Day 113 - 03 Apr 95 - Page 47
1 animals which provide beef for McDonald's?
2 A. It excites them. The noise can be increased by loud
3 radios, the shouting of men.
4
5 MR. MORRIS: When you say "can", is that something that does?
6 A. I am sorry, does, yes. I mean, I cannot say to
7 everyone I have visited it is always the same, but these
8 are the things that stand out in my mind having seen and,
9 of course, the operations of the stunning pen which is
10 heavy metal causes a lot of jolting and noise. The saws
11 cause a lot of noise, that is, to saw the carcasses; there
12 is a lot of whirring going on and the actual shooting of
13 the cattle -----
14
15 Q. Let us leave the shooting for one minute.
16 A. Yes, but it is a noise. They hear the noise.
17
18 Q. So, you have heard the shooting, have you?
19 A. Yes.
20
21 Q. What kind of bang is it? Is it a loud bang?
22 A. It is like a pistol, it is a pistol. I mean, it is a
23 loud pistol. But, you have to remember that there is a
24 good deal of reverberation because these pens that they put
25 the cattle in are often referred to as "crushes". I mean,
26 almost this area -- I am not quite sure what this is -----
27
28 Q. The press box.
29 A. Is it, yes. Well, it would be in actual square area
30 something about that size, I would think. It has higher
31 metal walls. The animal might come in there and I would be
32 holding the stun gun and the animal's head would come up
33 here. The point is that the sides of this pen come above
34 the height of the animal. So, I have to lean over and get
35 the gun, get it in the right position. Now, what I am
36 talking about is that the noise tends to be accentuated,
37 you can understand, because of this hollow metal space.
38
39 Q. Just before we go on to slaughter, do cattle willingly move
40 towards that slaughter pen or what happens, what have you
41 seen?
42 A. I have never seen them galloping there or even moving.
43 I mean, they have to be driven. The trouble is if one
44 stops you have a jam of cattle. It is very difficult
45 sometimes to move on the one that is stopped without just
46 using brute force and ignorance to try to get all the
47 others to try to push it through, so that then means that
48 they jostle and get excited.
49
50 Q. What do you mean "get excited"?
51 A. Well, they start making a noise and start trying to
52 push one another and as trying to bend round, they cannot
53 turn round so they get agitated.
54
55 Q. Why would that try to turn round?
56 A. Because they cannot go forward and they have tried
57 that. Then they think they might go back and they cannot
58 do that.
59
60 Q. We have heard from the representative of Midland Meat
