Hi Hakan
Joe,
Only a couple of complementary things,
The Elk an Moose also like clear cut, but they are very bad for
forest management. They eat the top of the newly planted trees.
Clear cuts are also bad, since it often result in that the top soil
is washed down the streams and over fertilize them. this in its
turn results in greater vulnerability to the acid rains from industrial
areas, that kills our lakes. The only reason for clear cut, is the
adoption to modern machinery.
Proper forest management was developed in Southern Germany
around 200 years ago and was implemented in Sweden 150 years
ago.
Round the same time in Britain I think. In most of Europe in various
forms, I suppose. Anyway, sustainable forest management, very
productive, good for the local economy.
It has proven its viability, but clear cut was not a part of the
those methods.
Why we get a large amount of bushes etc. in clear cuts, is not
because of more sunlight, it is because a lack of pines to control
the vegetation. The pine tree is releasing chemicals from the needles
it drops, that limit the under vegetation and give the pines the
space and nutrition to grow. It is their way of fighting the competition
and only allow species that are good for them.
Fires have always been a natural part of the forest cycle, to keep
the ground relatively clean and add nutrients. This is also done in
good forest management, which starts to be a thing of the past and
had to give way for the use of large machines.
All of this and much more, are to be found in the biofuel archives
from earlier extensive discussions. No need to repeat it in full.
Harvesting properly managed forests for building material, has been
proven viable for more than 150 years. We are also "killing" plants
for food like bread etc. and the way the subject provoke is misleading
and ignorant. We even "kill" animals to eat, but the real abuse is not
that we kill them, it is often worse with the way we let them live.
Yes... But also with how we kill them (see below). And how we feed
them, and how we deal with the wastes. Or at least with how the
agribusiness corporations do it.
Best wishes
Keith
THE
AGRIBUSINESS
EXAMINER
July 5,, 2005, Issue #412
Monitoring Corporate Agribusiness
From a Public Interest Perspective
Exclusive:
"Best Chicken Killer In Arkansas" Tells Of Tyson Foods' Inhumane
Slaughter Of Poultry And Coverup
VIRGIL BUTLER
Special to THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER
July 29, 2005
I worked in Tyson Foods slaughter plants for over ten years, much of
that time spent in the killing room. I was employee of the month on
four different occasions and, for the last three years, trained the
new killers. I was once even told by the plant manager that I was
"the best killer in Arkansas."
I have obtained a copy of the PETA tape [See Reprint of PETA story
--- Issue #408 --- below] and watched it over and over again,
analyzing what exactly was captured on it. I even watched it in slow
motion. It takes a trained eye to catch these things, and I certainly
have one. There is no doubt at all in my mind that Tyson is the one
at fault here, as their killing machine was acting up and severely
mutilating those birds.
At one point on the tape, the supervisor even admits this. I saw this
same problem many nights that I worked for Tyson through the years,
so I find that the investigator and the tape to be entirely credible
and that Tyson is simply lying to cover their own selves.
The way they are attacking the investigator is the same way they
attacked me when I brought a bright spotlight into the dark corners
of what goes on behind the scenes of those houses of horror and
outright torture, coming forward and swearing out a formal statement.
They can't refute the message, as they know it to be true, so they
attack the messenger. It is an old tactic and the only one to resort
to when you are caught the way they have been. They even support
Consumer Freedom, who freely admits the use of such tactics.
It was not uncommon at all for me to spend two to three weeks
training a new-hire to kill. I find the fact that they put an
untrained person in there to do that job without any training to be a
serious concern and a very bad judgment call. There's no doubt in my
mind that the investigator probably missed many more chickens than
even he realized and that were subsequently scalded alive.
If you listen to the tape closely, you can even hear the baby chicks
(because, let's face it --- that's what they are, no matter how the
industry has manipulated them to gain the size they are at slaughter)
peeping as they are lowered into the scalding tanks.
It's not just the uncut birds that you have to watch for. It takes a
trained eye to watch for the miscuts. Those are the ones that are the
hardest to spot. In order for the chicken to bleed to death before
she hits the scalding tank, both the carotid arteries and the jugular
vein must be severed completely.
Otherwise, what happens is that you see a lot of surface blood, but
it isn't enough for the chicken to die before she reaches the
scalding tanks. Even if the chicken is cut right, if she has been
partially smothered on the belt, then she still will not bleed out in
time. And she will still be scalded while conscious and feeling,
completely sentient and fully aware of what is happening.
When Tyson claims that the investigator should have stopped the line
and sounded an alarm when a chicken was about to be scalded, I
actually laughed out loud. That man would have been fired for doing
something like that, or at the very least have been written up and
severely reprimanded and reminded of the cost of pulling such a stunt
for one chicken.
The very fact that the supervisor admits that Tyson allows up to 40
birds to be scalded alive every day and that they accept the fact
that it is impossible for the killer to get them all nullifies that
lame argument anyway. When you add on top of that the fact that an
untrained and inexperienced killer is put in there who can't even
spot the ones who are still alive, then the problem is even worse.
