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Key conference quotes The following are key quotes from the speakers that Dan Murphy considers representative of the essence of the messages presented – the take-away messages. Our thanks to Dan for providing his insight. John Webster "Greater cognitive ability is not linked to levels of pain perception or suffering. Both suffering and pleasure are defined by the capacity to feel - not think." Dan: "To me, this points to the fallacy of thinking that the "smarter" the animal, the more they feel pain or suffering, which could be used to justify less-than-acceptable treatment of chickens, turkeys and other "less intelligent" species – and conversely, underscores the reverse fallacy that "smarter" animals, like horses, deserve special treatment." Ed Pajor "Resource-based standards – although easy to measure – are inadequate to assess animal welfare. Although harder to measure, animal-based criteria make a more effective assessment tool." Dan: "This is a key insight into the clash between academic and industry generated welfare standards and the paradigm embraced by the animal activists. By the standards of "resources," adding square inches to a chicken's cage, for instance, could be argued as a hugely significant improvement in animal welfare (and has been!), while activists – correctly in this case– question the validity of such a method of measuring welfare." Terry Whiting "Right now, we have greater consensus on gun control than on animal welfare. But my hope is that in time, there will be an alignment of animal use and social values, while maintaining personal liberty [for producers]." John Church "What's critical is training and [implementation of] proper procedures – giving the workers in plants and in the pens the tools that allow them to behave humanely." Dan: "The point here is that without the right tools and the right training, no matter how individually motivated the meat plant worker (or livestock transport worker) might be, if they are in an environment that does not equip them to handle animal humanely, it's not going to happen." Temple Grandin "The problem [with government] is that animal welfare regulations and laws are written as vague and non-specific standards. For example: 'Unnecessary pain and suffering.' How do you measure that? What is needed are numbers, standards that can be easily measured and expressed as a number or a percentage of compliance. Everybody understands that." Dan: "This demonstrates Temple's most important contribution to animal welfare auditing, in my opinion. Along with Ed's observation, this is the insight that has most effectively driven auditing in the direction of making the process a lever for positive change in animal handling and animal welfare in North American meat plants."
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