Animal Oppression and Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism, and Global Conflict (Critical Perspectives on Animals: Theory, Culture, Science, and Law) by David A. Nibert

Author:David A. Nibert
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: NAT039000, Nature/Animal Rights, History/Civilization, HIS039000
ISBN: 9780231151894
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2013-05-06T23:00:00+00:00

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Ranchers benefited from their political power and ties to government power in other ways, including by lobbying Washington for programs and funds to exterminate free-living animals that “competed” with cows and sheep for pasture or were considered profit-reducing predators. The Forest Service began advising ranchers on the use of techniques to kill the “troublesome” animals, and by 1914 the federal government was funding their extermination. In 1920, the United States was pursuing chemical warfare against free-living plains animals and created the Eradication Methods Laboratory in New Mexico to experiment with toxins. In 1921, the project was moved to Denver and renamed the Control Methods Research Laboratory.

As the “meat” industry stepped up the level of violence against free-living animals in ranching areas, ranched animals continued to experience the same torturous transport and slaughterhouse treatment that critics had decried decades earlier. In 1921, a writer for an industry publication, The Breeders’ Gazette, offered a by now familiar account of the transportation of animals bound for the slaughterhouse.

The high arbitrary carload rates then charged for the transportation of stock induced overloading as a measure of economy. The result was that the weaker animals were knocked down by the bumping and rolling of the train, and trampled on by others until helpless or dead; or, if they were able to rise, were frequently so injured that they afterwards died. In hot weather the suffering was intense. All this added to the death toll and loss to the shipper….

Railroad pens at places where the stock was loaded or unloaded were as a rule not sheltered, and much of the time knee-deep in mud and filth, making it impossible for animals to lie down to rest….

It was the invariable custom for shippers and attendants in charge of cattle shipments to carry lanterns and an instrument known as a “prod pole.” It consisted of a heavy handle, nearly six feet long, with a sharp iron or steel spike extending from one end a half-inch or more. This was used to prod the other animals in the car aside, while a “down steer” could be encouraged by the sharp point to take his place in the ranks. The prod pole was also equipped with a flat-headed screw, driven into it near the “business” end, and extending out a short distance at right angles from the pole. When the “down steer” refused to respond to the numerous jabs and such language as was employed on those occasions, the end of the pole with the attached screw was engaged with the matted end of his tail, and by sundry twists, turns or pulls on the pole a severe strain was applied to that sensitive appendage. If the prostrate steer had life or strength enough left in him to rise, this treatment would bring about the desired results.9

Public consumption of commodities derived from such oppression, especially “hamburgers,” got a fateful boost in 1916, when J. Walter Anderson, a short-order cook in Wichita, Kansas, began selling “hamburger” sandwiches for five cents apiece from a former shoe repair shop that he fashioned into a sandwich stand.

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