150,000 reasons I'm glad to be vegetarian

When I heard the news that I relay here, I have to have to say I am so glad to be a vegetarian. Please don't misunderstand. Almost from the moment I decided to stop eating meat, and endured my first meatless dinner, I've never missed the taste of meat.

It wasn't just the right thing to do for me, it was the right to do for the animal kingdom. The cause for

the change was a considerable need to trim the sails, my new poverty, which came from extreme injustice.

But now - particularly after reading this news I'm referring to here - I do wish I had changed years earlier.

Astute followers of the thoughts on this site might recognise a subject I've agonised over before. However, such fury and condemnation followed that it seemed wiser to remove the story.

Conscience is involved

However, conscience is involved and my conscience has been prodding me to speak my piece which is that I believe the decision in New Zealand to slaughter 150,000 cows is very wrong. The cull is an 'experiment' to see if the mass killing eradicates a strain of disease-causing bacteria from the species. Naturally, I have no argument with the effort to remove a misery that many animals suffer.
But to wipe out such a huge number of animals as an experiment seems to me to be unconsionable.
The official statement about it read, 'Politicians and industry leaders announced the ambitious plan to slaughter about 150,000 cows ... it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and, if successful, would be the first time an infected country has eliminated Mycoplasma bovis.'
It's the 'if' that really makes the action unacceptable.

If it doesn't work?

When I wrote of this before, I said I hoped that vets Down Under will be able to return all those critters back to life if the gamble proves wrong, and it doesn't zap the ghastly disease. Your narrator came under some fierce criticism for saying that.
I wondered what would happen if medics tried the same experiments with humans and took 150,000 Ebola virus victims were out into a field and shot them in an 'ambitious plan which if successful would be the first time an infected country had eliminated ….'
It's good that a measure of conscience is shown by the farmers. Their union terms it a tough decison and refers to the hideous pain and anguish farmers will endure. Of course it will be tough on the breeders, but nothing like it's effect on the poor cows themselves.
It seems that quite a few dissenters exist among the farmers. However, they will have no say in the slaughter. Any farms which have any infected cows will have the complete herd slaughtered.

A cruel, selfish decision

When I came under intense fire for writing about this before, I had the temerity to suggest that the decision was a cruel utterly selfish decision in anyone's language. I suggested it might be better to discourage greedy humans from wanting to eat cows. Well, to avoid upseting too many, I'll put a line through that this time.

... a cruel utterly selfish decision in anyone's language. I suggested it might be better to discourage greedy humans from wanting to eat cows.

However, while empathising with farmers facing this major problem, conscience insists that it is very wrong to slaughter a huge number of animals as an experiment.

Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com