Empathy with cows and their pitiful fate

COWS value their freedom and their families, just like we do, so it’s hardly surprising that a herd decided to band together and try to escape their life of exploitation (“Bewildering sight of cows on the run in town as police round them up”, May 3).

Cows are gentle, sensitive, and intelligent animals with unique personalities, who feel joy, pain, and fear.

Yet in the UK alone, millions suffer every day to meet the human demand for their flesh and milk.

Anyone would want to run away if they were being held prisoner and forcibly impregnated, over and over again, as cows on dairy farms are.

Their beloved babies are torn away shortly after birth, and when their spent bodies are too exhausted to produce milk, they will likely be loaded onto filthy trucks and sent to the abattoir.

All cows, whether they’re exploited for their milk or flesh, experience the same terrifying and bloody fate.

Anyone who empathised with these cows during their escape or is sad to know that their return to the clutches of the farming industry condemns them to a violent death should extend that compassion to all animals by going vegan.

PETA offers a free vegan starter kit for anyone looking to make the switch.

Natalie Tambini PETA