I found another interesting article about cows, that might possibly cause to see them with a slightly broader view:
goveg.com
A cow contentedly chewing her cud may look like she doesn’t have a care in the world, but there’s a lot going on behind those big brown eyes. Cows are as diverse as cats, dogs, and people: Some are bright; others are slow learners. Some are bold and adventurous; others are shy and timid. Some are friendly and considerate; others are bossy and devious. According to organic farmer Rosamund Young, author of The Secret Lives of Cows, cows “can be highly intelligent, moderately so, or slow to understand; friendly, considerate, aggressive, docile, inventive, dull, proud, or shy.”
In addition to having distinct personalities, cows, according to recent research, are also very intelligent animals with long memories. Animal behaviorists have found that cows interact in socially complex ways, developing friendships over time, sometimes holding grudges against cows who treat them badly, and forming social hierarchies within their herds. They are emotionally complex as well and even have the capacity to worry about the future.
Researchers have found that cows can not only figure out problems, they also, like humans, enjoy the intellectual challenge and get excited when they find a solution. Their big problem, of course, is that they’re being raised for slaughter, and just like all animals, they don’t want to be separated from their families, and they don’t want to die. So cows have been known to use their smarts to perform amazing feats, such as leaping over a six-foot fence to escape from a slaughterhouse, walking seven miles to reunite with a calf after being sold at auction, and swimming across a river to freedom.
Cows are intelligent and curious animals who enjoy solving problems and interacting with their environment. They have long memories and are capable of learning lessons from each other, just as humans do.
Brainy Bovines
Cows like challenges, and according to researchers, they feel excitement when they finish a task or use their intellect to overcome an obstacle. In an article on cow intelligence, a reporter writes that “Donald Broom, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, will tell the conference how cows can become excited by solving intellectual challenges. In one study, researchers challenged the animals with a task where they had to find how to open a door to get some food. An electroencephalograph was used to measure their brainwaves. ‘The brainwaves showed their excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment,’ Professor Broom said.”
Research has shown that cows clearly understand cause-and-effect relationships—a sure-fire sign of advanced cognitive abilities. For example, cows can learn how to push a lever to operate a drinking fountain when they’re thirsty or to press a button with their heads to release grain when they’re hungry. Like humans and other animals, cows also quickly learn to stay away from things that cause them pain, like electric fences and unkind humans.
Because of their complex social interactions, cows also have the ability to learn from each other, another indication of their intelligence, which is comparable to that of a dog and a bit higher than that of a cat. According the Humane Society of the United States, if an individual cow in a herd is shocked by an electric fence, the rest will become alarmed and learn to avoid it. Only a small fraction will ever be shocked.
Cows don’t forget lessons that they’ve learned. Research has shown that these animals have impressive memories. Cows remember their homes and can find their way back to their favorite spots.
According to one report on cow behavior, cows “demonstrate good spatial memory (they remember where things are located). ... They can remember migration routes, watering holes, shelter and the location of their newborn calf.” Researchers also report that cows can remember the best eating spots in a pasture and that they use their spatial memory to guide themselves back to the best spots.
Stories of cows who used their navigation capabilities to find their way back home after being sold at auction are common. A cow named Blackie broke down a fence in the middle of the night and walked seven miles to the farm where her calf had been sold. She was found the next morning, contentedly suckling her calf, who was positively identified by the auction sticker still attached to her rump.
Some cows never forget those who have hurt them either, and they’ve been known to hold grudges against other members of their herd. Rosamund Young details a quarrel between a grandmother cow and her daughter. Grandmother cows often help their daughters with mothering duties, but a cow named Olivia wanted no part of that. She never left her calf’s side, and she ignored her mother’s offers to help groom him. Offended, her mother finally marched off to another field to graze with her friends and never “spoke” to her daughter again. Cows can also remember and hold grudges against people who have hurt them or their family members.
Cows are emotional animals who have likes and dislikes, just like humans do. The chair of the National Farmers Union in the United Kingdom, Tim Sell, explains, “They are all individuals and all have their own characteristics. They are tremendously curious. They have emotional storms. When it is a miserable, cold day, they will all be miserable, but when it is nice and sunny, you can almost see them smiling.”
Many cows are affectionate animals who are deeply loyal to their families and human companions. Cows can use their body posture and vocal sounds to express a whole range of emotions, including contentment, interest, anger, and distress. These gentle giants mourn the death of those they love, even shedding tears over their loss.
