TORONTO, Feb. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As we continue to hear the progress and innovative creations of plant-based milk, cheese, ice cream, yogurt and butter, we are reminded of those who remain as victims of the dairy industry. “There are many dairy-free products in grocery stores now,” comments Nicole Sapalovski, Animal Alliance Campaigner. “It really makes one wonder – how does this exploitive and destructive industry still exist?”
Sapalovski continued, “I often use the story of Isa as an example. Isa was a calf we passed driving along the road outside of London Dairy Farms in 2018. Isa’s body lay lifeless in the field next to the road, and it seemed like no one had any idea she was there. We drove onto the property and went into what we quickly learned was the milking part of the farm. I had never been on a dairy farm before and my heart sank. I was with a friend and we thought we should alert the staff that a baby was laying dead outside. I wasn’t expecting to see cows connected to tubes, having their milk, designed to feed their babies, being pumped out of them en masse. It was a warehouse inside, a system of machinery used to commodify a sentient being and their babies – although those babies were nowhere in sight. Often people don’t realize that females across species have to have a baby to produce milk, and in the dairy industry various species – cows, sheep, and goats – are artificially inseminated and that alone is truly disturbing and unethical.”
“The staff seemed to have no care in the world and didn’t seem at all concerned by the fact that a baby was just laying dead outside. We left horrified and shocked, and as we drove off, a staff member took a big truck out and tossed Isa’s body like a piece of trash onto the truck,” said Sapalovski.
The dairy industry is the epitome of both the destruction of the mother-baby bond and the oppression of the female body. London Dairy Farms is a family farm, and we often think that animal-related concerns and issues exist only with the large industrial ones. In fact, the same reality exists because a female needs to be born, she needs to be impregnated so that her body will produce milk, only to have her milk taken and kept away from her babies, and when she’s no longer productive enough, she is hauled off to slaughter.
“These cows are often so depleted that they have brittle bones and become ‘downer’ animals, meaning they cannot stand up,” notes Lia Laskaris, Campaign Assistant. “Downer animals are supposed to be killed on site rather than hauled off to the slaughterhouse. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency does so few inspections, we are certain that some animals are still being loaded onto trucks. The level of cruelty that this practice entails is the stuff of nightmares,” comments Laskaris.
Animal Alliance reminds people that personal choices have impacts on others, seen or unseen, and we have the ability to make changes in our own behaviour to not support what the dairy industry truly stands for – the exploitation of the female body and the devastation of motherhood. When we stop supporting and participating in industries like the dairy industry, we don’t give anything up – we in fact stop taking what is not ours in the first place.
Nicole Sapalovski, Campaigner, nicole@animalalliance.ca
Lia Laskaris, Campaign Assistant, lia@animalalliance.ca
