Question: “If we did suddenly all go vegetarian, what would we do with all of the cows?”

SPAR’s Answer: “It really doesn’t matter, since hardly anything could be worse than the torture many more generations would endure. Many farm sanctuaries exist that give animals a home when they would otherwise be killed.” (www.sparmsu.org).

I’m sure that you’ve heard about the banning of the American horse slaughter plants and that now there are millions of unwanted horses being left to starve to death because their owners have no way of feeding them and no way of getting rid of them.

Euthanasia of an equine is on average $300 and then you must find a way to dispose of the body. Burying it may be best, but if you have to rent the backhoe to dig the hole and move the body, that’s another $300. Otherwise, you can pay someone to come in, take the body and cremate it, which can be upwards of $1,000 or more.

By taking away the slaughterhouses instead of making them more humane in the transport and actual slaughter, we’ve now condemned millions to abandonment, starvation and potential shipment to Mexican or Canadian slaughterhouses, where we have no ability to regulate how they are killed.

By not thinking about how our actions will affect the creatures of the earth, we are doing more harm than good.

The Web site states: “Hardly anything could be worse than the torture many more generations would endure. Many farm sanctuaries exist that would give animals a home when they would otherwise be killed.”

Have you read any of the news on how many “sanctuaries” are having to close their doors to animals? How people are literally walking away from their farms, leaving their animals to die because they can’t afford to feed them? Is starvation truly better than living on that same farm? Wouldn’t humane slaughter be so much more kindly than walking away? 

Holly Clock

animal science junior