by SUSAN MANN
An animal welfare group’s report outlining unacceptable animal suffering during transportation is exaggerated, say agricultural industry spokespeople.
Crystal Mackay, Ontario Farm Animal Council executive director, says the World Society for the Protection of Animals used a few specific and extreme examples in its Curb the Cruelty report released June 2 and that doesn’t portray the way the vast majority of farm animals are transported and handled.
In response, Mackay says she wrote a letter that was published last week in The Globe and Mail, which did a story on the report in an earlier edition. In part, Mackay says she wrote that “farmers, people in the food supply chain and consumers all want the same thing – for animals to be treated humanely.”
She questions the Society’s numbers and wonders what percentage of the animals transported are killed in transit each year.
Melissa Matlow, the Society’s program’s officer, says numbers were obtained from Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). They indicate two to three million animals arrive dead and more than 700 million are slaughtered each year. She says the Society doesn’t know how many animals are transported annually or what percentage of the animals shipped are killed or condemned.
Using the amount slaughtered would put the percentage of animals killed at less than 0.5 per cent. Matlow says, however, that slaughter and shipping numbers are “not exactly the same thing."
Paul Mayers, CFIA associate vice president for programs, says they plan to analyze the report in detail. He says the numbers “are in the range” of animal slaughter and deaths transport deaths in Canada.
Tory MP Larry Miller, who is chair of the federal Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, says the Society exaggerated the number of transport deaths. There are cases where animals are injured or die during transportation. “But they (the Society) make it sound like it’s an epidemic.”
The Society reviewed CFIA animal transport inspection reports from October, 2008 to January, 2009. It says unacceptable numbers of animals, particularly chickens, die during transport due to the CFIA’s lax enforcement of the rules and ineffective legislation.
Matlow says they submitted an access to information request at the end of 2008 to get CFIA animal transportation inspection reports for all of Canada. It took nearly a year to receive some reports. The Society did not receive all of the ones requested. The majority received came from Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. Initially the Society wanted an entire year’s worth of reports but that was too expensive so it revised its request to a three-month period.
Matlow says animal welfare isn’t a high enough priority for the CFIA. She notes some reports are completed by multi-program inspectors, feed specialists and administrative assistants.
“We would like to see specifically trained inspectors just looking at animal health and welfare,” she says.
In particular, the Society says:
• animals are so overcrowded during transportation they can’t lie down or turn around;
• severely injured, crippled and sick animals are transported in contravention of federal Health of Animals regulations;
• severely compromised animals are transported and left to suffer for prolonged periods in contravention of Health of Animals regulations;
• a shortage of specially-trained animal welfare inspectors, particularly veterinarians, puts animal health and welfare at risk;
• the CFIA’s reporting and enforcement of rules are weak and inconsistent; and
• animals suffer due to poor driver training.
Its recommendations include: the CFIA improve enforcement, hire more animal inspectors, ensure they are specifically trained, increase inspection frequency and remove ambiguous words from legislation. It also wants strengthened regulations as well as and incentives and deterrents to promote better animal welfare practices.
Mayers says most Canadian producers and transporters are committed to treating animals humanely. “These are the animals on which their livelihood depends. Every animal that’s arriving at slaughter compromised means an animal for which they will not receive either any value or full value.”
Reports like the Society’s contribute to identifying mechanisms for improvement, he says. The CFIA has been reviewing its Health of Animals Act regulations and studying the latest scientific information and industry practices for the past two to three years.
The CFIA plans to introduce amended regulations under the Health of Animals Act. Mayers these may be introduced later this year.
The CFIA will integrate the society’s report into its regulations review. “We’re not interested in seeking to simply counter this report,” says Mayers.
Sarah Petrevan, spokesperson for the Ontario agriculture ministry, says the humane transportation of livestock is a federal responsibility. But ministry officials will review the Society’s report.
“There a few horrific cases,” she says. But there are also a lot of people who do a lot of good work.
As for the agricultural industry, Mackay says improvement is continuous. The Council delivers trucker quality assurance programs and a humane animal handling training program for truckers. The Council also has a contract staff person whose job is to focus on improved animal handling in transit.
The Ontario Trucking Association couldn’t be reached for comment. BF
