Why are we crying over Foot and Mouth

I am puzzled why people get so sentimental about Foot and Mouth. Sure it is a disaster. It’s an economic disaster for the agricultural business which risks yet again not being able to sell any meat abroad – not to mention for al the rest of us who must bail the unfortunate farmers out.  And it’s decidedly unpleasant for people like me who would prefer to have our animals slaughtered behind the closed doors of an abattoir, than loaded as corpses into trucks in full view of the television cameras.

But why so much sentimental hype? And all the talk of “tragedy”?

Foot and Mouth is a very odd disease. For a start, despite the deathly impression you would get from most of the news, the vast majority of animals would recover from it anyway, with no long term ill-effects. It is the easy contagion, the visible nastiness and – most important --  the fact that European rules ban any infected animal from any European markets, that give foot and mouth its edge.

All the same, even the most austere newspaper and television reports treat it as the bovine equivalent of AIDS. A deadly virus that could move anywhere next; a surreptitious contagion creeping through the country.

As if we thought that these infected animals were in other, disease-free circumstances likely to have passed a long and happy life scampering through the meadows.

The nadir came on Wednesday’s Today programme, when a Scottish sheep farmer seemed to be in tears recollecting the last big epidemic in 2001 and what had happened within the “cull” zone.

Why was he crying? Not for the economic costs, at least not personally.  Most accounts suggest that last time the government compensation for the culled animals was no less lucrative than what healthy livestock would have raised at market (even as much as £900 for a £600 animal). In fact, so far as I can work out, the farmers who lose in a Foot and Mouth epidemic are those whose herds don’t get the disease, or aren’t quite near enough to the infection – who are neither compensated nor able to sell their animals.

No, he was crying because he just couldn’t bear the memory of delivering a lamb from its young mother (her first baby, apparently), only to know that he was making it suckle for nothing and that it would shortly be killed by lethal injection from the government vets. It was a bit like losing a child, he said. A terrible tragedy of loss. 

Moving enough to be sure. But hang on. What was the lamb being bred for in the first place? Actually for another form of speedy death. As the programme made clear, this was a meat breeding farm (“for eating essentially” as the farmer put it). The people who were missing out were those of us who would otherwise have been tucking into this sweet little animal in a few months times, with new potatoes and mint sauce. Which is, of course, where the “it’s not terribly dissimilar from looking after your own children” analogy breaks down.

Economic disaster is one thing. But to weep for the fate of an animal you would have been selling to the slaughter-house in a few weeks anyway is an odd form of grief.

But happily the news this morning is that the restrictions are being lifted. The nation’s animals can now take to the road again – to their accustomed abattoirs

Comments

[Tony Francis]

XYJ, I am confused by your statement: "The Pope and Bush ranting about unborn lives and not giving a shit about the born ones, for instance." What are you talking about? Even assuming it were true (which it isn't), what does this have to do with Hoof and Mouth disease, and the seemingly mixed emotions over the loss of animals which will be killed in the end, anyway. Then you state: "But on the other hand, we can change society when/if we manage to get rid of the social forces underpinning the Pope and Bush..." So far as I can tell, the Pope hasn't had much influence in England since at least the time of Henry VIII. I don't think the Pope ever had much influence in the Scandinavian countries. Bush... well, he's my President, and I don't like a lot of what has happened under him. But so far as I can tell, he has even less influence in Europe than the Pope does. I guess I just don't follow your logic. As far as "caring about people after they are born", come the US sometime. It is the biggest welfare state you will ever see, anywhere. We have had more than 40 million abortions in the US since 1973, so all the ranting and raving about it haven't done much to affect those who want to have them. If abortion is the solution, we should be living in Utopia. Something else that hasn't been mentioned: all those farm animals everyone is worrying about, won't even exist if everyone becomes a vegetarian. So then the argument becomes: is it better for them not to exist at all, than to exist for food? That's a philosophical argument that isn't going to be resolved here.

[Xjy]

The trouble, Mary and Jackie, is that forming emotional attachments to people animals and things important in our daily lives is a very deeply rooted mechanism for human survival and social success. Most contradictions aren't. Hence the prevalence of contradictory emotional outpourings. The Pope and Bush ranting about unborn lives and not giving a shit about born ones, for instance. Pig-rich destroyers of the world living in the most "beautiful" natural environments. The Maya and other indigenous peoples being exploited and feted as tourist attractions while they themselves (like Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchu in Cancun) get thrown out of posh hotels.

So I think the "fluffy bunny" syndrome is indelible. But on the other hand, we can change society, and when/if we manage to get rid of the social forces underpinning the Pope and Bush and the pig-rich, we will be far less bothered by the grating illogicality of some of our emotional attachments exposed in unexpected perspectives.

No one's mentioned Love versus Sex as a problem in the "fluffy bunny" category yet, I notice... :-)

[Hein Maassen]

I think the shepherd was not so much crying about the nipped-in-the-bud life of his lamb, but about the fact it would not be able to fulfil its humanly-ordained goal of serving as food. He was crying about the waste of it all.

[arindam bandyopadhaya]

I read Jackie's comment. I am sorry for the vet. Was he having a bipolar disorder?

[Brien Comerford]

The only subject that I am convinced about is vegetarianism. I truly feel that people eating animals is insanely, inhumane. Furthermore, the cruel beef, pork, lamb, poultry and fishing industries are responsible for massive air, land and water pollution that exacerbate global warming and irreparably damage marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Animals are sentient beings and creatures of God. We should not eat them!!!

[Tony Francis]

There is something deep within the psyche of western culture concerning the protection of animals. From Pythagoras: "For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." St. Francis of Assisi: "Men who exclude God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity will deal with other men likewise."
There are dozens of similar quotes:
http://www.moggies.co.uk/html/awquotes_1.html
There has been great outrage over Michael Vick, the US NFL star who has recently been indicted for transporting dogs over state lines for purposes of dog fighting. NFL stars have been involved in homicides, and there wasn't this much anger expressed.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/v/michael_vick/index.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701393.html

There has been an association between animal cruelty and domestic violence and serial killers. [Serial killers have: 1.) Animal cruelty; 2.) pyromania; 3.) enuresis. Could it be that society has always observed this connection?]
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/tick/5b.html
This is the Court TV website, and there are a lot of good articles on this site. Finally, Jackie has stated it: farmers get very attached to their livestock, and seeing them destroyed is painful. Sort of like saying, "Mary, we are going to pay you your salary, but you can't teach this year." - only worse.

[Jackie]

What I call 'the fluffy bunny reaction' is prevalent in the media to a rather ghastly extent. However, it is wrong to dismiss the effects of foot and mouth disease as purely economic. My uncle spent 20 years building up a herd of pedegree Friesian milking cows, all of whom he loved like a father! None went for slaughter for beef, each calf was a cause of great celebration. He lost the lot in the outbreak in the 60's (or was it the 70's, I'm not good on dates!) and had to watch as his life's work was buried in a huge pit in one of his fields. The disease was brought onto the farm by a vet who was less than thorough because he thought the 'suspected' case he had been to wasn't. He was wrong. My uncle hadn't the heart to start again, he went into beef cattle where you don't get attached, and horses, that don't get the disease. The vet had a breakdown and committed suicide.