Delilah and I lived in the converted loft of a barn. [For the story of how we met, go to the Delilah: In From the Wild post.] While the space itself was tiny, it had a huge second story deck, with marvelous views of the Poultney River valley, as well as the Adirondack, Taconic and Green Mountains. Surrounding it was ten acres of grazing for cows, and beyond that, a mixed coniferous forest filled with wildlife — deer, wild turkey, bear, bobcat, coyote, the occasional fisher, perhaps a catamount now and then. At night, the sky was nearly as dark and star-filled as that of northern Ontario or the Boundary Waters Wilderness of Minnesota. My landlords (Tom and Sandy) and their children (Chantal and Savannah) were a delight.

Makes me wonder why in the world I ever moved into the NYC Metro area!

One aspect I liked about living there were the dairy cows that grazed around the barn. I would come home from work and call to the ‘girls’. A small herd would come thundering over the hill to greet me. This was a bit unnerving with such big creatures running directly towards me. Yet they knew their distances and timed their halt to perfection. Cows are smarter and more active than the word ‘bovine’ conveys, especially when they graze free-range and interact with humans and other animals as individuals. Some are shy and standoffish, others bold and affectionate. Daisy was the latter. She would lean over the electric barrier, place her head on my shoulder, and nuzzle. The kids were far bolder than I, walking amongst the herd without a care.

From the comfort of the deck, I used to watch a hilarious game of chase I called ‘cow-tag’. Delilah would start the game by visibly going on the prowl in front of the cows. One moment they would be looking at each other. The next she was virtually invisible, slowly stalk them in the tall grass outside their enclosure. A cow’s ears would perk up, the head lift, and a low moo issued. The herd was on notice, and many glanced in the direction they thought Delilah would come from. They would mill about, but when she was very close, turn their backs as a herd to her. Very curious behaviour for a prey species, a? With the requisite feline tail swishing, Delilah would spring her ambush. She’d fly out of the grass (she is swift!) and bat the closest leg that presented itself. That cow would sound an alarm, and the whole herd would run off with Delilah in hot pursuit. They’d go some distance and then suddenly swing around, charging back towards Delilah. She’d turn tail and run like hell. They’d chase her to the edge of the electric fence, but never run her down. After a suitable period of grooming and grazing, Delilah might touch noses with some of the cows, or rub along their legs. All in all, it was a remarkable interaction for a little wild cat and a herd of dairy cows, neither of whom is suppose to have consciousness according to many religious and scientific dogmas of our day.

As a point of information, the family treated their cows very well, and in many cases developed deep emotional attachments to the more social of them. They were replacement heifers — back-up milk cows — and all of us felt the loss when one was carted off to an industrial dairy operation. The contradictions of contract ‘family farming’, the well-being of animals on their land, and the tragedy of what eventually befell them were readily apparent to the family. Sadly, like so many other rural families, they were caught in our distorted system of industrial animal production and marginal rural economies that corporate acquisitions and mergers, government subsidies and American culture has encouraged over the last half century.

The ethics of agricultural animals is a hot topic today. Few arenas present so much suffering, and at such a vast scale. Estimates vary, but it is safe to say that tens of billions of animals are slaughtered worldwide, many having lived through and died in the most inhumane conditions. As a culture and a species, we should not be proud of this. Delilah and the ‘girls’ represent but one instance of a growing body of experiences, experiments and evidence demonstrating (for the Nth time) what we already know — most if not all farm animals are self-aware creatures living complex emotional and social lives. The responsibility to treat them with compassion and forecaring is ours. For many animal advocates, this means ending all agricultural uses of animals, and the practice of a vegan lifestyle.

I have several friends who are vegan animal advocates. I admire their lives of compassion, and their effective work on behalf of wild or domestic animals. And yet, ethically, I don’t think it is necessarily wrong to raise animals for food or fiber. Is there no substantial difference between obese Americans shoveling down yet another feed-lot steak, while Sami herders slaughter a reindeer for ceremony, food and materials? And is there nothing in the predatory aspects of an omnivorous species like ourselves to be valued? Do we play into the primitive/civilized dichotomy when we excuse animal use for less technologically oriented cultures, but then link industrial progress to the abolition of animal use? Do we go as far as a recent set of articles in New Scientist (‘Animals and Us’, 4 June 2005, www.newscientist.com), and envision a day where abolition has ended even companion animals? I know that I can’t properly answer these questions and their retorts here and now. But I raise these questions in the hope they at least give us pause from asserting simplistic statements about right and wrong. A more nuanced practical ethics should be able to recognize a range of legitimate relationships between human and other animals.

Nevertheless, trying to take a situated approach to farm animal ethics should not be confused with excusing animal abuse. Factory farms conditions are general abhorrent. Nor are ‘traditional’ family farm operations necessarily much better. While family farms may have offered more opportunities for the caring husbandry of animals, we cannot assume that this was always or mostly the case. One has to reserve judgment, and look to both the intentions and practices of the farmers, as well as the welfare of the animals themselves.

Cheers, Bill