Day 113 - 03 Apr 95 - Page 52


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not think we need go into that, because
     3        what you are saying is that your recollection is that
     4        Dr. Gregory found about 4 per cent and your experience
     5        would accord with that?
     6        A.  Yes.
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not think we need go back to it to find
     9        out what he did say, because whether or not Dr. Gregory's
    10        figure was 4 per cent, Dr. Long is saying that would be
    11        his.
    12
    13   MS. STEEL:   I have a recollection that Dr. Gregory said that
    14        the figures, the national figures were for cattle overall,
    15        and that Dr. Gregory did say that the national figures for
    16        dairy cows, which is what he witnessed at McDonald's for
    17        McDonald's purposes, the national figures for dairy cows
    18        would have been lower.  I cannot remember exactly when that
    19        was.
    20
    21   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Thank you very much.  The picture I am
    22        getting at the moment is that Dr. Long by one route or
    23        another is putting it at about 4 per cent.
    24
    25   MR. MORRIS:  What are your concerns regarding the welfare of the
    26        cattle on the prevalence of imperfect stuns?
    27        A.  Well, it causes pain and suffering.  That is an obvious
    28        question of ill-fare rather than welfare.  The quicker the
    29        animal is then put out of its misery it cannot be brought
    30        back again, so, unfortunately, it has to be done again.  It
    31        in effect it dies two deaths.
    32
    33   Q.   You said you had some concerns about the neck cutting or
    34        chest splitting?
    35        A.  Yes.
    36
    37   Q.   Do you want to say what your welfare concerns about that
    38        are?
    39        A.  It is a matter of what the trade calls "bleed-out".
    40
    41   Q.   Would this be automatic, though, when the cow or steer is
    42        completely insensible or does it sometimes occur when ----
    43        A.  Well, it is important to do it expeditiously because
    44        the stun is exactly that, and if you do not do it quickly
    45        get a big loss of blood then the animal may come back into
    46        consciousness.  So one wants to get a major vessel
    47        severed.  It is generally reckoned, certainly in my
    48        observation, you get much more blood loss if you take a
    49        knife and stick it down into the chest cavity, down there,
    50        rather than if you cut off the carotids and the arteries 
    51        across here.  One of the reasons for that is that in cattle 
    52        you do get a circulation of blood into the head up the 
    53        vertebral artery into what is called the circle of Willis
    54        which circulates the blood round the led.  That supply will
    55        be maintained if you do not get a very rapid loss of
    56        pressure so that the heart cannot keep up the flow through
    57        the vertebral artery.
    58
    59   Q.   On what you call ritual killing which McDonald's suppliers
    60        use in a number of countries, what you said, the problem

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