Do Dairy-Eaters Dare to See the World Through a Calf’s Eyes?

PETA’s Virtual-Reality Experience Will Challenge Shreveport to Relate to Calves Who Are Kidnapped and Killed for Dairy ‘Products’ and Veal

For Immediate Release:
February 15, 2018

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

What:    Beginning on February 16, PETA will be challenging dairy-eaters in Shreveport to see—and feel—what it’s like to be a cow born on a dairy farm with its new “I, Calf” virtual reality experience, which uses a combination of filmed footage and computer animation. Based on a true story, the program places the viewer “in the body” of a young calf whose mother secretly gave birth to twins and—remembering that farmers took her previous babies away—hid one of the newborns to protect him.

When:    Friday, February 16, 12 noon

Where:    Shreveport Riverview Park, Shreveport, Louisiana

“Every day, thousands of calves are traumatically torn away from their mothers so that the dairy industry can sell humans the milk that was intended for the calves,” says PETA Executive Vice President and mother Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s virtual reality experience dares dairy-eaters to take a cow’s-eye view of the heartbreak behind every glass of cow’s milk, yogurt, or slice of cheese.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—notes that male calves in the dairy industry are torn away from their mothers within days of birth to be raised and killed for veal, while females are used as replacements for their mothers, kept constantly pregnant and used as milk machines until their bodies give out and they’re slaughtered for hamburger meat. While the consumption of cow’s milk has been linked to an increased risk of suffering from heart disease and prostate, breast, and ovarian cancer, milks made from soy, hemp, almonds, cashews, and other nondairy ingredients are free of harmful saturated animal fat and cholesterol.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.