Statement from debate on slaughtering at Slate, a user made this comment:
“The cows are too stupid too relaize what’s going on, beyond a general sense of panic and chaos, but the pigs are smart enought to know they’re going to die.”
Is this true, or just ‘hogwash’? I know pigs are one of the smartest animals, and smarter than bovines, but talk to me here
Hard to say.
Animal intelligence is very, very different from our own. Recent research has shown many species to be much 'smarter" than we thought they were even a few years ago. (No research seems to heading towards an opposite conclusion.)
One of the largest windows we have into the mind of any animal is the still new field of parrot research. Parrots can speak our language, and at their best express complex thoughts. But we have no clue as of now about their thoughts on complex concepts like life, death and mortality.
When we handle animals we ought to do it gently and with kindness. We should do this not only because animals can benefit from this, but because we want to be gentle and kind persons. It is difficult to see how we could come to regret treating animals with respect.
How could they? How would they find out? Is the yudasgoat a big talker?
Perhaps by the sounds or smells they detect. (Perhaps through ESP, but I doubt it.)
Animals only react to what they learn. A calf watches it’s mother and reacts as she reacts. This is why if you raise a animal from hand they don’t fear humans, therefore if you release them in the wild they don’t have the correct fears.
Like with the California Condors, the first ones released were killed because they weren’t properly fearing animals.
Now I could see how a pig would understand it was going to die (or somewhere unpleasent) IF they had been to the slaughterhouse before. I had a cat and made the mistake of only taking her in the car to go to the vet. She instantly became frightened whenever we tried to put her in the car. She associated car = rabies shot
No one can know for sure, but I doubt it based on my limited experience. Last summer we raised 4 hogs. When it came time to slaughter them, they came running, expecting food. We slaughtered, skinned, and halved them one at a time just outside the fence. They did not seem to catch on, and the last ran up to us just as happily as the first.
Granted, this is vastly different than a commercial slaughterhouse. They were very comfortable around people, as they were hand fed. They were not transported to a slaughterhouse, so they were not under any stress prior to slaughter besides being deprived of food for a few hours. They were dead before they hit the ground, so they just squirmed for a few minutes reflexively. Still, you’d think the last one would have had some clue.
I have been in both pork and beef slaughter houses. The death row line-up is in sight of the kill station. The line gets progressively smaller until it is one at a time. Steers seem to be a bit claustrophobic, and will try to get out of the conveyor. Once out it is up to the individual as to whether it will try to bolt, or just stand there. Hogs, on the other hand are riled up by the smell of blood. If they get out of the containment, they usually head for the blood pit, and start slurping it up. Of the times I witnessed an escapee, all of the hogs went for their final meal in the pit.
The steers are the dangerous ones, you can’t really predict where they will go, for the most part the ones that do bolt are trying to escape the cramped, noisy environment.
Neither really showed any sign they knew what was happening to their fellows in front.
I was going to say how a hog will head for the smell of blood. They will eat their own.
Here’s a couple of stories from personal experience. Once I had 4 pigs get into an empty silo to feed on the residual silage in the bottom. The first one was easy to get out, it was just a matter of gaining his confidence and then abusing it. I grabbed him by the front and rear leg and slung him out of the thing while he squealed and struggled. He was easy, but the rest were nearly impossible. The remaing three pigs had seen how unhappy the first one was made by the experience, and would have none of it. Catching three pigs in a round room is not a fun time, unless you’re watching someone else do it.
Fast forward to the fall, when it’s time to slaughter the hogs. I go into the pen with my handgun and shoot one hog in the forehead. He drops dead instantly. The rest sniff at him curiously, but no big deal. After working up hog number one I go back into the pen and calmly walk up to the next one. There’s no fear, no struggle, the hog seemed to have no sense of danger.
My experience is that seeing sudden and painless death without struggle is not upsetting to a pig. On the other hand, I suspect that if you prodded one once with a cattle prod you’d have a good deal of trouble getting close enough to any others that had seen it do it again. It’s the reaction of the pig that influences the rest.
Well, if anyone should know about Death, it’d be Bill Door.
They can hear the screams/squeals, smell the blood= they get nervous. But so do cattle. No doubt, pigs are smarter.
“Know they are going to die”? Very doubtful.:dubious:
I don’t know accurate it is, but I have been told that they can smell it if other pigs have been stressed or in fear in the same place shortly before and that can create vicious circles. Even if none of the pigs involved had any idea what was about to happen they can still sense that other pigs had a bad feeling about this and react accordingly.
So, do we accept whether a pig can show fear then? If humans are the only animals with a concept of the end of self, how much different might we behave without it?
Could you provide a cite for this?
Sure, we should be careful not to read to much into such anthromorphic terms but I would still argue that some animals have a “distress mode” that is close enough to fear that “fear” is at least a reasonable metaphor even if we ignore the philosophical details for the moment.
Some philosopher/poet said that the difference between man and sheep is that man sees the knife from the first.
Industrial livestock slaughter would be impossible if cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens, etc had any awareness of death. While cattle and hogs can be difficult to control in slaughter pens and chutes it is the same behavior they demonstrate when lined up for vaccinations or ear tagging. It is a new experience and they don’t like it. It’s not as if they are fleeing for their very lives. Indeed, if the killing is done in an orderly and calm manner they just stand there oblivious to the whole thing.
My grandfather told of watching artillery horses standing under shell fire in France in WWI. They just stood there in harness, not stirring unless a team mate went down and then only moving aside to avoid the wounded beast’s kicking and convulsions. This is the same grandfather that reported that harness buckles occasionally showed up in the beef stew.
No, most (if not all) dumb animals do not fear or understand death.
Based on my experiences as a hunter and trapper and life-long pet-keeper /burier, I’d say the claim in the OP is utter BS. Do animals feel fear? Possibly. Do they know they’re going to die? No way.
For some reason, the thought of horses in a battle situation or a war-zone makes me feel so sad. I knew a horse that used to panic if a crisp bag blew past it! 
Nonsense. It’s highly debatable whether any animals have anyhtintg that could be called a language, what is absolutely certain is that no animal can speak any human language.
No, they can not. It’s highly debatable whether they can even even use language (as opposed to sounds) to express the most basic thoughts.
That’s because there is no evidence whatsoever that animals have any ability at all to comprehend such concepts and a lot of evdience that they are incapable of understanding it. The single exception is that elephants may have some rudimentary concept of death.
No it isn’t. In most cases it costs money and endagers human lives to name two of the most blindingly obvious causes of regret.
Are you saying that no animals instinctively fear anything? A rabbit has to learn to be afraid of a fox? It doesn’t sound right to me.