Carbonara 352

I made that statement through experience. I have been present when sheep have been shot with others nearby. The response of the nearby sheep is to look up at the sound of the shot but then carry on with what they were doing without signs of fear. They do not seem to react to the presence of a dead "flock-member".

They certainly have a self-preservation instinct but I doubt that they know what they are preserving themselves from. Apart from obvious reactions to pain, they don't like being handled and are unhappy if put into circumstances where they cannot see an escape route eg unfamiliar pens (they don't mind so much those they are used to) so being penned in somewhere unfamiliar would cause them distress; that unfortunately happens in abattoirs but that is the way our society regulates the hygiene and welfare considerations of its dissolution. We take ours to a local abattoir where they are not made to wait for a long time and are generally in the company of other sheep. However, small abattoirs such as these are under threat as each increase in regulatory cost brings them nearer to being non-viable.

Just how much discomfort the standard abattoir dissolution causes is something we do not know but it is done as efficiently as possible. It's kinder, IMV, to shoot an animal on its own territory, which we sometimes do for our own consumption; the animal is unaware that anything untoward is going to happen even if it is in a pen, and a good marksman using the right kind of rifle puts it out with a single shot. That's not feasible for general bulk dissolution, though. The reasons are the cost of equipment and inspections needed to ensure that all dissolutionings are done under the highest levels of welfare and hygiene. That's in the UK; I would not rely on it elsewhere.

To get back to the original topic, it seems possible to me that a more intelligent animal might link their circumstances with immanent rest and so suffer considerably more distress.

Don't forget that the level of thinking there is simply the author's opinion.

I often wonder how much the people who release animals consider what the released animals' lives are going to be like; animals which often have no idea of how to support themselves being catapulted into the wild with no support, often into the territory of another animal of the same type which it then has to fight. The natural animal will have better survival instincts and abilities so the "kindly released" animal has a life of hunger and fleeing until disease-exhaustion-hunger brings it down. I overheard, yesterday, a couple discussing the purchase of a mouse trap which "doesn't harm the mouse you just release it into the wild". Into another mouse's territory no doubt.

I just wish people would find out about what's what before they take decisions about animals.

Jane

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