PLEASE NOTE:
Portions of this now amended Action Alert were based on representations made to VINE by the Green Mountain College Farm Manager, who led us to believe that he was speaking for the college. We have since learned that was not true and that some of his statements did not reflect the official college position. We sincerely regret any hard feelings caused by that misunderstanding. We encourage the college community to revisit any decisions that it may have made based on inaccurate information
Specifically, we have since learned that the college asserts that (a) killing Bill and Lou would be best for them, and (b) killing Bill and Lou would be the “sustainable” thing to do, to keep them from wasting resources now that one of them is disabled. The college does intend to serve them as hamburger but does not see this as the primary motive for the slaughter.
Green Mountain College does still plan to kill Lou and Bill, and action is still needed.
Please see subsequent blog posts for details.
Green Mountain College is poised to kill two oxen named Bill and Lou who have served their college farm for ten long years. ACT NOW to prevent it!
Bill and Lou have been a working team of oxen at Green Mountain College in Poultney, VT for ten years. They were pressed into service by staff at Cerridwen Farm – the teaching farm on campus – to do everything from plowing fields to generating electricity. Over the years, they became so well loved that they’re even the profile picture for the farm’s Facebook page!
A few months ago, Lou became unable to be worked any longer. Bill won’t work with anyone else. Therefore, the college has concluded that both of them must be killed.
DEATH is their reward for 10 long years of hard work.
Yes, Green Mountain College has decided that Bill and Lou’s long lives of service should be rewarded by their slaughter – and for what? According to their own press releases, the school will get, at best, a couple of months of low-grade hamburger out of their bodies.
This is especially heartbreaking because they have an excellent home waiting for them.
VINE Sanctuary has offered to provide Bill and Lou with permanent homes. We have the ability and resources to care for them for the rest of their natural lives. Sadly, though, the college is determined to kill them instead.
Farm Manager Kenneth Mulder (with whip) working Bill and Lou
For ten years, they served the needs of those more powerful than they are.
Now it’s time to let them serve their own needs.
Please contact the folks at Green Mountain College and urge them to reconsider. It would be especially powerful for people from Vermont to contact them, and even more so for alumni to add their voices, so if you know someone from Vermont and/or Green Mountain College, please forward this notice to them as well. Feel free to use and/or modify the letter below, or write your own. Please send the letter to the following people:
Bill Throop Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs: throopw@greenmtn.edu
Kenneth Mulder Farm Manager, Research Associate & Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies: mulderk@greenmtn.edu (We no longer believe that letters to Farm Manager Mulder would be helpful.)
Dear Sir:
I am writing to urge you to allow Bill and Lou to live out the remainder of their natural lives, in peace and contentment, at VINE Sanctuary, a reputable organization which has offered to care for them.
Should you choose to reverse their death sentences, the rewards garnered by Green Mountain College will far exceed whatever paltry sum their slaughter would bring to the school.
Conversely, whatever small amount of cash would be made by killing them will be far outweighed by the negative press which will follow in the wake of their deaths. (We now know that economics is not the primary motive for the slaughter.
Bill and Lou have served your college well for ten long years. Students and faculty alike have expressed how much they care about these individuals. They deserve to be given the rest of their lives to live as they choose. Just because they are not human does not mean they do not care about their existence.
We will be watching to see what decision you make.
Sincerely,
NAME
How is killing these animals showing the students an example of caring? and what is productive about this senseless waste of life? these oxen have worked for over 10 years they will be inedible, they will end up as dogfood or thrown in the bin.
The better outcome for the College would be to give the animals to the vine sanctuary, resulting in favourable media coverage a good exercise for the students in the strength of public opinion and its part in the democratic process.
http://www.causes.com/causes/644857-let-s-turn-facebook-orange-for-animal-cruelty-awareness/actions/1696966
Bill and Lou: A Parable for Saving our Broken Food System
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/25-0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhRuY4JusjQ&feature=plcp
Oxen’s Fate Is Embattled as the Abattoir Awaits — http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/us/oxens-possible-slaughter-prompts-fight-in-vermont.html?emc=eta1
http://www.psychologytoday.com/comment_redirect/263554
Subject: Bill and Lou were not purchased, they were donated
A couple named Bill and Louise donated them and have asked for them back,
rather than have them slaughtered. The school is ignoring this request.
