doubt that they can still feel pain and some of the actions undertaken in the slaughterhouses was unwatchable. It was disturbing to think of these people who where basically going out of their way to inflict further pain on these animals. I'm not saying that the work would be easy and it is certainly something that I couldn't do myself, but there are some sick minds who can disregard the obvious distress and pain that these animals go through, some of it inflicted outside the act of slaughtering.

Before I get flamed let me repeat ..... I know animals need to be killed for food and it is all part of mother natures bigger plan, but my point is why not use the most humane methods available.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the media in the following days and if there is any action taken. I am sure that the news and papers will be more interested in Shane Warne's weight loss, Ben Cousins becoming a father and Dannii Minogue / Kris Smith looking for publicity on Twitter.

According to the report they key players have been aware of this for 10 years and don't seem to interested in finding a solution to the problem. On Q&A they said that they were going to start and inquiry, but what does that really do?? The Four Corners site has links to media coverage which mentions that ..... "The Australian livestock export industry has moved to suspend supply of cattle to three Indonesian abattoirs after evidence of animal cruelty was identified". Will this be for good or just until the story blows over?

If you are interested it can be viewed on ABC's I-View for the next two weeks:
ABC iview

Sorry for posting if you are not interested but I think it is an issue that will go under the radar unless it is spoken about.

Stinky.

[.RC.]

The story was mostly written to pull at the emotions of the average Australian. You just had to listen to the choice of words used, the background music used.

We do not know how factual the footage was in regards to how widespread this barbaric practice is.. A report simply saying something does not mean it is true.

I am not going to deny the footage was gruesome and barbaric to our standards but is banning the trade going to stop the barbarity, or is it only going to make us feel good about ourselves. All the while the barbarity continues but just not Australian cattle..

[Sebastiaan56]

Of course if it only happened in Indonesian slaughterhouses we could be outraged. The facts are it happens everywhere. This kind of abuse has been documented in the Middle East and in the US but Im sure its widespread. If you have the stomach for it go to You Tube. Look up videos by PETA. Indonesians are no better or worse than the rest of humanity. That this comes as a shocking surprise to everyone just shows how well it has been kept from the public eye.

I will challenge you on the animals as food grand plan Stinky, Read "The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell and look up the work of Caldwell Esselstyn or Dr MacDougall. Nutritionally we are better off without consuming animals or their secretions.

There is also a growing body of work on animal intelligence and social systems. When this goes mainstream it will make the climate debate look insignificant. Consuming animals will be seen for the cannibalism that it is. I think that debate is still five years away.

[Greg Ward]

We run a few hundred head of cattle and I have enough emotional turmoil sending them to the saleyard. I however do get some relief from knowing that (hopefully) their death should be speedy, because in the wild it is often not.

In the dry winter months last year, we lost around 6 head, weak and old which had to be put down, and the period leading to their deaths in the cold was not pleasant.

It is an unfortunate fact that there is no 'easy' death for any animal, they are often eaten alive by preditors, fall to disease or starvation or childbirth or injury..

Anyone who states a belief in any God as a merciful diety hasn't a clue

And even with animals in our care, death can be awful, I've seen cows in drought with their eyes picked out by crows as they lay dying and let's never forget the sufferinmg of those caught in floods or bushfires.

There is no need for all the claptrap about sentient beings and animal feelings, they feel terror and NEVER should be subject to the treatment I saw on the ABC.
Forget about whether they were beating it up, the photos don't lie.

This was unnecessary and crual treatment of animals in our care and any farmers or wholesalers sending their livestock to this death need to be ostracised and even banned from the industry.
Greg

[Sir Stinkalot]

The story was mostly written to pull at the emotions of the average Australian. You just had to listen to the choice of words used, the background music used. All the while the barbarity continues but just not Australian cattle..

Yes I would agree that the show was targeted to pull on the emotions of the average Australian and to be honest I didn't really notice the background music but even if you put on the soundtrack of Australias Funniest Home Videos the footage would still be the same. The show did seem to cast the Australian farmer in the best possible light with the problem lying at the feet of the Indonesians and the Australia's livestock export industry. If that is 100% accurate who knows, but the livestock export industry spokesperson didn't really seem to be able to justify the footage, just saying that things are improving and it will be a long process (10 years so far).

