THE BOBBY CALF QUESTION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 98, 13 August 1943, Page 4

THE BOBBY CALF QUESTION

THE raising of the question of ill-treatment to bobby calves is no new thing. Almost annually a few years back complaints at the utter cruelty and thoughtlessness which resulted in hundreds of these helpless animals being slowly starved to death led to a wave of indignation and horror amongst humanitarians all over the country. We had thought that regulations and prosecutions had overcome at least its worst aspects but apparently the hunger for a! few miserable shillings is sufficient to make certain farmers completely oblivious to the suffering of a helpless starving animal once it leaves his hands. We do not seek to criticise the average farmer who we willingly concede has as great an aversion to deliberate cruelty as any dweller in the towns, but we do definitely and without reserve condemn the practice of a certain type of callous individual who almost before the calf can stand sends it off by lorry to endure the nightmare trip of one, two and sometimes three days to Westfield or Horotui. We admit that the Eastern Bay of Plenty is possibly the most remote dairying centre in the North Island and that the 250 mile trip presents something of a problem. We concede also that the operations of the Rangitaiki Pool has led to a systemised and regulated collection—but what of the calves from the even more remote areas beyond Opotiki, all of which are sent by the same train which leaves Taneatua on Mondays at 6 p.m. These pitiful young animals have already been a day longer without food than those collected from the} Rangitaiki and we have a woman eye-witness to testify to their terrible condition when seen at Awakeri. No decent person would desire to see a perpetuation of such a state of affairs and we are certain that all rightminded farmers too would welcome steps to put an end to it, not merely in the interests of the calves but in their own protection as well. Unless this matter is screeded to higl| heaven, there will always be those callous enough to for-< ward underweight calves if they can get away with it, even as there is an indifferent freight rail service to Auckland, which has been known to sideline trucks of distressed calves for hours on end at an out of the way station. Thus the suffering is increased and thus the demand for proper supervision and humane transport becomes insistent, and we would not be men were we to ignore it.