Your Dairy Dollars at Work
Published February 16, 2009 @ 09:07AM PT
The bodies of dead baby calves, whether they're dumped in fields or hacked to pieces in the slaughterhouse, are the price of your morning cow's milk, your specialty cheeses, your dairy ice cream, and of course, your veal. In today's news:
Some dairymen have become so desperate that they are not even bothering to haul to feedlots the newborns whose births keep milk flowing at higher levels.
Investigators in San Joaquin County are trying to determine who dumped 30 dead bull calves on country roads to avoid rendering costs or hauling them to auction, where they fetch $5 each but cost hundreds and hundreds more to bottle feed special formula. The group Farm Sanctuary is offering a $2,000 reward for the culprit.
"Apparently it was someone trying to save money who just dumped them," said Susie Coston, the group's national shelter director.
And something else that continues to bother me, enormously, about articles such as the one from which the above extract was pulled is that they keep featuring remarks such as this: "Hundreds of thousands of America's dairy cows are being turned into hamburgers because milk prices have dropped so low that farmers can no longer afford to feed the animals." This should read like this: "Hundreds of thousands of America's dairy cows are being turned into hamburgers a little earlier, a little younger, than usual"--all those dairy cows are going to face horrible slaughter and become hamburger at some point regardless of the current economic woes, and it drives me mad that so many keep ignoring (or conveniently forgetting to acknowledge) that. (See "The Slaughterhouse Is Always the Only Exit for Dairy Cows," a related earlier post on this topic.)
Thanks to Tracy for the alert to the article.
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Photo of calves on conveyor belt, killed during slaughter of pregnant dairy cows: Viva! UK
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Stephanie Ernst is an independent animal rights advocate, a vegan, a tree-hugging environmentalist, and a freelance editor and writer. She lives in St. Louis with an aging corgi-lab and an adolescent rescued pit bull. In her advocacy, she works to challenge prevailing perceptions of animals, to show the connections between animal exploitation and other injustices, to help people see that animals are more like us than different, and to encourage compassionate, nonviolent living and eating.
Thanks for telling the truth. Dairy isn't worth it.
Posted by Daniela N. on 02/16/2009 @ 09:22AM PT
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Barf. So glad for everyone who doesn't participate in this.
Posted by L R on 02/16/2009 @ 10:57AM PT
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These images are too horrible. Those babies deserve better.
As a mother... i have no words.
I'm a proud vegan.
Posted by Lisa Smolen on 02/16/2009 @ 11:53AM PT
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:(
One of my closest friends... who lives in California and voted for the first time last year and was passionately opposed to Prop 8 and knows I am passionate about veganism...
says to me when I criticize Prop 2, "I heard that it will drive up prices."
I always think that people who are incredibly caring and loving enough to fight passionately for something like gay rights should have no problem going vegan or at least vegetarian upon learning the facts and seeing the suffering. But people are, well, normal. Conventional. It's hard to change. It's hard to open a closed heart.
This is my ceaseless question: how do we change a world marked more by continuity than by change?
Posted by Luella - on 02/16/2009 @ 01:12PM PT
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Aaagh, those photos are horrifying and so so sad :'( Soymilk, people...soymilk!!!
Posted by Michelle Taylor on 02/16/2009 @ 02:26PM PT
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Demons........ killing babies.
Humans can be savages and that is the real concern.
We turn on baby herbivores? Pathetic! Aren't we better than that? Why must we act like devils to those who do nothing whatsoever to us? This cannot go on forever. The world is much more powerful than our evil ways.
Disgusting.
Posted by E C on 02/16/2009 @ 05:21PM PT
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The western world including USA are dealing with mass production of cattle and poultry. What happens is most animals are sick or have been injected with hormones. Eventually the meat ends up in supermarkets, fastfood industry and other restaurants. I have choosen to buy my poultry at stores like wholefoods or other organic stores.
If you just look in your area you see and hear people having all kinds of cancer or are obese. This is the result of eating this.
Posted by carmelita promes on 02/20/2009 @ 08:38AM PT
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Not that this matters, but I find calves to be among the sweetest-looking animals in the world. When you see them alive and in their element, it's difficult not to melt from the sweetness. They hardly look real.
And to see them abused and dumped in this way. This is some real evil we're dealing with, people (which we know anyway). And I do know "evil" is a loaded word.
Posted by Haley O on 02/20/2009 @ 12:42PM PT
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However people produce MEAT for consumption it will still involve pain and suffering for our animal brothers. Animals that have been raised kindly and by organic methods are still slaughtered for food.Imagine their terror, Once they were fed well and handled by kind human beings , then suddenly they are cast out into a cruel ,cold and sadistic enviroment.I cannot bear this cruelty any longer to take an animal;s life is a sin against mother nature. They are living beings who breathe ,communicate and smell the fresh air, until someone gives permission for their precious lives to be taken away from them, after all its all they have . Do they mind ? Did anyone say sorry may I kill you for food. Mass production is an insult against the Animal kingdom . Man is the worst preadator on The planet and the Cruelest. There is no chance for these animals to esacape because they are held by restraints and chains.A lot of countries are dubbed cruel because of the fur trade etc but is anyome else any better when it comes to the food chain practices NO !Do I need to say anymore. ?Lindsay
Posted by lindsaycaress caress on 04/29/2009 @ 02:11AM PT
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