I don't think that the problem is just with Australian cattle but it is something that Australia as the exporter has some control over. The program stated that Australian cattle were larger and more difficult to control, it wasn't made clear how much more humane the same practices were on smaller animals but at the end of the day once they are restrained I would think the issue with cutting the throat would still be similar. It was also stated that the meat from the Australian cattle was preferred so if supply was stopped it may implement change.

The program was keen to show the footage of the cattle being stunned as the more humane method, however it didn't choose to show the footage of the animal being killed after being stunned, just the action of the stunning and the cutting up of the animal following. I am sure the footage of a stunned animal having its throat cut would still have been disturbing footage, although perhaps not as disturbing as the other methods. This could be seen as one example of the program distorting the truth to focus on its point.

The facts are it happens everywhere. This kind of abuse has been documented in the Middle East and in the US but Im sure its widespread.

Sebastiaan, it sounds like you are well up on these issues. It may happen everywhere but that doesn't mean that it should be accepted and the change has to start somewhere. You may be right that consuming animals will be seen for the cannibalism that it is further down the track but as it currently stands if the population wants to eat meat then best practices should be put in place and continue to operate. The Four Corners program only covered this one issue however there will obviously be far more that go unnoticed unless bought to the attention of the general public. The key issue is that the people behind these practices are all in the know of what goes on and it is not until the mum and dad type, who last nights program was aimed towards, are made aware that the discussions start. The program may use emotion to get the message across and perhaps isn't as unbiased as reporting should be, but at the least it can generate further discussion.

[Waldo]

It wasn't touched on in the report, but mentioned prior that Wilkie and the other bloke want to stop live exports - why?

It's not the fault of the farmers.

You probably will never change anyone's religious beliefs regarding slaughter practices, no matter how horrid they are. The violently shaking cow near the end of the programme, for me at least was more violent than footage of other cows being slaughtered.

It's a $300M export industry, you cannot pull that out from underneath our farmers feet.

[Sir Stinkalot]

From the program it would indicate that the Australian farmer has not done anything wrong and they have great respect for their stock and understand the importance of care to deliver a quality product. If this is true across the board then that should be applauded. Even the live shipping seems to have improved. Again hopefully this is the truth and again should be applauded. On the other hand perhaps the program was intentionally trying to create the view of the good Australian farmer, shipping company, feed lot man against the bad live export industry and Indonesian slaughterhouses.

The program indicated that there were slaughterhouses in Indonesia that did undertake methods to humanely undertake the slaughter. Perhaps the solution is to only send Australian cattle to such slaughterhouses, which would force the other slaughterhouses to come up to speed or miss out.

I don't think anybody wants to pull that out from underneath our farmers feet but there must be a better approach. It is all part of a chain and it cant be as easy as just washing your hands of the issue once you have passed the product on. The preference was for locally slaughtered animals due to lack of refrigeration. Is there not something that can be improved on in this aspect? Why not set up Australian run slaughterhouses in Indonesia (staffed by Indonesians), it seems to have worked for the Australian feed lot guy.

Whilst I do not want to get into an argument in relation to religion and beliefs but who is to say that the slaughter practices outlined in any religious guidebook were not the most humane methods available at that time. Perhaps at the time a single slit of the throat was more humane than the previous method of continually hitting an animal with a stick and as such it was written that it was the preferred method. Could it be thought that the intention was to kill the animal in the most humane method possible known at the time ..... which seems to have moved on with technology.

From looking at the program the final moments of the death are only one part of the practice ..... there is the animal abuse leading up to that moment including the torment of animals, having them bash their heads on the concrete numerous times whist being restrained, being bashed, tails being broken and the footage at the end of the program mentioned by Waldo.

The sad thing is that during all of the abuse the animals were helpless and had no opportunity to fight back from the abuse. Everything was set up to make it difficult for the animal and the worse that they were treated the level of abuse was simply ramped up. This also wasn't a hidden camera investigation, it was very clear that they were being filmed and if this is how they act with cameras rolling you can only shudder to think what they do without them.

I am sure that a charging or kicking animal would be a very dangerous situation however I didn't see one instance where the people were at risk of their own safety and they had to employ such methods to ensure their safety. These animals just appeared to be frightened and most of the issues seemed to be as a direct response to how they were treated.

