Friday, May 22, 2015

Talk Is Sheep

In Australia, PETA tried to take a guy to court for swearing in front of sheep. I kid you not!
The complaint was lodged by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which had apparently obtained footage and testimony from an undercover operative working at the station. For Ken Turner, who operates Boorungie Station, the complaint itself suggests the sheep could at least understand English. "The basis for the concerns was the rights of the animals, that they might have been harassed by viewing things they shouldn't have seen or verbal abuse by people using bad language," he said. "To my knowledge, there was no actual cruelty on the job.

"The allegation was that bad language was used by an employee on the property in front of the sheep, and that they could have been offended by the use of bad language." While describing claims about verbal abuse of animals as "rare", Mr Coleman said the RSPCA took such allegations seriously.

5 comments:

Jeff T. said...

Agree with you that PETA is a scam/cult/and full of crap philosophically. That being said- their secret videos of sheep treatment in Australia and here are pretty good- you'll never think od sheep-shearing as a benign activity again...

Dog Man said...

I AM not a Peta booster, But I DO however admire some of their work with downer cows and the like, we all need to see these things in order to make changes.
Please pass the local grass fed cattle and Buffalo, MMMN MMM GOOD.

Dog Man said...

You are overly sensitive I guess.Did I have to say I HATE Ingred Newkirk or Cleveland Amory, or I find HSUS Revolting?
I SAID I do respect some of their undercover filming in the meat industry as no one else was doing that. I CAN seperate the two things you know.
I hunt and kill and eat animals, use dogs in rescue work,and keep pets, and am old as dirt so I know every little nuance of the animal welfare scammers and crackpots, no need to lecture me. I am on the same page sir.
That said, I still think exposing horrible abuse such as sometimes occurs is a positive, regardless of the morons that provide the footage.

PBurns said...

Yes, exposing genuine animal abuse is a good thing.

I have said and written that more than a few times on this blog, and quoted others as well. Even put up video.

But all that is needed to expose abuse in this day and age is a cell phone, and it's being done all the time for FREE -- abuse of animals, abuse by police, abuse of building and safety codes.

You don't need to kill a hundred thousand acres of forest for direct mail paper, and you don't need to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars from gullible people in order to turn on a cell phone camera! I bet you have a perfectly good video machine in your pocket right now!

The downer cow lawsuits were filed under the False Claims Act (a law I have some expertise in) and the video was not from PETA but HSUS and Compassion Over Killing. Hagens Berman was the law firm, and HSUS collected nothing as the slaughter house went bankrupt.

Downer cows are almost all healthy cows that simply slipped a hock in transit. Cows are an enormous weight on a little ankle. They go down in the field and in their stalls pretty often (same as horses) and transport to slaughter is always tough. A cow loads fine and 60 miles later it's lame and cannot exit the truck. The cow is not sick -- it has a pulled muscle or perhaps it has broken a bone or cracked a hoof. Those cows are not to be used for human grade food (because veterinary time is expensive and the animal is likely in pain and needs to be dealt with), but they are not diseased.

So "downer' does NOT mean sick, and cameras are ubiquitous.

What was going on in the HSUs lawsuit was HSUS was looking to score big with a False Claims Act case that would bring in many millions of dollars -- something to replace the many millions of dollars they paid for RACKETEERING which they faced over their direct mail shennanigans. That big payout didn't happen. Instead, what happened was that over 35 million pounds of beef was thrown out for no health reason. There have been only 5 cases of BSE ("mad cow disease" -- the reason 'downer" cow rules were written) in the US in the last 22 years.

That said, every single day PETA declares war on ALL meat eating of ANY kind. They are not a health and safety organization, nor are they interested in improving the economics, safety and welfare of farm stock; they are a direct mail mill managed by radical vegans. They affirmatively oppose all cat and dog ownership and they kill every dog and cat they can because every DEAD dog and cat means no more dog food.

I hunt on farms that raise grass-fed cattle, chickens, and turkey. They are treated well, are grass-fed, and you can buy a quarter or a half or a whole of a cow. PETA opposes everything my farmers do, from curry-combing the bull, to erecting electric fences around the turkeys to keep out the coyotes. PETA is NOT about raising animals humanely for slaughter. That is NOT what they are about.

Dog Man said...

Ok, we are all on the same page, roughly, about PETA, HSUS, Fund for Animals, Et al.

However, some of the undercover filming of old ( before cell phones) did start a conversation that needed to take place, and is ongoing today.
Do I believe ANYTHING these folks say? Generally not without much documentation from other sources.

I know you, like I, am a big Dr. Oz booster ( not). Well, if you google Dr Oz animal abuse you will run into some interesting info on our buddy Dr. Mengele Oz getting fined for animal cruelty. The initial leak of this info was a Peta link to the fines and penalties paid by Oz and the university for killing puppies with no anesthesia.
This is totally fact, but was a Peta release initially, and as much as I I disrespect Peta and their goals, I can respect and use their information vetted by third parties and scrubbed of their political message.
And besides I hate Dr. Oz LOL!