NEWS: The owner of an animal sanctuary who took in two escaped cows has been arrested on charges of grand larceny. Tracy Murphy, who runs Asha’s Farm Sanctuary in Newfane, New York state, was charged yesterday after she came across two cows wandering on their own several weeks ago and took them to Asha’s to be looked after.

Murphy informed the SPCA, who later informed beef farmer Scott Gregson, who runs McKee Farm where the cows originally escaped from. Gregson refused Murphy’s offer to buy the cows and let them live out their lives at the sanctuary.

Taking the side of Gregson, who legally owns the cows in his herd, local residents gathered outside Asha’s with placards with slogans such as “Release the beef” and “Right to farm”. Now that Murphy has been arrested, the cows have been sent back to Mckee Farm, which Gregson’s supporters have been celebrating as justice done. Grand larceny in the third degree - a charge brought when the value of the stolen property is between $3,000 and $50,000 - is punishable by up to seven years in state prison. 

The accusations that Murphy stole the cows rather than rescued them after they had escaped - and the subsequent grand larceny charges - rest on a couple of factors. One is Gregson not being able to identify how the cows escaped - his electric fence was apparently working, the fencing was intact, and all gates were shut when the cows disappeared from the farm. The other is the question of whether the animals were tagged. Gregson claims they were, while Murphy claims they weren’t. One new site reported that “two former employees at the sanctuary, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they saw at least one cow with a tag when it got there. Days later, they said the tag was gone.” It’s unclear, though, why former employees would have been at the sanctuary at that time, or when they stopped working there.

Whatever the outcome of the official investigation into what happened, the case highlights so much about what is wrong with how animals, particularly certain species, are perceived both morally and legally. Firstly, the status of farmed animals as property overrides every other matter. Though companion animals such as dogs and cats have some protections - for example, it’s illegal to intentionally kill them across the U.S. - farmed animals are not only intentionally killed in their billions but can be treated appallingly without consequence, while animal activists who step in to help them in the U.S. and elsewhere will be prosecuted for doing so.

This absurd speciesism is also clear in how Gregson’s supporters have been expressing their gratitude that the cows are “back home” and “safe”, failing entirely to acknowledge that the cows will eventually be slaughtered for profit. Gregson and his supporters have painted himself, his kids, and the farming community as the victims of this situation, forgetting about the actual victims, and talking about their right to choose how they live, again forgetting about how their choices affect the cows. No matter how much Gregson claims his children love the cows, the situation is in no way equivalent to one where people lose companion animals or have them stolen. The cows are not pets, and their financial value is clearly substantial, as indicated by the grand larceny charges brought against Murphy. As animal advocates have pointed out, if the cows were dogs that had been saved from someone who was planning to have them killed for money, this story would have played out very differently. 

Finally, the case reveals the inability of Gregson or his supporters to imagine the cows choosing to leave the farm and finding their own way to do so. Animals are sentient and have their own agency. Cows are more intelligent than they are given credit for, and are capable of learning and problem-solving. But to acknowledge their desires and the ways they communicate them would make farming and slaughtering them untenable. 

Jason Hribal’s seminal book Fear of the Animal Planet is full of examples of animals resisting subjugation by humans, only for humans to try to rationalize their behaviour as something other than conscious and intentional. Philosopher Eva Meijer has also argued, based on empirical evidence, that animals often do communicate their thoughts and feelings with each other as well as with humans, and that we must learn to listen to them. In the case of farmed animals, they clearly communicate their desire to live and be autonomous in the fear, distress, and resistance they display when sent to slaughter, or when separated from their young as dairy cows and calves always are.

The outcome of the case for Murphy is uncertain, but unless Gregson has a significant change of heart, the fate of his cows is already decided.

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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