I was in the waiting room at the local massage school here in Santa Fe about to have a bodywork session with one of the students. A woman in the seat next to me started talking to me about her work. She and her husband raise beef cattle. She was very proud of what she was doing and excitedly went into it without knowing who she was talking to, “We are saving a very old heritage breed of cattle. Without us, they would probably die off. AND, it is LOCAL! It isn’t easy to keep going with local products. You know, they are much more expensive to produce and most people don’t want to pay the price. I just feel so good about saving this breed.”
“Oh, you are saving them? So you don’t kill them?” I asked.
“Of course we kill them”, she replied, “We have to make a living.”
Me: “Do you kill and butcher them right there on your ranch?”
Her: “No, we send them to Colorado to a slaughter facility.”
Me: “How far away is the facility?”
Her: “About 9 hours away”
Me: “Is it still considered local?”
Her: “Yes, it IS local.”
Me: “Is it heartbreaking to send them off to slaughter when you have raised them from babies?”
She got very quiet, then said softly, “Well, I try not to get attached to any of them. Except Herman. We would never slaughter Herman. Everyone loves him. People even come out just to visit Herman. He was a 4H project years ago. We love him and could never kill him.”
Me: “What makes Herman different from the others?”
Her: “Nothing, really, except that we have known him for so long and now he is part of the family. He is so special.”
Me: “So they are all equally special, but you named him and you developed a relationship with him, so you feel differently about him, right?”
Her: “I guess so, I guess they are all special in their own way.”
Me: “Just like all of us, I suppose.”
She got very quiet. Then I was called into my session and said bye to her and she said, “I hope we can talk after our sessions.”
This all got me thinking about people who think they are doing a good thing by “saving a breed” while killing them off. I put myself in the position of the cattle. Lets say someone wants to save my breed. They want to save short, fuzzy-haired, Russians because our breed is becoming very rare. To do this, they propose to me that they keep me pregnant by artificial insemination and I produce lots of babies. My daughters and granddaughters and I will keep producing more babies. Then they will kill off my family and me while we are still in our prime. But, they will make sure there are always enough of us that the short fuzzy-haired Russians don’t go extinct.
Fuzzy headed woman dreaming of her breed being saved?
I am opened-minded, so I listen to their whole proposal before I respond, “No thanks guys. I really don’t give a hoot about whether my breed lives. I never even think about us being a breed, we are individuals who want to live long full lives surrounded by our family and friends with plenty of fresh-air, sunshine and food to eat.”
I imagine that if we spoke bovine, the cattle she thinks she is saving would respond in much the same way. They want freedom, food, family and friends. They want to live out their lives with as little suffering as possible. I don’t speak bovine, but I can pretty much guarantee that they cattle do not wake in the morning thinking about their breed. They are thinking about their own comfort and desires. I watched 6 cows at a sanctuary stand up in unison and walk to the only sunny spot on a hill. The sun was pouring down in a beam from an opening in the cloud-covered sky. The six cows made their way up the hill and settled into the sunny patch with their eyes closed and their faces soaking up the warm sun. They were not thinking, “Here we are, a bunch of cows.” They were probably not thinking about anything except the delicious warmth on their faces.
It is time to look at the reality of our food systems for the individuals who are impacted by our choices. When we combine the compassion of caring for all live with buying as much local organic as possible, we are moving in a direction that truly supports life on earth.
Chia (328 comments)
Thank you for sharing your conversation with the cattle rancher. It really shows how we humans rationalizes our thoughts & feelings and store them in different compartments.
VeganSally (6 comments)
Extraordinary story.
Jazzfish (4 comments)
The issue goes beyond food systems to the global economic system. A similar story could be told about using hunting safaris in Africa to raise enough cash to run animal reserves or open eco-resorts to maintain nature reserves. Do we let the things we care about go extinct because we don’t want o compromise OR do we allow a less than perfect option procede in the hope that we will one day achieve something better in the future?
veganzeus (1 comments)
This was an awesome article–thank you for writing it Rae! The idea of killing something to save it, is so wrong I can’t even begin to comprehend it.
Jazzfish, running hunting safaris in Africa to fiscally support animal reserves to save animals is oxymoronic! Are you saying there are NO other options to raise money to save endangered animals other than killing them for sport? Seriously?
You called that compromise–I call it the lazy cowards way out..
They can’t offer sightseeing expeditions, or run a not for profit vegan restaurant or try for grants, or fund raise for donations, etc., etc., to get enough cash to save animals?
I am flummoxed by your thinking-truly flummoxed….
