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The Legendary Troll Kingdom
Grandtheftcow
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The Legendary Troll Kingdom
A shot is fired in the center of her forehead. As her legs kick out, the cow falls on her side. A knife slices her throat. Blood pours onto the barn floor.
The cow is dead, yet her legs continue to kick as her body groans reflexively.
Brett Biesheuvel makes his living slaughtering cattle for farmers around Whatcom County. His father also slaughtered cattle and Biesheuvel began helping before he was in kindergarten and continued the work through high school. It’s what he grew up doing.
“It’s the only thing I know how to do,” Biesheuvel said.
He said he enjoys his job. He likes being outdoors and meeting new people.
While Biesheuvel slaughters animals one or two at a time, slaughterhouse workers butcher hundreds of cattle in a matter of minutes. Although the job he does is similar to the one workers do at large slaughterhouses, Biesheuvel has the time to do it correctly while slaughterhouse workers rush to keep up with the line.
On May 31, 2000, evening newscasts across the Northwest showed disturbing footage taken inside Iowa Beef Processors, Inc.’s slaughterhouse in Wallula, Wash. The video showed cattle being struck on the head with an air gate, electrically prodded in the mouth and hoisted in the air as they moved down the slaughtering line, kicking and blinking.
Washington state law defines a humane slaughtering method as one “whereby the animal is rendered insensible to pain by mechanical, electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective before being shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast or cut.”
As a slaughtering guideline, if an animal is stunned electrically, slaughterhouse workers must render it unconscious with the first shock. The video at the IBP plant shows cattle being stunned several times before losing consciousness.
Biesheuvel said cattle spasm reflexively long after they die. He usually removes a cow or steer’s head and feet while its muscles are still twitching; bovine muscles continue to twitch for about 45 minutes after death.
But Biesheuvel knows the cattle he slaughters are dead. He can see its eyes are not blinking or rolling around. If they were, he said, the animal wouldn’t be dead.
The video from the IBP plant shows cattle blinking as they move down the line.
After obtaining the video, the Humane Farming Association and 11 other groups petitioned Governor Locke’s office, asking him to investigate IBP’s inhumane slaughtering practices.
Locke formed a taskforce to look into the situation; by April 2001, it completed its investigation without gathering enough evidence to charge IBP.
Walla Walla County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Nagle determined there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against the company.
“The biggest problem I had with this investigation was the concept of corporate criminal liability,” Nagle said. “Proving corporate criminal liability isn’t as easy as people think.”
In other words, IBP was not telling workers to slaughter the cattle incorrectly or illegally, so they are not criminally liable.
“I think (the workers) were not trained enough,” Nagle said.
Nagle said IBP supervisors may have put untrained workers on the line, but he couldn’t hold the corporation liable for the supervisors’ mistakes.
While the five minutes of the video showing IBP employees mistreating cattle that appeared on television caused problems for the corporation, the remaining 3-and-a-half hours of original footage frustrated prosecutors because it showed workers trying to fix the problems.
Still, the abuses documented on the tape are compelling. Temple Grandin, an assistant professor at Colorado State University’s animal science department, said she can’t defend the way IBP employees were handling the cattle.
Grandin designs livestock handling facilities. Almost half of the cattle slaughtered in the United States are put through a center-track restrainer system that she designed. Her system holds the animal in place while it is stunned, allowing slaughterhouse workers to move cattle without excessive prodding, Grandin said.
She said the cattle were refusing to enter the stun box at IBP, which does not use her system, causing workers to stun the animals repeatedly.
“Ninety-five percent of cows will enter the stun box without being prodded,” Grandin said.
The state’s failure to file criminal charges against IBP disturbs Humane Farming Association members, said Gail Eisnitz, HFA’s chief investigator. She said state investigators had evidence of IBP’s violations — they were just looking for a way to not prosecute the corporation.
The state claimed the HFA provided “manufactured evidence” to the media. Eisnitz says that simply is not true.
“Violations occurred. The company and supervisors should have been prosecuted,” Eisnitz said. “The supervisors are management. They are the corporation.”
Eisnitz said that workers went to their supervisors time and time again asking them to slow the line down. Nagle said IBP is a difficult corporation to work with, and that it intimidates its employees.
Workers’ affidavits of IBP’s wrongdoing and HFA’s petition did not establish corporate liability, Nagle said. He said HFA ruined the state’s chances to do an undercover investigation by going to the media with the tape, essentially warning IBP an investigation was going to take place.
“HFA’s just mad that I didn’t do what they wanted me to do,” Nagle said. “I don’t like IBP any more than they do.”
Grandin inspected the IBP plant after the video aired, checking its stunning equipment, its ability to render cattle insensible to pain, and its handling of the cattle. Grandin passed the plant on stunning and insensibility. She failed them on handling.
But Gary Mickelson, the spokesman for IBP told The Seattle Times the inspector found nothing wrong in the plant. Mickelson declined to comment, and would not allow a tour of the plant.
“We take the issue of proper livestock handling very seriously,” stated Dean Danilson, IBP vice president of quality control in an April 18, 2001 press release. “It is not only a moral and ethical obligation, it is also important from an employee safety and product quality standpoint.”
However, the Washington state Department of Agriculture and IBP reached an agreement on April 10, 2001 allowing surprise inspections at the plant, and making provisions for employee training to improve livestock handling. The agreement will last through September 2002, and may be extended.
IBP installed cameras in the plant two years ago to monitor the slaughtering process. Under new management, the plant implemented a better self-auditing system to clear up problems, Grandin said.
These changes, however, are not enough to appease some people, including HFA, which still wants to see IBP prosecuted for inhumane treatment of animals. Meanwhile, one-man butchers like Brett Biesheuvel will continue to slaughter cattle the way their fathers taught them, and slaughterhouses like IBP’s will try harder next time.
