It seemed very very obvious that was the only way they could think. Now there's also some evidence in human beings that language covers up the more visual thinking the more sort of sensory based thinking that we might share with animals. There's a type of Alzheimer's called frontal temporal lobe dementia that, in a few rare cases, when it destroysthe frontal cortex and the language parts of the brain, art work or skill in photography will appear in a person who's had no previous interest in art.
That's so interesting. So, where does that new
talent come from? Oh, you're saying it was there all along but the language covered it up.
That's right. The language covered it up. It was lying there dormant and what happened was in some of these patients - this is Bruce Miller's work published in the Journal of Neurology - they had a four or five year window where this talent was expressed and then the Alzheimer's just wrecked everything. What happens is that the Alzheimer's takes out the frontal cortex first, and then goes down into the language part and wrecks that, and then the last part of the brain it wrecks is the visual cortex.
Let's go back to the animals for a minute, if you don't mind. You've translated your ability to understand animals into their more humane treatment in livestock pens and the meat packing industry.
One of the things that I started looking at very early in my career was all the little things that animals are afraid of. You know I'd get down in the chutes and I could see that the cattle would balk at a shadow, or a shiny reflection, or a chain hanging down and all these things that people tend to not notice. And if you removed these things from the facility, then the animals are going to walk right up the chute.
Were you surprised that people didn't see what you saw so easily?
I thought everyone would be capable of seeing it. People just sort of don't think that's important. I've worked with a number of different people on making training videos on cattle handling and I've worked on three different training videos in different countries even and people have a tendency to leave out the importance of removing these little distractions that scare the animals; like chains hanging down, the reflections and the shadows. Because if you're running a lot of cattle through a vaccinating chute or through a meat plant and you've got a chain hanging down or they see a reflection on a wet floor, they're just not going to want to move. So you change the lighting to get rid of that reflection, then they'll walk right up the chute.
Once you show management how this works, and they see that you're right, aren't they eager to adapt your techniques?
Oh yeah, they are. And I find that I can help people do this by giving them long checklists. I tell them to get down in the chute and see exactly what the cattle would be seeing. In fact, in Animals in Translation, there's a long check list for people, things they need to look for.
People may wonder why it's so important to be
humane when, in the end, the animals are still dead and we eat them.
Well, it causes pain if you're not nice to them. I mean you wouldn't say to this person "It only takes a second to yank out a tooth so we're not going to use any anesthetics.
Ouch. Great analogy!
Animals feel pain. You wouldn't say "We're going to take Granny and throw her over in a corner of the nursing home. Now, of course, keep her alive. It's really important to prevent suffering and animals are definitely capable of feeling pain and fear. There's absolutely no question about that. That's very well documented in the scientific literature.
Let's pause here, Temple. When we return, we'll talk about how you got interested in humane treatment of livestock in the first place and what you've found in the field. Please join us.
continue reading Part Two, Talking with Dr. Temple Grandin, Author of "Animals in Translation"
