A trio of animal-loving activists parked themselves by Burlington’s Church and Bank streets last Thursday with an eye-catching cow replica. The reason? The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals operatives were protesting human consumption of cow’s milk.
“We’re trying to bring attention to how disturbing it is that we drink the breast milk of another animal,” said Katerina Davidovich, as she handed pamphlets of vegan recipes to passersby. “People are so disconnected from the process — they buy some white liquid in a container at the store.”
The activists used the life-size cow replica to illustrate their point. Andrew Ensenat, a PETA volunteer from Brooklyn, N.Y., got on the ground and sucked on one of its teats. Beside him stood Audrey Shircliff, another volunteer who held a sign reading, “Not Your Mom, Not Your Milk.” All three were clad in black.
“I love PETA!” Ensenat told a reporter as he took his mouth away from the artificial udder.
Was anyone mooooved?
Most Church Street pedestrians gave a wry smile as they passed, if they noticed the display at all. Onett Johnson, a tourist from Key West, Fla., stopped to snap a pic of the protesters. They obliged as Johnson kneeled on the ground and Ensenat suckled the faux bovine.
Johnson told Seven Days he doesn’t drink milk — but not by choice. He learned as an adult that he is lactose intolerant, so he pours coconut milk on his cereal.
The original print version of this article was headlined “COWABUNGA”
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2017.
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If everyone stopped drinking milk (what about milk products, butter, cheese, etc.?) millions of dairy cows would no longer be needed and would be slaughtered. Is that PETA’s goal? Let’s face it, PETA members are fanatics, they will find things to complain about with no thought to the unanticipated consequences. If they don’t drink milk and eschew milk products, that’s alright with me; but get off my back.
And what about the thousands of years prior to the invention of formula where some mothers who couldn’t produce enough milk for their babies or afford a wet nurse? These parents resorted to the breast milk of animals. So it was either breast milk of an animal, or human baby dies. Several of my family members come from rural European countries where they relied on the milk of cows and goats for daily sustenance (these were poor villages where one simply can’t buy “soy milk” or “coconut milk” from grocery stores.) My family also testified to the fact that when the mother cow gave birth, the cow produced plenty of milk for both the calf and human family. The evidence: the calves grew up healthy and happy on open farms and grew up to reproduce their own calves. I’m sorry but this is a poor protest on PETAs part. If you’re going to protest drinking animal milk due to animal cruelty that comes from the western dairy industry— that is fine. However this doesn’t mean that every farm practices inhumane treatment of animals. The issue should be to address animal cruelty in the dairy and meat industry, not whether we are drinking the “breast milk” of an animal.
In response to Alicia: Yes it is in fact the factory farms that are the problem. But most of the population doesn’t live in rural areas on idealistic farms, where they share milk with calves. In truth most calves get 24-28 hours with their mom before they are taken away to either be raised for veal or as a dairy cow where they will forcibly be impregnated every year to produce milk for people and once spent be sent to slaughter for meat. And the milk that was supposed to go to those calves go to humans instead.
In response to Fred: Everybody wouldn’t go vegan all at once. There would be a slow increase in the population converting to veganism over a long period of time. This would reduce the demand for dairy, which would lower the amount of dairy cattle being bred… there wouldn’t just be a massive switch and slaughter.
I found these documentaries very informative: Watch Cowspiracy (cowspiracy.com) or watch on Netflix, or watch Vegucated on Netflix.
Not that this particularly speaks to the message of this trio, but here’s a friendly reminder that PETA euthanizes a lot of animals every year:
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6612490
Wow! Thank you for the link Ryan . I always thought Peta was a cause for zealots and starlets . They are even worse then that .