In essence they seem like Whole Foods types who want to raise meat for slaughter with less cruelty and less pollution. All well and good. But their ethics is limited to eating and carbon. It cannot encompass a debt to an animal for 10 years of labor. Thus the nearly frantic assertions that the animals must be eaten, the community has spoken etc. They could give the animals to a sanctuary but will not because it is a power issue. That is why the various flimsy justifications, like the animals will die anyway (we will we all FYI), sound so strange and unconvincing. They have tossed the word sustainability around so long in opposition to industrial farms that their own assumptions remain largely unexamined.
http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/saying-goodbye-to-bill-and-lou-green-mountain-colleges-beloved-oxen/
I think a lot of the public outcry, expressed predominantly in emotional terms, responds to a perceived lack of necessity. Why is it morally imperative to eat them rather than let a third party relieve you of the cost of caring for them? For better or worse, a program whose mission is defined in terms of sustainability and ethics will be held to a much higher standard than a factory farm which makes no such claims. Relating your actions to the ethical component of your program might help but the arguments to date need to be improved.
1. The farm is a symbiotic, organic unity and to tamper with a part would disrupt it or (to shift to a moral perspective) be cheating. I am skeptical because the human arts of husbandry and agriculture have historically been contrasted to ecosystems untouched by humans. Nor am I certain that a farm (as a human creation) qualifies as a closed terrarium. I suspect feed and equipment are brought in as needed and the appeal to oneness as a moral or ecological imperative does not hold up. We built it and what happens there is our decision, economic, ethical or otherwise. Appealing to supra-individual forces or principles will look like evasion to your critics.
2. We can’t outsource our need for resources. We can and do all the time. One would have to move to a wilderness and live in stone age conditions to avoid this. I suspect the campus imports whatever resources it needs in terms of clothes, computers, utilities, books, medical care etc. The program needs to explain from an ethical stance why the farm is a special case to avoid charges of a merely symbolic morality play or, stranger, some form of environmental expiation.
3. The cattle are not pets. Indeed they are not but are they merely “resources” in your program’s ethical conception or are they sentient beings who have labored not only for their upkeep but for your benefit working closely in a relationship of trust with humans? Does this work and relationship entitle them to consideration in terms of economic repayment or ethics or are they to be worked as long as possible and then rendered? If yes, how is your program distinct from an Amish farm which practices utilitarianism with 19th century technology? Animals enjoy open pasture but are terminated (in the vast majority of cases) when no longer useful. Is this ethical over and above property, use and claims to dominion? If so, how? If we are back to biological reciprocity see point 1 above. And the public still will not understand why they can’t be retired unless you demonstrate that the animal would suffer more in a sanctuary.
4. The choice is either to eat Lou and Bill or some strange meat. Well, mac and cheese aside it might strike your critics as a little self-serving to romanticize being eaten by you as an honor or a fitting close of a good life laboring for you. If the three options are euthanasia, slaughter or sanctuary why is slaughter ethically superior and does it take the welfare of the animals into consideration or is yours a human centric and utilitarian ethic? Laying this out to your critics might help.
Then, a mention of a vet recommending…was it recommending slaughter or euthanasia. They are quite different things. If they are too ill and old, then euthanasia by a caring vet would be a quiet, peaceful end compared to a slaughter. I hope the college is reconsidering and will spare Lou and Bill’s life. The world that is watching would honor and respect them if they did come to a new conclusion of compassion.
http://vtdigger.org/2012/10/30/ackerman-leist-bill-and-lou-are-a-parable-for-saving-our-broken-food-system/#comment-42921
Please note the line “others are now telling us how to make decisions for our community and foodshed. Isn’t this the kind of food system we’re trying to avoid — allowing for those with the biggest voice, the most money, or partial facts to make decisions for entire communities to which they have no connection?”
Here is the pivot from sustainability to control and property. We seem to be dealing with a grossly trivialized form of food sovereignty that, instead of dealing with monopoly, glut, low wages and displaced local production, is instead yet another variation of you can’t tell me what to do.
Also, I’m not sure where the evidence is that “our vegetable plot is smaller than many home gardens”, but I sincerely doubt this, though I don’t know the average size of a home garden.
And we, as a college, do rely upon fossil fuels to facilite all manner of operations. That said, we also generate 80% of our campus heat and 20% of our campus electricity through locally-sourced biomass = wood from local forests. Because we do not source 100% of our heat and electric are we inauthentic? Are we not walking the talk? Are we practicing boutique environmentalism? I certainly don’t think so. Quite on the contrary, I think our institution is making wonderful strides towards being responsible for our place in the world.
So, when it comes down to a decision regarding the fate of two oxen and we lay out the sustainability argument, I see this as another step in the positive direction rather than a wishy-washy post-hoc justification because we are not fully and 100% sustainable across all measures.
