Caple Questions Four Corners' Authenticity

[Steve]

http://sl.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/livestock/cattle/caple-questions-four-corners-authenticity/2299686.aspx

THE authenticity of footage used in the ABC Four Corners program, "A Bloody Business", has been questioned by veterinarian, Dr Ivan Caple, due to the level of guttural bellowing sounds from cattle shown in the program.

Dr Caple is Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Melbourne.

He conducted an independent assessment of the Indonesia’s abattoir slaughter practices with three other senior veterinarians in March last year, providing an overall positive conclusion that animal welfare standards were "generally good".

But that report has contrasted starkly with the gruesome footage supplied to the ABC by Animals Australia from its investigation last March, when investigator, Lyn White, posed as a tourist to gain access to abattoirs.

Dr Caple raised the allegations about excessive bellowing last week at the Federal Senate hearing into animal welfare standards in Australia’s live export markets.

The inquiry was instigated after the government’s suspension of live cattle exports to the $320 million Indonesian market, following public outrage generated by the ABC program on May 30.

Dr Caple said the only video he trusted was "what I take myself".

"The main difference between the video footage from Animals Australia and what we saw and recorded was bellowing," he said.

"From memory, I think, in the video footage that Bidda Jones (RSPCA) analysed, 54 per cent of the animals slaughtered vocalised.

"We heard one out of 29 animals vocalise - that was a shorthorn at a traditional abattoir and it bellowed as it was pulled down to the ring on the ground before its throat was cut.

"We did not hear any vocalisation from the other animals that we saw slaughtered, or restrained and then slaughtered.

"We noticed the complete absence of bellowing and noise associated with disturbed cattle in any of the feedlots we went to - and some of those feedlots had 30,000 cattle.

"We were absolutely astounded by how quiet the cattle were and how close the people who were looking after the animals were to them."

Asked how the footage could be fabricated, Dr Caple said "I am told editors can be very clever at editing video and putting additional bellows in".

"Unless someone was there, independently assessing what was really going on and recording, video image by itself is not adequate (evidence)," he said.

Dr Caple also questioned a report from RSPCA Australia, tabled to the Senate inquiry, which included an analysis of Animals Australia’s video footage.

He said the type of analysis presented in the RSPCA Australia report "certainly would not meet the standards required for investigations conducted by registered veterinary practitioners".

"The RSPCA Australia report does not appear to be peer reviewed," he said.

"Until that report has been put through that process I am fairly sceptical as to the observations and conclusions made in it."

Dr Caple was Chair of the National Consultative Committee on Animal Welfare for three terms, from October 1997 to June 2006.

The independent panel he led in March 2010, assessing Indonesia’s abattoir slaughter practices, included two Australian veterinarians, Dr Penelope McGowan and Dr Paul Cusack, and Professor Neville Gregory from the University of London.

Dr Caple said Professor Gregory was a member of the animal welfare working group of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and had done a "lifetime" of research on cattle slaughter.

During their investigation, the panel visited 13 Indonesian abattoirs and witnessed 29 animals being slaughtered, in reaching their overall conclusion.

They arrived both announced and unannounced, took photographs and notes, and audited what they saw according to OIE practices.

Dr Caple said he only saw one abattoir where a tail was broken, and that on a couple of occasions the panel saw cattle head restraint "with a thumb in an eye socket, but no eye-gouging".

"We wrote what we saw, so what is in our report was truthful," he said.

"The thing we questioned was that at some practices they started throwing water over the animal before they had it adequately restrained and we said: 'Well, you don't need to do that. The animal is too stimulated'.

"We wrote that in our report, and we assumed that had been addressed, but from what I saw on the Four Corners program that is still occurring."

Dr Caple said his report identified areas that needed attention, but not the type of cruelty exhibited on the program, "A Bloody Business".

He said "we would have rang the minister" if they had seen anything like the practices shown on the program.

Dr Caple said the independent panel was very strongly of the opinion that banning live exports would not improve cattle welfare in Indonesia - or any other country receiving live animals from Australia.

He said the panel made a recommendation for stunning as an "excellent" way to restrain an animal.

Dr Caple said he tried - under freedom of information - to find out which footage was the ABC’s and which was provided by Animals Australia in Four Corners’ final cut, but was "told to get lost".

He said he visited the ABC’s Ultimo Studios on 27 April before the Four Corners producers left for Indonesia to conduct their own investigation and showed them evidence of his industry report, including the names of abattoirs he and the other experts visited and outcomes.

But he was disappointed that an edited transcript of the interview with him, which appears on the ABC website, doesn’t match with the video footage shown on the final program.

Dr Caple has made a formal complaint to the ABC about the issue, which has been referred to the ABC's legal department.

"If the ABC adhered to its Code of Practice, the doubts that I certainly have in my mind, the doubts that the Australian veterinary profession has in mind, regarding this program would not occur," he said.

"I am shown there like a goose saying, 'We found nothing a problem,' and behind there are all these horrific things - I was never shown any video.

"That was the basis of my complaint."

Dr Caple said the Veterinary Practitioners Registration Board of Victoria required digital images and video tape, provided by third parties, to be checked for authenticity to provide reliable evidence in an investigation.

He said the Board would not accept photocopies of documents from barristers and only wanted to see original documents in its investigations.

Dr Caple said the type of treatment seen in the ABC/Animals Australia video footage "should not happen to cattle anywhere".

"If this supply chain assurance can be made to work so that we can track those (Australian) animals wherever they go in the world and have an audit report that they are slaughtered appropriately, we will have made a major improvement," he said.

Senator Nick Xenophon asked Federal Agriculture Department officials if they believed Professor Caple's evidence, asserting that the footage from Animals Australia was in some way fabricated or changed.

Acting Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Robert Biddle, said it was not the Department’s role to forensically examine the authenticity of material provided, although they would be alerted, if there were any problems.

Acting Department Deputy Secretary, Paul Morris, said, "We are not raising any questions about the veracity or otherwise of the footage".

The RSPCA and Animals Australia said Dr Caple’s claims were not worth responding to.