Beyond the buns: No hamburger for this cow



(Prithu chasing Prithvi)

Yvonne the Cow must have taken a cue from Taco Bell.  She was decidedly thinking “outside the bun” when she jumped her own personal sinking ship three months ago.

Although some may doubt whether a cow can “think,” that may be because “language based thinkers often have difficulty imagining that animals can think.”  As Temple Grandin (whose autism predisposes her to think in pictures rather than words) has pointed out:  Conscious behavior allows animals to make choices between different options.  She identifies “consciousness” with “the ability of different subsystems within increasingly complex brains to integrate information and make associations.”

Yvonne exhibited numerous “choices between different options” during the three months that she was fleeing

from those who intended to kill her.  NPR reported that Yvonne had been at large since she “dashed to freedom just before she was to be transported to a slaughterhouse in Southern Germany.”  During that time, Yvonne managed to successfully elude all of the following:  search parties of volunteers, hunters who were told to gun her down, helicopters with thermal-imaging cameras, communications from an animal psychic, and the use of other bovines (such as her son, her sister, and a bull ox) as lures.  She hid in the Bavarian forests, and had been spotted eating the corn from farmers’ fields (a habit which ultimately led to her capture).

Even when finally tranquilized into submission, Yvonne did not go down without a fight.  She fought her captors vigorously, not realizing that they were actually her earthly saviors.  The Guardian reports that she, her son, and her sister were purchased by the Gut Aiderbichl animal sanctuary so that they could live out their years in peace and contentment.

This is entirely in keeping with the respect for bovines that is shown by major world religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Jainism.  For example, Prithvi (“Mother Earth”) provides dairy food for Prithu (an incarnation of Vishnu) while in cow (as opposed to hamburger) form.

Resources

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/08/29/140036762/freedom-for-yvonne-germanys-runaway-cow-search-called-off

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/02/yvonne-cow-caught-three-months

http://www.grandin.com/references/animal.consciousness.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prithvi

Copyright September 4, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved