Sir, - Through all the media coverage of the BSE controversy I have not heard anyone speak up for the real victims in this complicated saga - the innocent cattle. Already exploited and bred for slaughter at the prime of their lives, these herbivorous animals were fed meat and bonemeal from their own species by unscrupulous men who will defy any natural law to increase their profits. And who pays the penalty? The same innocent animals - the victims, rather than the perpetrators, of the crime. Now they are plagued by a horrible disease and condemned to die in huge numbers to protect the humans who are responsible for the whole disaster.
I feel such pain when I hear news reporters on RTE, Pat Kenny on his radio programme, officials in the Department of Agriculture and my own colleagues discuss the slaughter of all animals over the age of 30 months as casually and as coldly as if they were discussing the destruction of millions of banned books or toys unsafe for children. They argue back and forth about what to do with the resulting vast quantities of dead flesh and never once stop to think of the horrific death each of these sensitive, living creatures has just endured at the hands of the more "intelligent" species on whom they are unfortunately dependent.
As Leo Tolstoy said in his essay The First Step: "This is dreadful; not just the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity - that of pity and sympathy towards living creatures like himself - any by violating his own feelings becomes cruel." - Yours, etc.,
Angela Hickey, MVB,(Veterinary Surgeon), Whitechurch Road, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.