Written by Michelle Sherrow
With the discovery of mad cow disease in a cow from a California dairy farm and in potentially more cows as the U.S. Department of Agriculture searches for her former herdmates, PETA presents the top 10 reasons why cows are so darn mad:
A barbaric device known as a "keystone" or "guillotine" dehorner
Don't Get Mad—Get Vegan. Grab a free vegetarian/vegan starter kit and make for fewer mad cows in the world.
After happening upon a case of mad cow disease at a California rendering plant during its testing of less than 0.5 percent of cows, the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) is now searching for the infected animal's offspring, where her mother ended up, and her mother's other offspring, as all of them could potentially be infected, too. If an infected cow is slaughtered, the tainted meat could cause a degenerative brain disorder known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in anyone who ingests it. The disease, which is always fatal, causes sponge-like holes in the brain.
Also of concern in this case is the fact that milk from the infected cow may have been sold for human consumption. The USDA claims that vCJD cannot be contracted by consuming the milk of infected animals, but as a Mother Jones article points out, the sheep form of the disease, scrapie, has indeed been shown to pass from mother to offspring through milk.
Groks | cc by 2.0
The Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, posits that because the number of cows the USDA tests is so low—less than half of 1 percent of the nearly 34 million slaughtered annually—many cases could be and likely are going undetected. Jean Halloran, Consumers Union director of food policy initiatives, stated:
The fact we found one in 40,000 could actually be interpreted as worrisome. Does that mean if we tested 80,000 we'd find two? ... Our testing program is so small it can't give us even a ball-park idea of whether we have a problem here or not.
If the lack of adequate testing makes you think the USDA may be playing Russian roulette with our health, consider that we do the same thing every time we bite into a piece of meat that increases our risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and strokes. And then order a slew of free vegetarian/vegan starter kits for the people you love who still eat meat.
It shouldn't happen to intelligent, sensitive cows, but it does: With holes cut into their sides, they are used as sideshow-like attractions to lure children and prospective students to university events and fundraisers. Distraught attendees at some of these recent events sent PETA these disturbing photographs:
The cows are part of common experiments that involve permanently removing a chunk of the animals' abdomens to expose their stomachs. Experimenters feed the cows various foods and then reach into the hole to take samples, even though there are modern non-animal methods for conducting these kinds of studies.
The "fistulated" cows are then often put on display at events, with patrons invited to "touch a cow's stomach" or "put your hand inside a cow." PETA often hears from upset students and parents who have witnessed such a display. Unfortunately, the only law that protects animals used in experiments, the Animal Welfare Act, does not extend to animals used in agricultural experiments, meaning these cows have no legal protection from cruelty.
Each time PETA hears about these hideous mutilations, we contact the school (and the group that visited the display) to ask them to stop the experiments and remind them that there are much more humane ways to teach students about science and animals than having them gawk at a mutilated cow. PETA also offers parents, teachers, and administrators resources to help students at every educational level achieve scholastically and compassionately. Visit TeachKind.org to download or order a wealth of free materials.
As a result of the latest case of mad cow disease on a dairy farm, PETA is placing a billboard near the Hanford, California, testing facility that found the disease. The billboard is a parody of the ludicrous "real milk comes from cows" ads that the California Milk Processor Board pushes.
No one who eats meat is safe from mad cow disease. Since the U.S. Department of Agriculture tests only a tiny fraction of all the cows killed for food for mad cow disease—including cows from dairy farms who are ground up for hamburger—there's no telling how many animals may be infected. The only way to avoid slurping down a cup of cruelty or a dish of disease is to dump dairy products and meat.
And that won't make cows mad.
Written by PETA
The dairy farm manager who repeatedly electro-shocked a cow in the face and brushed off the fact that his workers hit cows with poles and canes by saying that they sometimes "get carried away" is still employed as a manager at the farm—a month after PETA notified the farm's owners of the cruelty and released video evidence of the abuse.
More Cruelty Caught on Video
The same manager at Adirondack Farms, LLC, in Peru, New York, was recorded jabbing a downed cow in the ribs with a screwdriver and dragging her behind a skid steer. He cursed at her—calling her a "dumb b***h" and asking how the "f**k" she was unable to stand. You may remember that this man stated that when a cow's uterus prolapses during calving, workers simply "put [the uterus] back in and hope she lives … long enough for the beef truck to come get her."
