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March 2002
Editorial
: Ambassador Bovine Makes The Great Escape
By Catherine Clyne

 



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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