I don't know the exact speed of the line that he was working on, but
I have worked on lines ranging in speed from 142-186 birds per
minute, depending on the plant. That in itself should explain the
difficulty of the job. Nobody that has ever worked the killing room
will ever tell you that you will catch every one, no matter how hard
you try.
That fact is also admitted on the tape by the supervisor when he explains that
the plant had allowed for 40 birds to be scalded alive per day and
that figure had been increased from 15.
I find it hard to believe that an untrained killer was able to keep
to that number, and although that may be mere speculation on my part,
my experience gives me the ability and the knowledge to make such
statements with certainty.
As for the decapitation part of it. Well, on that video I clearly saw
the knives that the killers are supposed to use to kill the birds
with that miss the killing machine or are miscut laying on the edge
of the blood trough.
I only saw a knife used once during that video because the person was
too busy using the hose to wash off the blood trough to be actually
killing the missed birds. At all of the plants that I worked at, it
was considered the killer's job to keep the blood trough washed down.
It was also his responsibility to keep the killing machine washed
down. And it was also considered his responsibility to keep his knife
sharpened, all while he was supposed to be killing. Now, you tell me
how someone is supposed to do all of that and NOT miss birds? Can
anyone? I know that I couldn't, even if I was "the best killer in
Arkansas."
The whole time I worked for Tyson, I had never even heard of an
"animal welfare policy." I certainly never was asked to sign such a
document or attend any training whatsoever.
In fact, the timing of the announcement from Tyson that they were
gong to implement such a policy happened when they found out that I
was going to speak out about these kinds of things publicly when a
reporter called them about writing a story about this problem. And I
did.
The Los Angeles Times wrote a story about it all. (Although they no
longer have it up on their site, it is still up on many other sites,
including Common Dreams here:)
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1208-07.htm>
As far as the papers being signed, when you are hired, you are given
a stack of papers to sign without being given the time to read what
you are signing, so if the investigator in fact signed such a
document that he received such animal welfare training, it would not
surprise me. What would surprise me was if he actually did receive it.
I believe that Tyson's accusations against the PETA inspector are
ludicrous and a lame attempt to cover their own selves. Every single
thing I saw on that video was common industry practice during all of
the years that I worked for Tyson.
I am fighting for the workers, the small family farmers, the
environment, and the rural communities like the one I live in (Pine
Ridge, Arkansas, pop. 18) just as much as I am for the plight of the
poor chickens being daily tortured inside the hellholes of places
like Tyson slaughter plants.
They are all victims of the factory farming industry, and they
certainly need all the help they can get.
EDITOR'S NOTE: In an e-mail to THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER Butler adds:
"You have my full permission to take this story and use it in any way
you see fit, including publishing. Same for anything you find on my
blog site (listed below), where the early archives tell the most
graphic stories that really upset Tyson and interested the LA Times
and, eventually, the world.
"I have been targeted by not only Tyson, but the corrupt law
enforcement officers that act as their lackeys ever since. But I
will not stop speaking any more than you will as long as the
injustice continues."
"The Cyberactivist"
<http://cyberactivist.blogspot.com/>http://cyberactivist.blogspot.com/
Founder of Activists Against Factory Farming
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/activistsagainstfactoryfarming/>http://
groups.yahoo.com/group/activistsagainstfactoryfarming/
<http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AgainstFactoryFarming>http://www.care2
.com/c2c/group/AgainstFactoryFarming
Tyson Foods Says It Will Investigate Allegations Of Inhumane
Treatment During Chicken Slaughter
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Tyson Foods Inc. said Wednesday it will investigate
allegations of inhumane chicken slaughter, but contended that an
undercover animal-rights photographer apparently violated company
policies by videotaping "what he should have been preventing."
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, distributed
videotapes and launched a Web site accusing Tyson of mutilating birds
and scalding thousands while they were conscious in an Alabama
slaughterhouse. The group also said its videotape shows workers
tearing heads off live chickens.
Tyson, the world's largest poultry processor, said a veterinarian
from its Office of Animal Well-Being will look into the allegations.
Tyson also raised the possibility of evidence manipulation by PETA's
undercover agent, who was employed at the Heflin, Alabama, facility
for several weeks.
It said the man had signed a document confirming he had completed the
company's animal-welfare training "and was responsible for ensuring
that no birds remained alive. His job gave him the responsibility to
process any live birds, stop the line or sound an alarm if there was
a problem.
"Instead, it appears PETA's agent violated Tyson's animal-welfare
policy by allowing some conscious birds to go into the scald tank for
the sole purpose of videotaping what he should have been preventing.
"We also take issue with PETA claims of manual decapitation of live
birds," Tyson said in a statement. "We believe the carefully edited
video is showing birds that have already been cut by an automatic
knife and are either dead or have been rendered unconscious."
