The shameful Australian practice of live sheep trade.

Excellent AGE article from 2003, exploring the issues of the live sheep trade. This was published after shocking the Cormo Express incident in August to October of that year, when public outrage was at it's height:

Lambs to the slaughter
September 27, 2003/the AGE



Would kindness to animals mean cruelty to farmers? Geoff Strong reports on the dilemmas of the live sheep trade.

Anchored off-shore in the windy sunshine, the sheep carrier Al Kuwait, with its improbably high sides, looked like an island fortress. It seemed to be hovering, its very presence taunting the animal rights protesters who lined up this week on the Portland dockside.

At the port entrance, on the edge of town, a row of police manned a temporary security checkpoint in front of the 30-odd protesters, who waved banners and chanted, "Stop the death ship" and "Ships of shame".

Appalled by news this week of 53,000 sheep adrift on a ship in the Persian Gulf without a destination - on a journey in which 4000 had already died - the protesters were trying to prevent the loading of another shipload of livestock bound for the Middle East.

In the end, the 28,000 sheep were loaded and consigned to their destiny in Kuwait. That was the end of that particular episode of this drama. But it is not the end of the issue that simmers beneath it, an issue that echoes another that symbolised a similar polarity about Australian social attitudes. .... <cont>>

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/26/1064083191426.html?from=storyrhs

In response to msolga and Deb, we used to sell lambs to Muslims for their family feasts. ( A male lamb is the traditional dinner and it must all be consumed at one sitting so it isnt cooked in chops, and legga, and little loins). The men of the family unite in a patriarchal order and the eldest "able: is the designated butcher. All this must be learned, thats why the kids take part. The lamb is slughtered in a ritual fashion (we used to allow them to do it in a paddock area but my wife said no because there were too many guys standing around smoking too close to the barn. (My wife is noone to trifle with and when she came out once complaining about smoking, the men , not used to being confronted by a woman, quickly backed off and stopped smoking. (We later had a colleague who was from Saudi Arabia write a sign that said "no smoking" (except every sentence begins with some reference to Allah)

It used to be that during specific holidays we had a line of cars with these Yemeni men who worked for RCA and other businesses i Lancaster and in Delaware who'd all be in lines to get their lambs. (Laws dont allow us to have auctions without an auctioneer , but we could have had a bidding war. So we sold them live and the kids would take and hold the lambs in the back of pickups and panel trucks . I could see that the word "pet" would start coming out, and the fathers would quickly and sternly correct the kids.

We already have a few that are reserving lambs for a HAj or wedding this spring.

farmerman

Actually, if they were skilled at slaughtering & could do it quickly at the farm & with the least amount of pain, that's probably preferable to the poor sheep being squashed up in one of those transport trucks & transported for miles to some abattoir.

The Yemeni guys only would buy two or three lambs at most and they were quite careful and respectful of the animals. I actually feel better to sell lambs like that, than to haul an entire trailer load of 50 to 75 lambs to auction. We have a large gooseneck trailer that can haul about 50 , and we hire a semi trailer and driver for a really big load. We take food and they have large loafing pens at the auction with water . There the livestock rests up for a day before the auction and the trip to the market.
In US except for Arab and kosher butchering, all animals are "stunned: with a 30 calibre device that powers out a wedge that stuns the animal (but this doesnt kill it).
Theres nothing nice about killing the animals we eat. Dont let anyone tell you that the animals were slaughtered in a peaceful fashion.
We went to an abbatoir to see for ourselves when we went into the sheep business. We came away with a feeling that it was mostly a quick process , but cruel nonetheless. I cant kid you on that.

I have no doubt you're right about the nature of abattoirs, farmer. A number of committed long-term vegetarians I've known over the years were first inspired to give up meat after stints working in abattoirs during their student years.

"their stupid as$ religious beliefs" -me on previous page.

Me on next page. "I don't really consider anybody stupid"

dlown, I don't know, uuh............ religion is evolving ?????

I'm losing track of my own bullsh!t.

Religion evolving!?!?!? Thats it, i'm out of here.

If you don't mind slaughtering the animals, why should you care how they are treated while they are alive?

That is silly.

"If we are going to die, what does it matter how we are treated while we are alive"

They are not simply going to die, they are going to be killed. There is a big difference.

So...we ought to have no concern for how a soldier is treated prior to their death in a war?


All life ends in death....whether we are killed by a human, or die from some disease process killing us.


This has no logical bearing on whether we should be treated, and treat others, decently before we all die.

We are concerned for our own soldiers... not so much for the other side.


It is a matter of respect, I think. If you respect the sheep then why kill it? If you don't respect the sheep then why do you care how it is treated?

I understand your point, but I think it is very narrow sighted.

Which side are you advocating echi? It seems like you must either be vegetarian and be upset that others who care about animal welfare can still condone the killing of them at all; or else you don't think anyone should worry about animal welfare in any way. I'm interested to know which way you're looking at this.

Narrow sighted? Can you explain why?

cyphercat--

I'm not really advocating any side... just pointing out what I consider to be an inconsistency in this argument.

Well, as a veggie myself, I would say that what you are viewing as an "inconsistency" is a necessary first step in reforming how animals are treated. If you are someone who cares about animal welfare, you don't want to approach it as "If you care about animals, then you'll become vegan, or else don't even bother." Nothing will ever change that way.

Perhaps the best way to sum this up, since I know I can't explain concisely, is that rather than an inconsistency, this is a compromise.

Because you are seeing only one possible ethical system/existential position to take in the face of killing animals.


There are many, and many of them include enormous respect for, and gratitude to, the animal that has given up its life for you.

Killing has been a fact of life between prey and predator for millions of years.

As humans, we kill in consciousness (unless we live in denial...which our culture prolly does, by and large, because most of have removed ourselves so far from the killing process) of the animal's suffering.

I believe that, as a sentient being, we have the responsibility to create as little suffering for other forms of life as possible.

Killing is a natural activity for we predators. There is no need for us to cause great suffering before we do so, if it is easily preventable.

Suffering is also a natural part of life, for all of us, but we have no need to increase it. Even if others do, I have no need to join with them in this.

That we raise animals for food gives us a greater, not lesser, obligation to minimise their suffering and make theit lives as good as we can, in my view.

I agree with the bulk of what you said, dlowan, and this is a minor point, but I take exception to this.

All the anthropological and biological evidence shows that we are not natural predatory animals. We have none of the adaptations of a carnivore or even an omnivore; we show all the characteristics, physiologically, of an herbivore. Our ancestors ate a fruit-based diet for most of our evolutionary history. Sorry to nitpick!

As I understand, that is still very moot.

And chimps, whom we share most DNA with, hunt.

Aw, Amigo, don't leave!
It's just that you're passionate about these things!