Looking at the Four Corners website it would appear that the story was leaked before last night. This would have given the opportunity for the government to announce an inquiry immediately following on Q&A. There was also news reports from late last week which must have resulted from the industry preparing for damage control. Even with all of this exposure it still doesn't seem to have created any waves and will most likely go away ...... after all the mainstream news is too busy giving us cutting edge articles about the PM talking with a red head school girl.

[Waldo]

Agree with everything you wrote.

Got kicked by a cow while I was trying to herd it into a race recently (it tripped and as it did it collected me on the side of the knee) bugger it hurt, but I only cursed at the animal. ... well apart from giving it a tap with a piece of ag pipe.

Australian run slaughter houses could be the way to go, but I think the problem goes deeper to maintaining consistent standards.

[Sebastiaan56]

Looking at the Four Corners website it would appear that the story was leaked before last night. This would have given the opportunity for the government to announce an inquiry immediately following on Q&A. There was also news reports from late last week which must have resulted from the industry preparing for damage control. Even with all of this exposure it still doesn't seem to have created any waves and will most likely go away ...... after all the mainstream news is too busy giving us cutting edge articles about the PM talking with a red head school girl.

Exports to the three slaughterhouses mentioned were stopped last week to limit the damage and yes they have had plenty of time to prepare the necessary spin.

[artme]

As an ex cattle raiser What I saw last night apalled me. I had seen footage previously of the mis treatment of cattle in Egypt and that also apalled me.

You could turn the sound down completely and not remain unaffected by the scenes presented!!

It is time for farmers and government to act swiftly and decisivly on this matter. Nothing more needs to be said.

[jimbur]

What a cock-up of a species we are. I often think that the only thing we are really good at is self-justification and sticking our heads in a bucket of sand.
Let's hope we are the pinnacle and final peak of evolution or else it will be more than 'cows with guns' after us.
Cheers,
Jim

[artme]

Well said Jim!!

It is nothing short of distressing to read comments that apparently wish to justify the treatment shown on the grounds that it "happens here, there and elsewhere.

There is no justification for the maltreatment of humans or other animals.

Perhaps we are still hung up on the religious thinking that man has dominion over animals and this is somehow interpreted to mean that we can either do with them as we lease, or not worry about what others do.

I can only trust that the meat I buy has come from animals that have been raised and treated ethically , and slaughtered humanely.

I only buy free range eggs.This is a decision I reached many years ago after taking a group of school students to an intensive egg farming business. I was, to say the least, shocked and many of the students were quite distressed.

[.RC.]

Why is everyone believing that that what was shown on 4 corners was representative of the Indonesian live export industry?

With 600 000 head exported to Indo every year, that is 1600 to be processed a day and the filming we are told took a month, so that is another 48 000 processed during the filming time.. Could you see those places processing 1600 head a day?

I would imagine the reality to be that these are selected backyard operations and not the main facilities where animals are processed, probably due to the fact the main facilities are processing the animals to much better standards and it would not make a story..

[Waldo]

Don't misconstrue anything I wrote to infer an excuse of any party for reasons for mistreatment.

Also, on the other side of the coin, what RC has written may also be the case.

[Sir Stinkalot]

I would imagine the reality to be that these are selected backyard operations and not the main facilities where animals are processed, probably due to the fact the main facilities are processing the animals to much better standards and it would not make a story..

The facilities shown are those who have the support and training provided by the Meat & Livestock Australia. They have supplied the box designed to make a cattle fall down and whilst this does seem more effective than the older rope methods shown it still doesn't seem to be the best solution and still leaves the animal in plenty of distress.

The show didn't provide sufficient information to determine how wide spread that the abuse is. The mentioned that there are over 100 slaughter houses and I am sure that there are some that are nowhere near as bad as what was shown. The bad thing is that the ones shown had training provided by the Australian industry only a month or so before the footage. There must be something wrong with the training. The other disturbing thing is the industry didn't seem to think that there was anything wrong and this was enforced during the recent review which was positive.

It could be as simple as not supplying to slaughter houses who do not meet the relevant standards but given that the houses shown in the footage included houses that passed the recent review how can the industry be trusted to determine which slaughter houses should be supplied.