Responding to the company's statement, PETA said its investigator had
been "taught to rip the animals' heads off by a plant supervisor, for
when there are too many who miss the neck slicer."
The group also said the man tried to slow the processing line but
quit because the plant's policy allowed a certain number of birds to
be scalded while conscious.
Tyson said it continues to research the use of a procedure that PETA
has urged the industry to adopt. It uses an inert gas to stun the
chickens before they are killed. "Experts are divided over whether it
is more humane," the company said.
Last year, PETA brought charges of animal abuse against Pilgrim's
Pride Corp., which subsequently fired several chicken slaughterhouse
workers caught on videotape. West Virginia officials decided not to
bring criminal charges.
PETA has an ongoing campaign seeking to convince the KFC unit of Yum
Brands Inc. to insist its suppliers use controlled-atmosphere
slaughter procedures.
In afternoon trading, shares of Tyson slipped 23 cents to $18.77 on
the New York Stock Exchange. [ May 25, 2005 ]
Hakan
At 04:15 PM 7/6/2005, you wrote:
Hi Chris;
<>Granted a mature forest supports a
<>different ecology than a second growth but for instance studies have
<>shown that there is more food for bears in a clearcut zone than there is
in a mature forest.<
i don't see the relevance of this. you could make the same argument for
garbage dumps. does that mean we should be sending all these huge
barges full of
waste to the canadian wilderness? who conducted these studies?
and who funded
them?
Well here in Canada there is a very strong movement for the
preservation of wildlife habitat and bears are a favorite focus
point. The welfare of bears seems to have become a symbol of
environmental awareness for some folks, so much so that due to
restrictions in hunting regulations we have a situation in northern
Ontario where bears are litterally trying to break in to people's
houses. There is a misguided notion that clearcutting forests puts
the bear population at risk and this is clearly an example of
public misinformation which is gladly exploited by those who would
like to see all logging in this country put to an end. I admit I
don't know about the details of the studies I mentioned but I can
get references. I am speaking from experience though. I spend a lot
of time roaming around the forests of this country and I have come
across bears many times and often enough to have a general sense of
the likelihood and frequency of such encounters in a remote
forest of Canada be it hardwood, softwood or boreal. Let me tell
you walking around in a clearcut in northern B.C. is a different
experience where it is routine to see bears EVERY DAY and often
several times a day, so much so that it requires a different
attitude to being out there. Clearcutting results in a more
plentiful food supply for bears so much so that they are beginning
to overpopulate which is also not natural and is a problem in
itself ( for people AND bears). I used this example not to say
that clearcutting is good but rather just to illustrate that there
are misconceptions about the lumber industry destroying habitat and
threatening the extinction of bears which are pervasive and
obviously untrue. I guess I can't blame ecoterrorist mouthpieces
like David Suzuki for using the same fear mongering and
disinformation tactics to arouse us that the wealthy commonly use
to keep us all hypnotized with our faces in the food trough of
excess. But I don't have to like it.
forest fires have been sending co2 into the atmosphere for
millenia, but that
isn't what has precipitated global warming. furhtermore, in the case of
north america, fire has been one of the primary evolutionary forces. the
ecosystem of this continent has a sort of co-dependency with fire;
sort of like a
purging/renewal mechanism. in fact, there are certain conifers
which need the
high tempatures of a wildfire for their cones to open and release the seeds.
Yes the Jack Pine cone requires heat to release it's seeds and
after a fire a similar thing happens to the burnt area due to
opening up the forest floor to sunlight as what happens after
mature trees are removed although the ground is not torn up and
looking like an ugly wound on the earth as a clearcut does. ( If
you've never seen one up close you can't imagine how ugly it is).
Many scrub plants and berry bushes suddenly shoot up where they
couldn't grow before due to lack of light. You are right that fire
does beneficial things but my point was that something useful to
human life is also lost and we still have the need for it so we
will still take it from somewhere else resulting in deforestation
in two places. If we were to go in and selectively remove the
largest trees which are most likely to get a lightning strike and
have the most board feet of lumber we can reduce the loss to fire,
keep that CO2 sequestered, and make use of the wood
simultaneously. More and more this is becoming an approach the
logging industry is taking. It is more costly than clearcutting
and hence would result in an increase in luber costs for the
consumer which is something I eagerly applaud. I smile when I
consider the day when our cost of living will skyrocket in this
society. As it should.
Having said this I also want to say that I agree we should set
asside certain areas like the old growth coastal rain forests with
the huge douglas firs and sitka spruce that escaped the last
glaciation and are something truely wonderful to behold and spend
time in just as we do with other natural wonders.
i don't know about this, but i've kind of always assumed that a plant's
'oxygen cycle' and 'co2 cycle' pretty much cancel each other out.
but there's no
denying that trees sequester large quantities of carbon (breaking
down co2 to
do so, no?).
Yeah if only humans were as smart as plants........
Joe
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