CHENNAI: Say no to cow milk and save your mother cow on this Mother’s Day — this was the message People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sent out on Friday to Chennai residents through an eye-catching street-side protest.
A volunteer of the animal rights group dressed in cow costume and two others dressed as milkmaids held aloft placards that read ‘Cow’s Milk is for Calves — Go Vegan’. Braving the scorching sun, the volunteers positioned themselves outside the Semmozhi Poonga near the Anna Flyover for nearly 30 minutes.
While appealing to people to shun cow milk, the volunteers offered an alternative — soy milk. They even handed out free samples of soya milk to passers by. “We want to tell people that on this Mothers Day on May 8, Chennai residents can help stop daily suffering of mother cows at the dairy farms by switching over to a meat and dairy-free diet," they pointed out.
The PETA volunteers said that milch cows and buffaloes in dairy farms spent their day in tiny stalls. Calves were separated from the mothers while the latter were injected with oxytocin so that they could produce more milk.
“There are many alternatives to cow milk. People can opt for almond milk, pumpkin-seed milk, peanut, coconut or cashew milk. Moreover, 70 per cent of South Indians are intolerant to lactose. So they should give up having cow’s milk,” Niranjan, a PETA volunteer, said.
PETA’s investigations across the country, which they say are documented, support the story of torture. Cows and buffaloes live up to 18 years but animals raised for milk are slaughtered when they are seven years old as their bodies are spent from being kept pregnant all the time.
Hygiene has always been a big question mark at the dairy farms. PETA investigations found that the children of the workers defecate around the milk sheds, while milk containers are kept by the drainage where flies swarm. Calves and cows that are no longer useful are butchered for their meat, the volunteers added.