Downed Cows and Points of Conscience

The organization, PETA (People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has, on a recurring basis, published a story about the treatment of a "downed" cow by Walton Stockyards in Independence, Kentucky suggesting that the event happened recently. I will not provide a link to that story and be forewarned that if you track it down and you have any mercy in your soul, you will be horrified by the psychotic treatment that cow was subjected to.

 PETA's objective in repeatedly sharing that story (with conflicting pictures of various dairy cows and in one picture, a Hereford (beef cow) is to convince its audience of the evils of meat eating. They claim it is a typical example of how animals are treated at a slaughterhouse. Peta does not state the date of the event but other activist blogs maintain it happened on Sept. 28, 1983. However, the Walton Stockyard was closed down on August 22, 1979.

 Did the event ever actually happen? I believe it did. As another activist group, the Animal Liberation Front, states: "After PETA brought much-needed attention to this issue, the Kenton County Police Department (Independence, Kentucky) adopted a policy requiring that euthanasia be performed on all downed animals immediately, whether they are on the farm, in transit, or at the slaughterhouse." This is a fact that PETA does not appear to share.

 So, why am I writing about this? I first saw the story yesterday and was so horrified by the treatment of the cow, I felt overwhelmed.  Simultaneously, I kept feeling that something was wrong with the story.  It just didn't feel right.

As a 4 year member of 4-H, I spent quite a bit of time with a heifer (unbred female cow) and 2 steers. I sold those 2 steers for slaughter and I understood what would happen to them. Did it bother me? Of course it did and I have probably wanted to become a vegetarian since then. But I never witnessed or otherwise experienced animal cruelty from ranchers, etc.   IMO, it would take someone psychotic (or possibly a corporation with no conscience)to treat any living being the way that the "downed" cow was treated.

 So, what about PETA? I applaud a lot of the work that they do to bring attention to and eliminate animal cruelty.  But, they seem willing to do or say anything to  achieve their ends.   Misrepresenting the truth seems to be a perfectly acceptable tactic.  It seems a great pity to me that a group that cares so deeply about a cause and has achieved notable successes shows such a lack of ethics in their approach to human beings.