{"id":448,"date":"2010-06-03T13:50:09","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T13:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/divineearth.org\/main\/2010\/06\/03\/inspection-records-show-animals-arriving-to-slaughterhouses-dead-or-diseased\/"},"modified":"2010-06-03T13:50:09","modified_gmt":"2010-06-03T13:50:09","slug":"inspection-records-show-animals-arriving-to-slaughterhouses-dead-or-diseased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/divineearth.org\/main\/inspection-records-show-animals-arriving-to-slaughterhouses-dead-or-diseased\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspection records show animals arriving to slaughterhouses dead or diseased"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poultry workers opened the doors of a chicken truck at a Toronto slaughterhouse in December, 2008, to find that nearly 1,500 birds had frozen to death in sub-zero temperatures during their final journey from the farm.<\/span><\/h1>\n
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At about the same time, 16 neglected horses \u2013 animals so emaciated they had not developed winter coats \u2013 were sent to a meat factory in Lacombe, Alta., in an unheated truck as the thermometer dipped to minus 12 C. Government inspectors who witnessed their arrival took note of the incident but let the transport company off with a simple warning.<\/p>\n

Those and other anecdotes are included in a report by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) to be released later this week that looks at the conditions in which animals intended for Canadian dinner plates are transported \u2013 often for the last time.<\/p>\n

The study, which was based on inspection reports filed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) between Oct. 9, 2008, and Jan. 9, 2009, was initiated in response to the listeriosis crisis of 2008 that killed 22 people. It finds that Canadian standards for the transport of animals are significantly weaker than those of other jurisdictions, including Europe and the United States.<\/p>\n

Under CFIA policy, an inspection is warranted if 1 per cent of a shipment of broiler chickens arrives dead, whereas the U.S. threshold is 0.5 per cent. The report also found that the CFIA standards are not strenuously enforced.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of MPs were asking how many meat inspectors were hired during the listeriosis outbreak and it started to get us questioning how many animal inspectors are there,\u201d Melissa Matlow, the report\u2019s lead author, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. It\u2019s an important question, \u201cnot only from an animal welfare perspective, which is what our organization cares the most about, but from a food-safety perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, much evidence suggests that food-borne illnesses are readily transmitted among animals that are crammed into trucks and train cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the animals are packed more closely, the opportunity for bacteria to pass from one animal to another is obviously increased,\u201d said Carlton Gyles, who studies animal-borne diseases at the University of Guelph. \u201cThere have been studies looking at things like salmonella that can be passed by animals during transportation. So that could increase the chances of contamination of meat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canadians also want to know that the meat they eat comes from animals that did not suffer unduly, Ms. Matlow said. Statistics that the animal rights organization obtained from CFIA indicate that two million to three million animals die during transport every year and another 11 million arrive at their destination diseased or injured.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poultry workers opened the doors of a chicken truck at a Toronto slaughterhouse in December, 2008, to find that nearly 1,500 birds had frozen to death in sub-zero temperatures during their final journey from the farm. At about the same time, 16 neglected horses \u2013 animals so emaciated they had \u2026<\/p>\n

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