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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 19050
[Religious]
Date Posted:
12/15/2007
9:13:55 am EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 7,082
RSS: 17,187
Comments: 3
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Mass Lamb Slaughter Is Halted
Author: Mandy Locke Source: News Observer (NC)
Title: MASS LAMB SLAUGHTER IS HALTED
At the state's urging, a Johnston County judge on Friday told a farmer he couldn't open his farm next week to Muslim families planning to slaughter lambs as part of an annual religious celebration.
The order means that about 250 Muslim families in Wake County will have to make other arrangements for slaughtering lambs they bought in advance of the three-day festival known as Eid al-Adha, or Festival of the Sacrifice, which begins Wednesday. Eddie Rowe left the courtroom Friday afternoon carrying a black book full of names of people who bought a lamb and the right to kill it on his farm next week.
The Rowes have long been in a tangle with the state over the mass slaughter of lambs on their 300-acre Princeton farm. State agriculture officials say the Rowes must build a custom slaughter facility, which the family says would cost $740,000. State officials say mass slaughters conducted any other way are unsanitary and threaten an outbreak of disease.
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Community Thoughts: There are 3 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Sanitation And Biosecurity | Dec 15th. at 3:26:23 pm EST
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Lora (Leominster, Massachusetts) - Email Me
'"Once you've accepted home slaughter is OK, you must ask, is it better to do it one by one at a home or at a farm out in the country?" Barfield asked.'
One by one at home, in your very own backyard. Sorry dude, that's biology for ya.
Let's imagine for a minute that one of the 250 sheep has, oh I don't know, bluetongue. If I understand the proposition correctly, each individual family has bought their own sheep from no particular source, in other words, there are potentially 250 sources of sheep which are being brought together. So we understand that this is not a feedlot operation where thousands of sheep have all been raised together in a sort of quarantine and therefore present less risk of infection. We'll imagine that 1/250 sheep has a deadly communicable disease. This disease is brought to the farm, where there are presumably other animals which also can carry the disease. In the pen of 250 sheep, that one sheep infects 250 other sheep, plus the farm animals. Since there don't appear to be sanitary facilities for disposing of blood and innards, we'll assume the farmer is going to dispose of them on the property. If the farmer has any deer, elk, other hoofed wild animals surrounding the farm, now the wild animals are also infected and can spread the disease to neighboring farms. Additionally, without a sanitary facility, all those ordinary folks are going to track bits of blood, guts, and virus all over the place and possibly infecting every other hoofed animal they come into contact with. And who knows how careful this farmer dude will be about cleaning up guts and blood and disposing of them properly if he doesn't seem to know or care about the sanitation codes in the first place?
In contrast, if you butcher your own animal in your backyard, most people are not going to let a giant pile of guts and blood stink fester in their yard. It literally stinks to high heaven, so most people are going to be pretty careful about cleaning up, double-bagging guts and hosing the blood out of the grass, because they don't want to smell the stench themselves. Any diseased animals will only come into contact with the family alone, thereby minimizing risk to other animals and people.
Real simple example: Imagine a street of 100 houses. Each household has a pet cat. If one of those pet cats is sick, the other 99 are probably OK. Now imagine the Crazy Cat Lady who has 100 cats in one house. You get the idea.
No one is saying they can't slaughter a lamb. But apparently there is no religious requirement for everyone to slaughter them all together.
I also don't buy it that the sanitary facility would cost $740,000 to build. How exactly was this guy planning to process 250 sheep in a single day without any kind of building or staff anyway? Even if his idea was that he would demonstrate for them how to do it and supervise a bit, what was he going to string the carcasses from, 250 convenient trees? Was his idea that it's cold outside, therefore he doesn't need to provide adequate refrigeration? Was it Bring Your Own Cooler? I still don't get it--butchering is a lot of work and mostly you screw up the first few tries, how did he think he would supervise 250 people and keep 'em from chopping their thumbs off? The whole thing just sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Now, if he was the sheep rancher himself and had raised all the sheep together, and the people were paying him for the sheep and assistance with butchering and he had staff who could handle all the orders, plus refrigeration available, plus fencing around the perimeter (which he'd have as a sheep rancher anyway) , plus a gated entrance to the farm that would require people entering/leaving to walk across a sticky disinfectant mat and put on disposable coveralls, that would be OK. But it kinda sounds like this guy just wants to let people make a big pile of guts, blood, flies and stink on his land because he doesn't give a rat's behind about sanitation and has some buggered-up idea of The Olden Days and freedom to annoy your neighbors.
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| Dear Ms. Locke | Dec 15th. at 1:57:25 pm EST
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Dana Corby (Anderson Island, Washington) - Email Me
Dear Ms. Locke;
I think the State of Carolina will find, as a city in Florida (West Palm Beach, if I remember correctly) did when it attempted to stop Voudon practitioners from performing similar animal sacrifices, on similar spurious grounds, that it's in trouble. The Florida case went all the way to the State Supreme Court, where it was determined that there was no compelling reason for a governmental body to prevent serious religious practitioners from performing ritual slaughter. Public health experts testified that there was no public health risk at all and other witnesses finally admitted that the original ban had been erected simply because most people found the practice icky.
OK, so slaughtering animals is icky. When you get down to it, so is eating them, but we do it and you can't have one without the other. As for the ritual component, why is it acceptable to bless the food just before you eat it but not acceptable to bless and thank the food animal while it's still alive to receive your thanks? Why is it OK to whack it on the head and then hoist it by its back legs into the air (breaking its hip joints in the process) to cut its throat, but not OK to hold it in your arms, soothe it, and then quickly kill it? It's not only kinder to the animal, it's better for the meat, as it doesn't get all shot full of adrenaline and fear hormones. But it's icky; you might experience pity or even - - horrors! - - get blood on your Adidas.
The real reason communal ritual slaughter is objected to is not that its unhealthy - - and if those who object to outdoor slaughter had ever seen the inside of a slaughterhouse they'd never say that again - - but that it's done right out in the open, visibly, instead of hidden decently behind concrete walls.
Sincerely,
Dana Corby
Anderson Island, WA
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