dairy | SARO

PETA’s downtown protest focuses on poor treatment of cows

By The Post-Standard

October 22, 2009, 3:06PM

By Lynette Chen / Contributing writer
Syracuse, NY — Dressed as a cow, a supporter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals dumped gallons of “milk”— actually floured water — today in front of a downtown Syracuse grocery store.

The action at C.L. Evers & Co. on Water Street was part of a protest against what PETA refers to as factory dairy farms and their poor treatment of cows.

Virginia Fort, assistant campaign coordinator at PETA, wore a body-screen TV showing newly released footage taken by a whistleblower at a farm that supplies the Land O’Lakes company. The video shows sick, exhausted cows struggling to stand and being forced to hobble through a massive build-up of their own waste.

“You may want to stop drinking dairy after seeing this,” Fort said. “We want people who go in there and buy milk to know what’s going on behind the scenes of factory farms.

Dairy cows are kept consistently pregnant and forced to produce up to 10 times more than they actually would, Fort said. After several years of abuse, their bodies are shipped off to slaughters where they are made into ground beef , soup or hamburgers, she said.

The footage was taken during a PETA undercover investigation at a farm in Pennsylvania. PETA regularly sends volunteers wearing hidden cameras to factory farms and warehouses to capture footage of what may be shoddy practices, Fort said. Investigators found cows that were sick and unable to move, denied medical care despite being in pain and abused by the farm’s owners. PETA said it is filing complaints against the farm.

No one at the grocery store agreed to comment on the record about the demonstration.

Video Shot at a Land O’Lakes Supplier’s Facility Shows How Cows and Calves Are Left to Suffer on Factory Dairy Farms

For Immediate Release:
October 21, 2009
Contact:
Shakira Croce 757-622-7382

Syracuse, N.Y. — Dressed as a cow, a PETA supporter will dump gallons of “milk” outside a grocery store in Syracuse as part of a protest against cruel factory dairy farms. Another protester will wear a body-screen TV showing newly released video footage taken by a whistleblower at a farm that supplies Land O’Lakes. The video–which shows sick, exhausted cows struggling to stand and being forced to hobble through a massive build-up of their own waste–will reveal to consumers how much filth and suffering goes into the production of milk and other dairy products. The cows suffered from painful infections and severe lameness, and animals were kept in miserable conditions and deprived of even basic care. Some of the animals went untreated and were not put out of their misery when they were in pain and unable to stand.

When: Thursday, October 22, 1 p.m.

Where: C.L. Evers & Company, 214 W. Water St., Syracuse

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“This investigation shows that when you don’t wean yourself off milk, butter, and cheese, you may be paying someone to cause great suffering to animals on factory farms,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Anyone with a conscience will find this footage disturbing, but people can help stop these abuses by dropping dairy products from their diets.”

PETA launched the investigation after a whistleblower working at the farm became concerned about conditions there and contacted PETA for help earlier this year. Investigators discovered cows who were sick and unable to move, were denied medical care despite being in pain, and were abused by the farm’s owners. The owners–a man and his son–have now been charged with cruelty to animals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.

SARO

Syracuse Animal Rights Org.

Category Archives: dairy

>PETA Dumping Dairy Covered In Post-Standard

PETA’s downtown protest focuses on poor treatment of cows

By The Post-Standard

October 22, 2009, 3:06PM

>Gallons of Milk Dumped at Syracuse Grocery Store by Angry PETA Activists