en well looked after and humanely slaughtered. I don’t believe you could ever do that with Dolphins. Cattle and fish don’t have that level of intelligence and can be easily fooled and slaughtered without stressing them, they act more on instinct.
Just dealing with cattle – I’ve worked with cattle in the UK and have most often observed obvious stress while handling, especially at markets or in the crush – eyes rolling, tongues lolling, vocalizing, drooling. Many places have poor flooring so the cattle slip and then their cortisol levels really go through the roof. Even adopting Temple Grandin’s humane handling machinery and recommendations for practice (and I have a lot of respect for the work she does) there is room for error. Farmers most often have a quota they want to fill and sometimes the last thing on their mind is buying new machinery or facilities. As for error – stun bolts misfire, the skull too thick, a slip, the scent of blood sets off the other cattle, blinking means they weren’t stunned correctly, head brace malfunction or not present, etc, etc. Handling machinery – some of the stuff I’ve seen is rusty, decades old, archaic, rough edges, unsafe etc. If cows are typified as placid, they often aren’t placid when handled. Sheep neither. They urinate and defecate liquid stress when handled in a concrete pen, this turns to slips and falls, lameness, annoyed and overworked farmers and labourers, cut corners, etc…
As such, I don’t accept that it’s ‘easy’ to keep cattle de-stressed in any commercial operation. I used to, but then I worked with cattle. I have enough trouble keeping pork scratchings on the menu having known how smart pigs are, and how most of them end up. Beef also – rapidly becoming a more expensive once in a while purchase from known local sources. Not a bad thing, both healthwise and ethically?
