Page 157 - The Welfare of Cattle

134 the WeLfare of CattLe

electric prods, they must be used carefully and with discretion. If the tip of the tool is too sharp, the
author has observed instances in which the tip of the tool was burrowed into the skin of cattle due
to abuse by an operator.

assessment Methods

In-person

There are three parties that are potentially involved in the animal welfare auditing process.
They are simply known as first, second, and third parties. First-party auditors are employed by the
slaughter facility, typically in the quality assurance and food safety departments. In general, first-
party audits are considered to possess the least inherent credibility because they are analogous to
grading one’s own work. Although first-party audit results often have a high level of fidelity, they
are not considered to be highly trustworthy outside of plant walls due to the obvious conflict of
interest. Second-party audits are conducted by personnel that work for customers of a slaughter
establishment. These audits have a greater level of credibility than first-party audits but still contain
an implicit conflict of interest because a financial relationship exists between supplier and customer
in which the customer has a vested interest in the success of the supplier due to their contractual
relationship. Third-party audits are considered to provide the greatest level of inherent credibility
because an entity that is not directly linked to the supplier or the customer performs the audit. Most
third-party animal welfare audits in the U.S. Beef industry are conducted by food safety and qual-
ity auditing companies. The third-party audit company has a financial relationship with the entity
that pays for the audit, but this relationship is not practically avoidable in a fee-for-service arrange-
ment. Third-party animal welfare audits were initially offered in in-person format, where an auditor
would travel to the slaughter establishment and spend half a day or longer conducting their audit.
With improvements in video and data transfer technologies, remote video auditing has become
increasingly common.
The regular assessment of animal handling and welfare began in the late 1990s and early 2000s
in cattle and pig slaughter establishments. These types of assessments were initially conducted by
second-party food safety auditors of major quick service restaurant companies. As slaughter facili-
ties began to understand the value of the data that were collected during the animal handling and
welfare assessments, first-party auditing was widely adopted by the industry.

Video

In the mid-2000s, reports began to emerge among in-plant quality assurance personnel that
first-party audit data were not reflective of actual animal handling performance in slaughter facili-
ties. To a great extent, the discrepancy could be attributed to human nature as people typically put
forth their best effort when they are being monitored and may relax their individual performance
standards when they do not feel that they are being directly supervised. Remote video-auditing
technology had been developed for hospitals and daycare centers by the mid-2000s and remote
video auditing was developed and piloted for slaughter establishments by the end of 2006. The
release of the undercover expose at Hallmark Westland Packing in Chino, CA, in the beginning
of 2007 served as a catalyst for adoption of remote video-auditing technology by North American
slaughter establishments.
Remote video-auditing systems consist of a few standard components. They include the on-site
video recording system, Internet connection with appropriate bandwidth to support video data
transfer, and the off-site auditing center. The general concept of operating a remote video-auditing
system is based on the premise that the audit is conducted from outside of the location that is being
audited. The ability to monitor human performance on tasks such as animal handling from an