PETA India One-Ups Cancelled ‘Hug-a-Cow’ Day With ‘Save-a-Cow’ Day With Sweet Calf Rescue
On Valentine’s Day, recently observed as Hug-a-Cow Day by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), a positive sentiment that was later withdrawn, PETA India celebrated Save-a-Cow Day instead. PETA India’s rescue team conducts scouting activities to find animals in need of medical care, and its other staff members and volunteers look out for animals who need help, too. During this process, PETA India’s Advocacy Officer Farhat Ul Ain spotted an abandoned male calf stuck in a ditch in Gurgaon, Haryana. He was suffering from a painful, open wound and was unable to bear weight on one leg. Farhat named the calf “Valentine”. Valentine was provided with medical care, and PETA India has now moved him to a beautiful sanctuary run by Animal Rahat that is full of fruit trees.
While Valentine is a bull and not a cow, PETA India reminds the public that helping bulls is good for cows’ hearts, too, because calves are separated from their mothers shortly after birth, which causes the mothers extreme grief. The males are starved, abandoned, or killed for their flesh and skin because they cannot produce milk. Some dairies even use khaal (skin or hide in Hindi) bacchas (babies) – stuffed dead calves hung or propped up on sticks – to try to trick mother cows and buffaloes into lactation.
The dairy industry also supports the beef and leather industries, which are able to exist in India largely because the dairy sector supplies them with animals. What’s more, University of Oxford researchers found going meat- and dairy-free can reduce an individual’s carbon footprint from food by up to 73%. And doctors tell us dairy consumption in humans is linked to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, certain types of cancer, and other ailments.
Make every day Save-a-Cow Day!