Jazzfish (4 comments)
Really? Animals are being decimated in Africa because of demand from Asia…big, big money for them in a land with severe poverty. Like it or not, something needs to compete against that greed. If you allow one to be shot for every 40 to be saved, how is that bad – unless you prefer extinction. If you can think of a feasible alternative, then please state it. I know you can’t, though.
webmaster (15 comments)
This conversation is so important and deserves to be heard, because one can sense that the cattle rancher in this story is open to discussion and open to the ensuing thoughts and feelings that arise within herself, however uncomfortable and conflicting.
Jazzfish (4 comments)
I agree it is an important conversation, however, both sides need to be open to discussion and the ensuing thoughts for it to be a meaningful dialogue. Regardless of our beliefs or principles of the change we wish to bring about, one must also deal with the reaities of exisiting conditions, scale of change, process for change, and a population to be changed. If it comes down to preserving small-scale farmers like the rancher to maintain the option of biologicial diversity or ending up with large corporations like Cargill that maintain horrible, single species, factory farms, then I will take the first option. It may not be the desired endpoint, but it is more in line with moving in that direction.
RaeSikora (4 comments)
Good to see the discussion here. While I understand that none of these issues are black and white. there are certainly shades of grey worth investigating. Jazzfish, I think that you may have missed the whole point of the blog. Much of the injustice we have witnessed throughout history was due to seeing a group rather than the individuals in the group. When we do not see the individuals with their needs and desires, we can either decide that the group is worthless and do whatever we want to them or we decide that the group is somehow special and we should protect them. This is true of any group….women, children, minority races or religions, etc. I was just working in the Middle East and many men were clear that the women, children and animals in their lives were their property and they could do whatever they wanted to them. We all want to be seen as individuals. I assume that you don’t want to just be seen as your gender and color.
For example, today I read an article about a “special” white buffalo being sent to a ranch in Texas because he is somehow more sacred and will be spared because of his color. The others are being slaughtered and their flesh sold as meat because of their fur color. I can guarantee you that none of these special or endangered beings think of themselves as their breed or species. They are individuals who want to live their lives according to their own desires. Even if my whole species will go extinct if I don’t let some hunter kill me or my family members, I would rather live my life. I assume if I asked you to choose who in your family we would have to kill to save your species, you would not care as much about your species as you would preserving yourself and your family.
There are ranches in Texas that claim they are there to save endangered species. Tens of thousands of animals live on these ranches. People come and pay big bucks to kill some of the animals so that these ranches can keep up with expenses. The same people who come kill the animals for pleasure and for the trophy, could simply donate that 20,000 dollars to the ranch because they care. If a place like Farm Sanctuary said they had to kill off and sell some of the pigs to keep the sanctuary going, people would be outraged and most would not support them because their message of caring for life would be lost in their actions. In your two option scenario above, Jazzfish, you leave out the most viable option for preserving diversity…not breeding, raising, and killing domestic animals for food.
I just got back from hiking in Utah. I have photos of precious little pools of water in the rocks where giant bullfrog tadpoles are struggling to survive right next to the feces of cattle in the water. These are “grassfed beef” that so many people are proud to eat in their efforts to do the right thing. But there is no way to responsibly raise and kill these animals for our tastebuds. It is not responsible to the environment or the individuals we are killing by the billions. Thank you to everyone who thoughtfully reads the blogs and responds to them.
Jazzfish (4 comments)
Thanks for your comment, but I think you may have missed the entire point of my comments. I understand the endpoint you want to achieve – “not breeding, raising, and killing domestic animals for food.” But how do we get from where we are as a society to where we want to be? It will involve time and compromise. I did not mention your most viable option, because it is not feasible. There just aren’t enough people willing to give up animal products to make it happen. Anyway, I am starting to feel like a troll here, so I will restrain myself to using only the restaurant locator guide on the main site. – Respectfully, with a different opinion.
RaeSikora (4 comments)
Jazzfish, please don’t leave us! You are no troll (hey wait, do I need to start blogging about troll rights?) Differing opinions are how we all learn. I understand what you are saying about the world not being ready for giving up meat or their ideas about other species. I am an idealist. The world was not ready to give up on slavery in many areas where slavery was abolished. So, I really hope that the option that both you and I know is the most compassionate is the one that somehow, in some amazing tipping point cultural shift, the humans will opt for. Thanks for your thoughtful responses. I hope you will keep participating in the blog discussions.
yukisnow (1 comments)
Thanks for ur story, it really does show how people can differentiate themselves with things. To hear how she is able to like herman but then isolate herself from all the other cows that really arent any different than herman himself..it really does suck.