Day 114 - 04 Apr 95 - Page 55


     
     1        way and another.  Perhaps I should explain, some animals
     2        have a different hearing range from us, so if you had dogs,
     3        for instance, dogs can go berserk because they can hear a
     4        noise, are irritated by a noise we cannot hear, so you have
     5        to make allowances for that in your assessments of noise in
     6        slaughterhouses.
     7
     8   MS. STEEL:  When you say "excitable", some people might
     9        associate excitement with enjoyment.  Can you explain what
    10        you mean?
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I certainly am not treating that as the
    13        meaning Dr. Long had in mind.
    14
    15   MR. MORRIS:  Do you mean frightened?
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  They get more agitated.
    18        A.  Agitated is a good word, irritable.
    19
    20   MR. MORRIS:  If slaughterhouses were concerned about the welfare
    21        of the animal in a noisy environment in a slaughterhouse,
    22        what would you expect the slaughterhouses to have done?
    23        A.  To have substantial changes in the equipment,
    24        mechanical equipment.  They would have to have substantial
    25        changes in the metal.  It is the clanging of metal that
    26        causes a lot of trouble.  They have to have metal for
    27        hygiene reasons in many cases.  You could overcome that,
    28        I have discussed this with designers of markets and
    29        slaughterhouses, of having coated metal, plastic coated
    30        metal, but that is very expensive and that means that,
    31        unfortunately, the amenities suffer because the market will
    32        not pay for it.
    33
    34   Q.   So there are ways of substantially reducing the sound in
    35        slaughterhouses?
    36        A.  Yes.  There are all sorts of noises.  Must of the ones
    37        I have been to have Radio One or some similar programme
    38        blasting out at ghetto blasting levels.  Well, I find that
    39        appalling.  I cannot actually say whether cattle like Radio
    40        One, but I can understand that it upsets them, just the
    41        sheer volume.
    42
    43   MS. STEEL:  Just to finish off, can you fairly shortly indicate
    44        how you feel the industry has moved in the last five to 10
    45        years in terms of welfare and the reasons for that
    46        movement?
    47        A.  I think it is very clear that the impulse has come from
    48        the customer, motivated by evidence and testimony of animal
    49        welfare societies and groups and organisations.  It is also
    50        been affected by the power of supermarkets and major chains 
    51        of food outlets responding to that consumer pressure and 
    52        their effect in going back along the retail markets, firms 
    53        like Marks & Spencer who have gone back to factories, they
    54        have then gone back to slaughterhouses and they have gone
    55        back to farms, and this agitation has made itself felt.  It
    56        has been particularly noticeable in the last six or seven
    57        years.  I think all of those factors have dominated it.
    58        I would not think that much has happened from the farming
    59        side and from the producers, if you like, nearer the live
    60        animal side to take initiatives of their own accord.  They

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