Temple Grandin is a world-renowned animal rights advocate, famous for her intuitive understanding of animal minds. Now 63, she has five decades of ranching experience, two PhDs in animal behavior, countless invitations to speak at colleges and conferences around the world, and one noteworthy neurological disorder: Grandin is autistic.
Physically, her brain is unique. Scans have shown atypical wiring, with strong connections to the visual cortex and impaired connectivity elsewhere. As a result, Grandin thinks in pictures, not words. Her intellect is highly associative, and she is overly alert to sensory input—much like animals. She also has a photographic memory and the ability to engineer complex designs in her imagination, right down to the smallest mechanical details.
“Autism is a very big spectrum,” she explained in her interview with The Suit. “It goes all the way from the people who run big important companies out in Silicon Valley… to somebody who’s going to remain nonverbal, who’s severely handicapped.” Today, it’s clear that Grandin is on the high-functioning end of the spectrum. But it didn’t always seem that way.
“When I was two years old, I looked really severe,” she said. Growing up in the 1950s, she was slow to learn and extremely detached. Doctors recommended institutionalization, but her mother Eustacia Cutler disagreed; with the help of caretakers, she worked to teach her daughter about conventional patterns of social interaction. Today Grandin is grateful for that diligence, and she’s spreading the word about the hidden potential of the autistic mind.
“The worst thing you can do with an autistic two-year-old is just let them sit in the corner and rock,” she said. “That’s the worst thing you can do. You’ve got to really work with these guys one-on-one. That’s so important.”
Grandin made her way through the public school system, often struggling with ridicule and isolation. But her life gained new direction one summer during high school, when she visited her aunt’s ranch in Arizona. “It was luck,” she said. “If I hadn’t gone out to my aunt’s ranch, I wouldn’t have gotten interested in cattle. And then, of course, I got really fixated.” She saw that standard handling procedures were inefficient, and sometimes needlessly cruel. To her, the problems were obvious. But Grandin eventually realized that other people couldn’t see things the same way—and she decided to take matters into her own hands.
“I went to every feed yard in Arizona, and I worked with cattle and I mastered their handling facilities so I could start studying what kind of designs work and what kind of things don’t work,” she said.
Her method of learning was certainly unique. She would get down on all fours and crawl through cow chutes, taking pictures. She would lie down in pastures until the cows no longer feared her presence. She developed an affinity for squeeze chutes, a mechanism used for holding cattle still for vaccination, and even built one for herself after leaving the ranch.
The lessons she learned were simple, but important. Cows will move more willingly in chutes that are curved rather than straight. Small details like shadows and trash can make an animal balk. Floors should be solid, not slatted. And facilities should be well-lit. “We did a lot of simple changes like nonslip flooring, putting up solid sides so the animals don’t see people walking by, changing lighting—you know, the cattle are scared of the dark.”
At first, it was difficult for Grandin to get others to take her ideas seriously. In the male-dominated ranching industry, she was a woman who still struggled to master the rules of social interaction. But Grandin was persistent. She designed new facilities down to the last detail, and then learned to draw the blueprints herself. She fought to get her work published, and convinced a few key people to give her plans a shot. Eventually, Grandin proved that her ideas were not just better for cows—they made good business sense. Her facilities cost more to build, but they saved money in the long run by preventing back-ups and injuries.
Since those early innovations, Grandin has broadened her focus. “When I first started out, I thought I could fix everything with equipment,” she said. “Now I’ve realized I can only fix about half of the problems with equipment.” Instead, Grandin is teaching big businesses how to measure animal welfare.
“About 10 years ago I worked with McDonalds Corporation and Wendy’s and Burger King, teaching their food safety auditors how to do my Animal Welfare Audit Objective Scoring System. You measure just five simple things, like how many cattle are mooing in the stunning area. And that has resulted in some huge improvements.” Today, over half the cattle in North America have better lives thanks to Grandin’s work.
It’s clear that after 49 years of working on ranches, Grandin is just as passionate as ever; her voice lights up when she’s talking about livestock. But she seems equally enthusiastic about other things, too—like good barbeque. “No, I’m not a vegetarian,” she told The Suit Magazine. “I was just down in Louisiana, and I had great barbeque at the Baton Rouge airport, and then I stopped in Houston and had some more barbeque in the Houston airport.”
Some find it odd that Grandin eats meat, and that her work facilitates animal slaughter. After all, she fell in love with cows and horses at an early age; her instincts in the area are uncanny, and her empathy is deep. Early in her career, she visited slaughterhouses and was appalled by the neglect and abuse she witnessed there. But above all, Grandin is a thoroughly practical and detail-oriented woman. It is ethically acceptable for humans to raise livestock for food, she says. We just have to do it humanely.
“People forget that nature can be very harsh. What’s nice about wolves ripping a live animal’s guts out? Nothing nice about that,” she explained. “We owe these animals a decent life.”
Lately, Grandin’s work has entered a new phase; she’s stepping off the ranch and onto the stage. “When you get to the age that I’m at now, you’ve got to pass your knowledge on. And so it’s a different part of my career.” She draws large crowds around the world as a lecturer, discussing the true nature of autism. She also teaches animal behavior at Colorado State University, where her students are conducting ground-breaking research of their own.
But in the end, Grandin is most comfortable when she’s not in front of a crowd. “Well, I really miss working directly with the livestock,” she admits, and here her voice lights up again. “Just about a month ago I was out at a plant, and got to actually walk around a job, and we looked at drawings on the hood of a truck. And I have to say I got a little construction fix there that I really enjoyed! I miss that.”
For more information, please visit: www.templegrandin.com
