Cattle Slaughter in Indonesia - Issues of Truth

While resumption of trade of live cattle to Indonesia has resumed, the slaughter issues that led to the cessation of the trade are still making news.

There is a Senate inquiry running now in Australia and there have been significant doubts raised during hearings over the veracity of the video footage used / shown.

While the issues over veracity are both technical and animal behaviour related, they do pose some curious issues, issues that lead to more doubts about the origin and honesty of the video footage.

I do not know.......but some do believe the video footage may not be entirely truthful. If so........then the whole episode is a bit of a rort.

Whether that is the case does not necessarily indicate that slaughter could or could not be improved.......it could be and probably should be. And remember that good slaughter practices lead to better outcomes for the animal and the meat quality after slaughter.

This whole saga has a long way to run yet.

But while the live cattle trade has recommenced, it will not recover the prior volumes quickly. All those animals have grown and many now exceed the 350kg limit. More to read here:

http://qcl.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/livestock/cattle/abc-footage-under-fire/2299722.aspx?storypage=0

There are many other articles available too.

The cost to Australia is very large, and damage to relations with Indonesia cannot be easily costed in monetary terms. NT cattle producers have, however, lost a lot of money, money that will not be reappearing any time soon.