The new life in freedom of about twenty cows escaped from a farm in Saint-Barnabé and their calves born in the wild challenges our imagination. Hidden in the forests of Mauricie during the day, feeding in the fields at nightfall, they have, according to some, become “wild” again.
The columnist Yves Boisvert, in The Press, salute the audacity of these cows who would have dreamed of a new life and who would have thus jumped the fence, to escape a world of resignation and suffering.
This thinking is far from out of place anthropomorphism, since it has now been shown that cows have the ability to form complex social bonds and experience a wide range of emotions related to sophisticated cognitive processes such as awareness of self and empathy. Recent scientific publications on the subject show that these animals are likely to learn emotionally from lived experiences, to make choices based on them and, above all, to experience emotional contagion, i.e. say to be influenced by the feelings, the traumas and the distress of their fellow human beings.
If the cows of Mauricie were able to run away and “jump the fence”, it is because they belonged, at the start, to a minority which is not permanently deprived of freedom of movement. In fact, of the 350,000 cows currently used in Quebec in the dairy industry, 90% of them spend their lives in tie-stalls, that is to say they are kept indoors permanently, held by the neck to a tie bar which prevents them from moving and even from turning over on themselves. It is therefore currently some 315,000 Quebec cows that never have access to the outside world and that cannot satisfy their most basic behavioral needs, such as that of moving freely or socializing with their peers.
By improvising a life in nature, the resourceful cows on the run perfectly illustrate the paradoxes to which their objectification within industry subjects them and reminds us of the inaccuracy of the character of absolute placidity attributed to them. A design that changes quickly when observed in an environment that is not purely utilitarian.
Are we surprised to see cows taking refuge in the forest? But at Vine Sanctuary, a Vermont sanctuary for farm animals, a group of free-roaming cows free from the threat of predators spend most of their time hiding in the forest by choice.
The cohesion of the group of fugitives surprises observers. However, social ties are essential for these animals. A study on the behavior of free-range cows reveals that cows have favorite conspecifics with whom they prefer to groom themselves and whose presence even calms their heartbeat. In contrast, cows in tie-stalls exhibit stereotypical behaviors, such as repetitive biting or licking of metal bars, an indicator of psychological distress.
Some are amazed that calves born in freedom in this group would have learned the survival of their elders by following the herd from hiding place to hiding place. However, one of the reasons invoked for, systematically and in all farms in Quebec, removing the newborn calf from its mother would be the need to protect it from a mother with a failing maternal instinct. Perhaps one only has to look at some European herds that now choose to keep the calf close to its mother rather than productivity at all costs, to see how cows treat their calves with unparalleled maternal instinct as they evolve in a suitable environment.
While science has demonstrated an interest in play in cows similar to that seen in other mammals such as dogs, these extraordinarily free-born young calves will have had the chance to run and play, an experience whose The majority of milk-fed calves in Quebec are deprived since they are systematically isolated for fattening in order to be resold for their meat.
In short, by escaping, for the space of a season, from a life not of boredom, but of a real nightmare, the Girl Scouts of Saint-Barnabé flee an existence which generally ends at the age of five in taking the road to the slaughterhouse. Or hardly better: a fate similar to their 450 congeners who were burned alive in Saint-Théodore-d’Acton during one of the too frequent farm fires in the province.
Obviously, cows can hardly survive the Quebec winter in these conditions. For reasons of animal welfare and public safety, their repatriation must be organized quickly. Moreover, that the possibility of simply slaughtering them has been mentioned is unacceptable and demonstrates the urgency of considering cohabitation with the animals around us differently, whether they are domesticated or not.
May these cows, like scouts, simply by exhibiting before our eyes all that is natural behavior, remind us of what their fellow cows dream of, deprived of the expression of their most elementary needs, deprived of contact with their young, exercise, fresh air and socializing. Of everything that gives meaning to a life, ultimately.