Today I’m going out to lunch with my best friend. We always go out to lunch together, to the same place, for the same meal. Day after day, week after week. It’s what we’ve been doing for as long as we can remember. It’s the only time we can be together, the only time we get away from the noise and the stress caused by the machines. At least they act as a temporary distraction. They took my son away last week. He was only six weeks old. I cried for hours at a time, only stopping to sleep. I’m not the only one to have lost a son, many of the others have also had their children stolen away at a very young age. None of us know where or why they were taken.
This is just part of a sad, sad story. A story that no one wants to hear, or to know about.
Of course, you may think this is a story about a parent losing her child. And you’d be right, in a way. This is the story of cows, and their lives in the beef and dairy industry.
We often think of cows as big, lumbering, dumb animals, only good for meat and milk. It’s how we’ve grown to think of them, to the point where we put them in a class so much lower than ourselves that we tell ourselves it okay to use them for meat and milk. But the fact is, cows are not just big, lumbering, dumb animals.
Cows have best-friends, and worst enemies, just like us. They form social-hierarchies just as we do. Cows can be depressed just as we can, and can cry, just as we can. Cows form strong connections with their offspring, and are distraught if they are separated, just as we are, and yet within seconds of a cow giving birth, her child is snatched away from her, her head held in place so that she cannot turn around and lick it or touch it in any way, so that she may not form this bond.
Currently, the Australian national cattle herd stands at 29.3 million head, of which 13.4 million are used for beef. If millions of parents across Australia were having their children snatched away from them the moment they were born, it’d be the largest, most disgusting, event in human history, but because they’re just ‘big, dumb cows’, we, in our ignorance, somehow manage to convince ourselves that it’s okay.
Boyde, Melissa. Cultural myths and open secrets: The cattle industries in Australia [online]. Southerly, Vol. 73, No. 2, 2013 http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/fullText;dn=191538128168903;res=IELLCC
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-emotional-lives-of-dairy-cows/
http://www.grit.com/animals/farm-animal-intelligence.aspx
http://www.mla.com.au/Cattle-sheep-and-goat-industries/Industry-overview/Cattle
Thoughts For Tomorrow 