What is extraordinary about the government’s plan to cull (or more accurately kill) some 150,000 cows in the hope of eradicating Mycoplasma bovis is not the astronomical number of individual animals involved, nor the amount of taxpayer money being used to prop up this failing industry.

What is astounding is the sheer callousness of the discourse. Politicians discuss the cost to production of that number of cows going “off-line”, of the $NZ886 million that the slaughter will cost (two thirds of which will come from you, the taxpayer). The Prime Minister empathises with “those farmers going through the pain of losing their herds”. There is hardly a mention of the 150,000 feeling animals, who just want to live.

Cows are intelligent animals who have long memories, interact in socially complex ways, develop friendships and make wonderful mothers. It’s time we started treating them with the compassion they deserve and not as milk machines.

No country has managed to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis. There is only one way to get rid of it and the many other diseases born from the cruel and abusive dairy industry, and that’s for people to ditch dairy and switch to soya, almond, coconut, oat or any of the other cruelty free milks widely available on the market today.

Desmond Bellamy
Special Projects Coordinator
PETA Australia

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