I'm not sure how I feel about these poor cows...
Posted by dinkfeet on Nov 19, 2007 · Member since Aug 2007 · 695 posts
Did anyone else see this in the news? http://www.pr-inside.com/cows-killed-in-us-highway-r304131.htm
Do you feel like the cows ended up in a better "place"? I know I was sad to read that the cows jumped off the overpass - I feel like they must have been so confused. And scared. Even more scared than when they were in the truck to begin with! At least it was an animal sanctuary, not a zoo. So yea, not sure if I feel better or worse in general about the state of animals after reading this article. Maybe that's just the way it is. Thoughts?
I guess I feel better about the dead animals being fed to other poor creatures that have been rescued instead of fat Americans going through the drive through at McDonald's after a Christmas shopping trip to buy garbage at Walmart.
I'd feel better still if they simply fed the Walmart shoppers directly to the exotic carnivores.
I'd feel better still if they simply fed the Walmart shoppers directly to the exotic carnivores.
Or even better - Walmart mgmt!
I heard about this story a couple weeks ago. My coworkers told me about it and asked "So if the cow does not die a horrible death on a farm, does that mean a vegetarian can eat it?" ::)
I explained to them that people are veg*n for 3 reasons (animal rights, health and envirnoment). I told them all 3 reasons apply to me so no, I would not eat the cow. I would never, ever eat one. And they replied "ok, but what if you just don't like factory farming?" I replied "You know how the thought of green onions or lettuce makes you want to gag? I'm like that with the thought of eating animals." End of conversation. ;)
Some of the dead cows were given to a local exotic animal shelter as food for its lions, tigers and other big cats. The fresh meat was a surprise help for the sanctuary, which lost 40,000 pounds (18,143 kilograms) of meat when a freezer failed earlier this fall, executive director Jennie Senier said.
The sanctuary keeps 40,000 pounds of meat on hand in a freezer?!? That's 18 tons of meat in a freezer, which suggests they may have multiple freezers. Ugh.
Some of the dead cows were given to a local exotic animal shelter as food for its lions, tigers and other big cats. The fresh meat was a surprise help for the sanctuary, which lost 40,000 pounds (18,143 kilograms) of meat when a freezer failed earlier this fall, executive director Jennie Senier said.
The sanctuary keeps 40,000 pounds of meat on hand in a freezer?!? That's 18 tons of meat in a freezer, which suggests they may have multiple freezers. Ugh.
i agree....ugh.
Your large cats get through hundreds of pounds of meat each week, even though responsible shelters only feed two or three times a week because that's the hunt/loss ratio in the wild.
But yeah, 40 thou is a lotta meat to keep "on hand." However I wonder how many animals they have to feed each week.
I am also wondering how so many of them (they must be many, to need that much food) ended up in a shelter? I was angered to see a UK documentary in which a 20 yr old chimp had to be rescued from a zoo in Germany and taken to a sanctuary in Wales because he was "too old" to be included in the zoo's collection after the zoo carried out planned renovations. (Item: 20 yrs old is in the prime of life for a captive-bred chimp, which can live beyond 50.) The cage he was in was tiny for an adult chimp, anyway...like keeping a large man in a phonebooth 24/7. When they took him to the sanctuary in a decent enclosure with grass and everything, in the company of other refugee chimps...the look on his face made me tear up--delighted disbelief. It was like "Hey! You look like ME!"
40,000 pounds of meat sounds like a lot to us vegans ... but, if this sanctuary is keeping quite a few carnivores, it's within normal range. Although, obviously, if they have 2 tigers ... it's a bit much. But, I didn't see a reference to how many carnivores they were feeding.
It's too bad such situations have to exist. I always say, leave the wild animals alone. Keeping them as "exotic pets" is wrong on so many levels. (I assume that is how the animals wound up in the sanctuary.)