by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Most human carnivores don't think about where their meat comes from. For those who consider themselves more enlightened, much angst is wrought over conditions in which meat - in its natural, living form - is raised. Others wonder about the slaughtering act itself, and wonder if it's humane enough to soothe their conscience when they chow down. Lesley Moffat, however, is concerned about how animals get from the farm to your plate - literally. The 28-year-old Montrealer, now living in Germany, is back home and busying herself with investigating the conditions under which our future meals are transported around the world.

Moffat says that many Canadians don't appreciate the suffering animals undergo when hauled over long distances. "Canada ships animals to Mexico, to California, to Hawaii, even to Asia," she says. "There's a tremendous amount of undue suffering on their part before they're slaughtered."

Cramped quarters, poor ventilation, lack of water and no rest make farm animals' ultimate journey a miserable one. Her organization, Europe-based Animals' Angels, is taking governments to task about reforming animal transport laws. Canadian laws, she says, lag far behind European ones. "In Canada, cattle can travel up to 52 hours without any water," she says. "In Europe it's every 14 hours."

Part of her job is trailing animal-hauling trucks on the road. She says the work can be exhausting because of the hours the trucks drive as well as debilitating, because she has to constantly breathe in the ammonia coming from the trailers. In Europe, if she notices a truck violating the legal norms, she calls the police, who pull the driver over and can issue him a fine. "But I realized that I can't call the police in Canada because there are no laws," she says.

Not all of her job involves confrontation. As head of Animals' Angels French department (because of her fluency acquired growing up here), she says she has already trained 250 gendarmes in dealing with animal transportation laws. This August, when she goes back to Europe, she'll be training another 120. "I'd love to get something like this started in Canada, but we need better legislation first," she says.

In her time in Montreal - she leaves Friday, July 23 - Moffat has been busy. Last week she and her group staged an action on St-Laurent and Prince Arthur. She's been distributing a new video about animal transportation (a previous one aired last March on CBC and TQS), and she's set up meetings with federal officials at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). She's come away from those somewhat relieved, she says, as they've promised to introduce new transportation guideline legislation by the end of 2005 (CFIA officials could not be reached by the Mirror).

Moffat believes Canadians are ready to rethink their animal protection laws. "Animal awareness is huge here among the general populace," she says. "But I think a lot of organizations protecting the meat industry are totally paranoid about animal-rights activists. They're pa-ra-noid. They consider us terrorists. And I think that that paranoia hinders legislation. We need more cooperation between animal rights people and the industry to come up with reasonable laws."