Townie campaigners’ Disney view of animals

TOWNDWELLING animal rights campaigners have recently seized the opportunity presented by Mycoplasma bovis to kick farmers while they are down, and ODT letters to the editor have reflected this.

We have had a paid staff member from Peta telling us to abandon cow’s milk in favour of oestrogenladen ‘‘soy milk’’, or waterhungry imported almonds mixed with 96% water sold as ‘‘almond milk’’.

Dairy certainly has opportunities to continue improving its animal welfare and its environmental impacts, but it is the most efficient way to convert nonedible plant products into human food, bar none. For most people, milk products can be part of a balanced diet.

A recent letter from Cath Smith (9.6.18) exemplifies the ‘‘Disneyfication of animals’’ with which we are confronted.

Ms Smith asks ‘‘what is the difference between a cow and a dog

. . . and a human?’’ Let’s begin with the similarities — all are terrestrial mammals. Everything else is different. Our preferred foods, our digestive systems and, most importantly, our ability to think.

Cows and dogs are not stupid; they have precisely the intellect required to live as domesticated animals, or in the wild. What they lack is the ability to ponder the future.

Animals can learn through experience that one activity follows another, but in a novel environment they have no idea what is happening. This is why animals do not ‘‘fear the slaughterhouse’’ as animal rights campaigners would have us believe.

This is why I, like most farmers, am happy to treat animals well while they are in my care, then send them to slaughter when appropriate, knowing they will die swiftly and painlessly. I have been to the facility and seen how calm the animals are.

Honestly, Walt Disney’s cute animal movies do not describe the real world. Julian Price

Creedmoor

[Abridged]