Like humans and all animals, cows show strong reactions to bad treatment. For example, Dr. Ed Pajor of Purdue University found that cows resent being handled roughly: “The handlers don’t have to be really mean and hit the cows. It’s just a slap on the rump in the way that many farmers would. But the cows don’t like it and it makes a real difference.”
With kind treatment, cows can be very loyal companions. Anyone who has spent time with cows knows that they look out for their friends, both human and animal. In her book Peaceful Kingdom: Random Acts of Kindness by Animals, Stephanie Laland writes that when the Rev. O. F. Robertson began to go blind, his cow Mary became his “seeing-eye cow.” Mary would walk along with him, nudging him away from obstacles. She diligently accompanied Robertson everywhere he went for the rest of his life.
A herd of cows is very much like a pack of wolves, with alpha animals and complex social dynamics. Each cow can recognize more than 100 members of the herd, and social relationships are very important to them. Cows form close friendships with some members of their herd—the relationships between mothers and daughters are especially strong, and calves bond with others in their peer group.
Researchers at Bristol University in the United Kingdom found that cows have best friends and cliques, just like human beings do, and that animals groom and lick one another to demonstrate this affection. The longer partners know each other, the longer they groom each other. Also like humans, cows may carefully avoid others in their herd after they’ve had a falling out.
The social relationships between cows influence many parts of their daily lives. For example, when the herd settles down for a nap, each cow’s position and the order in which they lie down is directly related to their status in the herd.
Raising cows in unnatural conditions, such as crowded feedlots, is very stressful to them because it upsets their hierarchy. University of Saskatchewan researcher Jon Watts notes that cows who are kept in groups of more than 200 on commercial feedlots get stressed and constantly fight for dominance (feedlots in America hold thousands of cows at a time). He says that this occurs because the cows are taken from their mothers too early, deprived of adequate space, and can’t find their niche within such large groups.
This is akin to how humans would feel if we were penned in a tiny space with thousands of unfamiliar people. Just like us, cows like to be near their families and friends, and the stress of life on factory farms makes them feel confused, scared, and alone.
When they are separated from their families, friends, or human companions, cows grieve over the loss. Researchers report that cows become visibly distressed after even a brief separation. The mother-calf bond is particularly strong, and there are countless reports of mother cows who continue to frantically call and search for their babies after the calves have been taken away and sold to veal farms.
Author Oliver Sacks, M.D., wrote of a visit that he and cattle expert Dr. Temple Grandin made to a dairy farm and of the great tumult of bellowing that they heard when they arrived: “‘They must have separated the calves from the cows this morning,’ Temple said, and, indeed, this was what had happened. We saw one cow outside the stockade, roaming, looking for her calf, and bellowing. ‘That’s not a happy cow,’ Temple said. ‘That’s one sad, unhappy, upset cow. She wants her baby. Bellowing for it, hunting for it. She’ll forget for a while, then start again. It’s like grieving, mourning—not much written about it. People don’t like to allow them thoughts or feelings.’”
John Avizienius, the senior scientific officer in the Farm Animals Department of the RSPCA in Britain, says that he “remembers one particular cow who appeared to be deeply affected by the separation from her calf for a period of at least six weeks. When the calf was first removed, she was in acute grief; she stood outside the pen where she had last seen her calf and bellowed for her offspring for hours. She would only move when forced to do so. Even after six weeks, the mother would gaze at the pen where she last saw her calf and sometimes wait momentarily outside of the pen. It was almost as if her spirit had been broken and all she could do was to make token gestures to see if her calf would still be there.”
Like all animals, cows value their lives and don’t want to die. Stories abound of cows who have gone to extraordinary lengths to fight for their lives.
A cow named Suzie was about to be loaded on a freighter bound for Venezuela when she turned around, ran back down the gangplank, and leaped into the river. Even though she was pregnant, or perhaps because she was pregnant, she managed to swim all the way across the river, eluding capture for several days. (Believe it or not, cows actually love swimming!) She was rescued by PETA and sent to a sanctuary for farmed animals.
When workers at a slaughterhouse in Massachusetts went on break, Emily the cow made a break of her own. She took a tremendous leap over a five-foot gate and escaped into the woods, surviving for several weeks in New England’s snowiest winter in a decade, cleverly refusing to touch the hay put out to lure her back to the slaughterhouse. When she was eventually caught by the owners of a nearby sanctuary, public outcry demanded that the slaughterhouse allow the sanctuary to buy her for one dollar. Emily lived out her life happily in Massachusetts, a testament to the fact that eating meat means eating animals who don’t want to die.
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