The cow is dead, yet her legs continue to kick as her body groans reflexively.
Brett Biesheuvel makes his living slaughtering cattle for farmers around Whatcom County. His father also slaughtered cattle and Biesheuvel began helping before he was in kindergarten and continued the work through high school. It’s what he grew up doing.
“It’s the only thing I know how to do,” Biesheuvel said.
He said he enjoys his job. He likes being outdoors and meeting new people.
While Biesheuvel slaughters animals one or two at a time, slaughterhouse workers butcher hundreds of cattle in a matter of minutes. Although the job he does is similar to the one workers do at large slaughterhouses, Biesheuvel has the time to do it correctly while slaughterhouse workers rush to keep up with the line.
On May 31, 2000, evening newscasts across the Northwest showed disturbing footage taken inside Iowa Beef Processors, Inc.’s slaughterhouse in Wallula, Wash. The video showed cattle being struck on the head with an air gate, electrically prodded in the mouth and hoisted in the air as they moved down the slaughtering line, kicking and blinking.
Washington state law defines a humane slaughtering method as one “whereby the animal is rendered insensible to pain by mechanical, electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective before being shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast or cut.”
As a slaughtering guideline, if an animal is stunned electrically, slaughterhouse workers must render it unconscious with the first shock. The video at the IBP plant shows cattle being stunned several times before losing consciousness.
Biesheuvel said cattle spasm reflexively long after they die. He usually removes a cow or steer’s head and feet while its muscles are still twitching; bovine muscles continue to twitch for about 45 minutes after death.
But Biesheuvel knows the cattle he slaughters are dead. He can see its eyes are not blinking or rolling around. If they were, he said, the animal wouldn’t be dead.
The video from the IBP plant shows cattle blinking as they move down the line.
After obtaining the video, the Humane Farming Association and 11 other groups petitioned Governor Locke’s office, asking him to investigate IBP’s inhumane slaughtering practices.
Locke formed a taskforce to look into the situation; by April 2001, it completed its investigation without gathering enough evidence to charge IBP.
Walla Walla County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Nagle determined there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against the company.
“The biggest problem I had with this investigation was the concept of corporate criminal liability,” Nagle said. “Proving corporate criminal liability isn’t as easy as people think.”
In other words, IBP was not telling workers to slaughter the cattle incorrectly or illegally, so they are not criminally liable.
“I think (the workers) were not trained enough,” Nagle said.
Nagle said IBP supervisors may have put untrained workers on the line, but he couldn’t hold the corporation liable for the supervisors’ mistakes.
While the five minutes of the video showing IBP employees mistreating cattle that appeared on television caused problems for the corporation, the remaining 3-and-a-half hours of original footage frustrated prosecutors because it showed workers trying to fix the problems.
Still, the abuses documented on the tape are compelling. Temple Grandin, an assistant professor at Colorado State University’s animal science department, said she can’t defend the way IBP employees were handling the cattle.
Grandin designs livestock handling facilities. Almost half of the cattle slaughtered in the United States are put through a center-track restrainer system that she designed. Her system holds the animal in place while it is stunned, allowing slaughterhouse workers to move cattle without excessive prodding, Grandin said.
She said the cattle were refusing to enter the stun box at IBP, which does not use her system, causing workers to stun the animals repeatedly.
“Ninety-five percent of cows will enter the stun box without being prodded,” Grandin said.
The state’s failure to file criminal charges against IBP disturbs Humane Farming Association members, said Gail Eisnitz, HFA’s chief investigator. She said state investigators had evidence of IBP’s violations — they were just looking for a way to not prosecute the corporation.
The state claimed the HFA provided “manufactured evidence” to the media. Eisnitz says that simply is not true.
“Violations occurred. The company and supervisors should have been prosecuted,” Eisnitz said. “The supervisors are management. They are the corporation.”
Eisnitz said that workers went to their supervisors time and time again asking them to slow the line down. Nagle said IBP is a difficult corporation to work with, and that it intimidates its employees.
Workers’ affidavits of IBP’s wrongdoing and HFA’s petition did not establish corporate liability, Nagle said. He said HFA ruined the state’s chances to do an undercover investigation by going to the media with the tape, essentially warning IBP an investigation was going to take place.
“HFA’s just mad that I didn’t do what they wanted me to do,” Nagle said. “I don’t like IBP any more than they do.”
Grandin inspected the IBP plant after the video aired, checking its stunning equipment, its ability to render cattle insensible to pain, and its handling of the cattle. Grandin passed the plant on stunning and insensibility. She failed them on handling.
But Gary Mickelson, the spokesman for IBP told The Seattle Times the inspector found nothing wrong in the plant. Mickelson declined to comment, and would not allow a tour of the plant.
“We take the issue of proper livestock handling very seriously,” stated Dean Danilson, IBP vice president of quality control in an April 18, 2001 press release. “It is not only a moral and ethical obligation, it is also important from an employee safety and product quality standpoint.”
However, the Washington state Department of Agriculture and IBP reached an agreement on April 10, 2001 allowing surprise inspections at the plant, and making provisions for employee training to improve livestock handling. The agreement will last through September 2002, and may be extended.
IBP installed cameras in the plant two years ago to monitor the slaughtering process. Under new management, the plant implemented a better self-auditing system to clear up problems, Grandin said.
These changes, however, are not enough to appease some people, including HFA, which still wants to see IBP prosecuted for inhumane treatment of animals. Meanwhile, one-man butchers like Brett Biesheuvel will continue to slaughter cattle the way their fathers taught them, and slaughterhouses like IBP’s will try harder next time.
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
Dude, I'm at work. Throw a warning in that thread title or something...