Farm Silent on Ending Abuse
Before we went public with the video footage that we gathered during our undercover investigation, we asked the farm's owners to take immediate disciplinary action, including termination, against the employees who were documented abusing animals. We gave the owners a detailed list of men and explained what they did. We followed up. Four weeks later, the owners remain silent. Even after eye-opening news reports on the case, neither Adirondack Farms nor Agri-Mark, the company that it supplies with milk, has announced taking a single meaningful step to improve their animal welfare standards. And that this manager is still on the job at the farm suggests that it's cruel business as usual there and beyond in the dairy industry.
What You Can Do
We know the beef industry isn't averse to a little sleight of hand (pink slime, anyone?). So, you would think the cowpokes could take a good-natured April Fools' Day prank.
On April Fools' Day 2010 (yes, two whole years ago), PETA published a blog post saying that we had been funding scientists who were genetically engineering rats to have fluffy rabbit tails. The idea was that by altering rats to be more in keeping with people's ideas of "cute and cuddly," we could usher in a rat renaissance of sorts, encouraging people to be kinder to our besieged, bald-tailed brethren.
Recently, an intrepid food-industry writer found said April Fools joke, thought it was real, and wrote an outraged article for Drovers CattleNetwork blasting PETA, rats, rabbits, and, oh yeah, cane toads and pigs (but not cows, conveniently) for good measure.
(c) iStockphoto.com | Josiah Jost
Mr. Food Industry also waged such a scare campaign against rats that it made me wonder if he might work for d-CON. He actually cited the Black Death, a plague that is several hundred years removed from modern-day scourges like, say, E. coli and for which rats are no longer blamed.
One has to wonder how many of the beef industry's tall tales about cow "welfare," "healthy" beef, and the industry's impact on the planet he has also swallowed hook, line, and fluffy tail.
Many people are still laboring under the illusion that animals are somehow treated better on farms that label their products "organic," but a recent cruelty case that PETA was involved with shows that animals on organic farms often fare no better than those on non-organic farms.
A whistleblower alerted PETA to a dairy farm where hundreds of cows were starving and two or three were dying every week. The whistleblower had tried to get the owners of the farm to feed the cows, but the owners were bankrupt, and with no money to feed the animals, they had simply left them to die.
This cow was too weak to stand.
We contacted local law-enforcement officials and, with the help of the district attorney, got state veterinarians to go out to the farm. The vets confirmed that this was indeed a case of cruelty and neglect, and police arrested the owners and charged them with cruelty to animals. The owners were later released on the grounds that they had to do whatever it took to care for the cows or they would face felony charges. Some people in the community have donated food, and the owners are juggling their finances to make food for the cows a priority. PETA has confirmed that the cows' health is improving.
While these animals are doing better, across the country, cows are still suffering on organic dairy farms. Often crowded into cramped sheds or onto mud-filled lots, cows are repeatedly impregnated and have their babies taken away so that people can drink the milk that nature intended for calves. Don't let your friends and family be fooled—"organic" does not mean "humane."
Last year, PETA and other animal advocates successfully defeated "ag gag" bills in Florida, New York, Minnesota, and Iowa. Now, another "ag gag" bill that would make it illegal to shoot video on a factory farm has just passed in the House of Representatives in Utah. And once again, we're fighting back against this unconstitutional measure.
Flush from her success in her home state of Iowa, Raising Hope star and longtime animal advocate Cloris Leachman penned a letter to Utah lawmakers on PETA's behalf urging them not to block people from gathering the evidence needed to prosecute animal abusers
I hope that Utah legislators recognize that with consumer demand for better treatment of animals, they must work to enforce and strengthen laws, not penalize those trying to expose cruel and illegal practices. Citizens' right to document cruelty to animals—wherever it occurs—is crucial in helping local, state, and federal officials enforce anti-cruelty laws.
Every PETA undercover investigation of factory farms has yielded evidence that workers were abusing animals. We recorded workers who sexually assaulted a pig with a cane, stomped on a turkey's head until her skull exploded, and spit tobacco into chickens' eyes and mouth. This indisputable proof of abuse is key to securing historic charges against and convictions of such abusers on cruelty-to-animals charges.
Utah residents, please ask your senators to vote against this bill and to continue to allow people to expose blatant cruelty to animals.
Poignant words on when animals die, sticking it to Ringling and its torture sticks, and a treat for extreme couponers: It's everything you might have missed this week.
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Mooove away from leather, baby. Cows don't wear our babies, so why should we wear theirs?
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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