People around the world shared, liked and commented on videos and articles about the 16 bison who escaped a Gilford farm and roamed nearby streets for hours. Some made jokes, some were speechless and some rooted for the bison for their daring escape.
If you were one of their cheerleaders, know that you can help all animals simply by cutting out or cutting back on meat.
You see, incidents like the one in Gilford aren’t rare. Stories abound of animals escaping farms and jumping off trucks bound for slaughterhouses.
In early 2016, Freddy, a steer at a Queens, N.Y., slaughterhouse, escaped and ran through busy city streets before being saved and brought to a sanctuary. In Chicago, a lamb fled a slaughterhouse but was cornered 10 minutes later and driven back to the facility. One cow in Idaho even jumped a six-foot fence in an attempt to escape slaughter.
These stories may amuse or inspire us, but they make one thing clear: All animals want to be free. And the reality is that the vast majority of animals raised and slaughtered for food endure unimaginable pain and misery.
Consider chickens raised for meat, who are bred to grow so fast many collapse under their own weight.
For their entire lives, they’re crammed so tightly in dark, windowless warehouses that each bird has less than a square foot of floor space. Because factory farmers don’t regularly change the birds’ litter, chickens live in their own waste, many suffering from ammonia burns.
Those who survive until slaughter are shackled upside down, often still conscious when their throats are slit.
While most New Hampshire farms don’t use the worst factory farming practices, the vast majority of meat sold in restaurants and grocery stores comes from factory farms and slaughterhouses in other states.
Thankfully, it’s never been easier to cut back or cut out meat.
Major restaurant chains like Chipotle, Panera Bread and even Taco Bell now have robust vegetarian menus.
Bosh.TV features more than 100 short videos demonstrating how to cook tasty vegetarian meals, and ChooseVeg.com offers free live-chat support and meal plans.
If you don’t know where to start, consider cutting out fish and chicken first to make the greatest impact.
The average American meat eater consumes about 18 chickens and 12 farm-raised fish each year (compared to less than one pig and cow), so simply cutting out chicken and fish will spare the lives of 30 animals each year.
Not much of an animal lover but care about the environment? According to the United Nations, meat production is a top contributor to climate change, so cutting back can seriously help the environment.
In fact, a University of Oxford study says going vegetarian will cut your carbon footprint in half.
Watching a herd of bison enjoy a few hours of freedom wasn’t only entertainment; it was a reminder that animals farmed for food – nearly all hidden behind factory farm and slaughterhouse doors – exist and crave freedom just like us.
You have the power to spare animals a life of confinement each time you sit down to eat.
(Meg York is a staff attorney at Mercy For Animals, an international farmed animal protection organization, and resides in Guilford, Vt.)