March
2002
Editorial: Ambassador
Bovine Makes The Great Escape
By Catherine Clyne
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On a Friday afternoon in mid-February, a cow jumped a six-foot fence
to escape from Ken Meyer Meats, a meat processing plant in southwest
Ohio. The police and locals searched the countryside, even employing
helicopters to track her down. The Heifer hid out in a wooded park,
which had to be closed for a while because there were too many sightseers
jockeying to catch a glimpse of the four-legged celebrity. But she managed
to evade capture for 11 days and was only recently tranquilized and
taken to a nearby farm.
The obligatory jokes peppered the media coverage. While she was on
the lam, Channel 3000 news dryly observed, “No one is really raising
a beef over the escapee.” A local SPCA official quipped: “The
cow’s pretty good, I mean maybe she’s had some training in
evasive tactics or something.” (As if running for your life isn’t
enough motivation.) Without a doubt, all residents agreed that when
caught, the “old girl” should be given “another chance
at life.”
We’ve all heard this story before. Every time an animal escapes
from certain murder or slavery, people empathize, usually advocating
that the escapee be granted a reprieve; people often name the refugee;
and, sometimes, someone will even buy the creature to “save”
him/her from the slaughterhouse. But this story one-ups all that. Not
only is the fugitive being rewarded for her efforts by being granted
a reprieve, but as of this writing, the Mayor of Cincinnati plans to
award her a key to the city. No joke! There’s a slight hold-up
however, because although they want to present the key to the guest
of honor with proper ceremony, UPI reports that they can’t quite
figure out the logistics. “We were going to bring it down to City
Hall,” one official explained, “but it can’t fit in the
elevator.” Even as such an honored heroine, people still must refer
to her as an “it.”
The irony of the awarding of a key isn’t lost here. Having a key
to the city of Cincinnati implies a certain amount of freedom, as if
the cow can now come and go as she pleases. The thing is, “farmed”
animals don’t have keys. They have absolutely no control whatsoever
over their lives.
“I think that for all her efforts she should be rewarded, and she
should be allowed to go back out to pasture and live out the rest of
her days in peace,” said one resident. One policeman stated that
she was a “free-range” cow and “for all intents and purposes
a wild animal.” Maybe so. But chances are that this cow, like so
many of her brothers and sisters, had no experience of being out to
pasture, hanging around in the green stuff, enjoying life. In more likelihood,
she was fed some sort of healthful “feed” that probably had
wood shavings and pulverized concrete mixed in, was infused with antibiotics,
and possibly peppered with bits of her late brothers and sisters; and
she was probably confined either in a dark, crowded warehouse, or rotting
in a dirt and feces-covered plot of land that stinks to high heaven.
These escapes are incidents that suddenly remind folks of something
that happens every single day, hidden from their otherwise caring eyes.
The fugitives are single representatives of the millions of animals
who don’t escape and are involuntarily dismembered to end up on
our dinner plates. I hope more animals will escape their doom and become
ambassadors for the less fortunate and that people will cheer and celebrate
them. Maybe one day they’ll wake up to realize why these animals
so desperately want to escape; then put their compassion into action
and choose the ultimate key to their freedom: not to eat them.
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