Demands for moral purity infer that such a standard not only exists, but that it exists among those making the demands. I may spend too much time hanging out with a lower class of people (or they with me), but few (none?) among us can live a life that doesn’t occassionally conflict with some of our values.
Date: October 31, 2012
To: GMC Campus Community
From: President Paul J. Fonteyn
Re: Update on Bill and Lou
As you know, Green Mountain College has become the focus of widespread attention regarding our decision to slaughter our ten-year old team of oxen. I stand by the decision our community arrived at through a process that insured that all members had the opportunity to express their opinions.
I also compliment faculty, staff and students who, whether they personally agreed with the final decision or not, have demonstrated extraordinary civility in their interactions with each other, and with external individuals and organizations. Some of these external groups are attempting to use Bill and Lou as mascots for their own animal rights agendas. I am appalled by the abusive nature of some of the communications you have been receiving–if you are concerned about personal threats please notify the Office of Student Affairs.
Initially we decided to slaughter the oxen by the end of this month. However, we will not be able to meet this timetable because regional slaughterhouses have been inundated with hostile and threatening emails and phone calls from extremist groups bent on interfering with the processing. These businesses are mostly small, family-operated Vermont enterprises that provide local meat for local consumers. This is a busy time of year for them, and many have expressed fears that their operations might be shut down by protesters if they accept the oxen.
We have decided to continue to care for the oxen until a date with a reputable slaughterhouse can be obtained. In the meantime, Lou and Bill will not be sent to a sanctuary but will continue to stay with us in familiar surroundings. Eventually the animals will be processed as planned.
Green Mountain College has many allies who support the kind of sustainable agriculture in Vermont which GMC represents. Below is a statement made by Vermont Secretary of Agriculture, Food, and Markets, Chuck Ross.
I find it of interest that he apologizes for the mail and email these students may have received, but not for the morally reprehensible way they have spoken with others, and the pictures they have posted.
I AM A PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AT MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE AND HAVE BEEN TRYING HARD TO DO MY PART ON THIS ISSUE (INCLUDING SOME BEHIND THE SCENES WORK).
BELOW IS AN ARTICLE THAT I SENT TO THE TIME’S ARGUS ON 10/29. I SENT A SIMILAR LETTER (AS A “MY TURN” ESSAY) TO THE BURLINGTON FREE PRESS. SO FAR, I HAVEN’T SEEN EITHER PUBLISHED IN THE PAPERS, ALTHOUGH THE FREE PRESS SAID THEY WERE PLANNING TO DO SO. PLEASE READ AND SHARE THIS TO ANYONE WHOM YOU THINK WOULD BENEFIT — BUT PLEASE SHARE THE WHOLE THING RATHER THAN QUOTE OUT OF CONTEXT. THANKS — AND SEE BELOW:
When Exceptions Matter (October 29, 2012)
The debate about the fate of the injured oxen, Lou and his co-worker, Bill, has now spilled far beyond the campus of Green Mountain College (“Bill and Lou: A Parable About Food,” October 28). I have followed this heated conversation with interest because it directly engages those issues that I care about most, personally and professionally: sustainability, human-animal relationships, the high levels of cognition and emotion in non-human animals, local food and the importance of truly understanding the source of your meat.
I teach environmental ethics at Middlebury College and I try – in my own human, fallible way – to lead an ethical life. For me, the most ethical choices consist in knowing how to evaluate situations with an eye toward kindness, compassion and a refusal to see the world in black and white. For instance, I generally don’t eat meat, but when I am a guest in someone’s home (especially in a cultural context not my own), I eat what is offered. I believe that being gracious and grateful to others should trump my private, personal preferences.
As a small-scale shepherd, I also have been on the receiving end of the gifts of kindness. Shelburne Farms, one of the leading environmental education centers in the country, raises sheep for education, wool and the meat that is served in the Inn. Like Green Mountain College, they want their visitors to know where their meat comes from and what a sustainable working farm looks like. But when my spouse and I fell in love with a sheep called Lucky, a Farm Barn lamb who was “headed to the Inn,” the staff treated us (and Lucky) with compassion, not dogmatism. In the end, everyone was happy when we brought Lucky home. Just like us, Lucky loves good food, basks in a sunny day and smiles when she is happy. To this day, Shelburne Farms staff and visitors ask after her and are thrilled to know that she is thriving.
There are many complex answers to the question of what constitutes environmentally responsible living. “What is right” is conditioned by numerous factors including geography, cultural diversity and economics. As a teacher and scholar, my job is to foster thoughtful, nuanced conversation about all perspectives. In the case of GMC, however, critical thinking and valuable lessons about sustainability, food and resources have already happened through the passionate discussions – on all sides – about the lives of Bill and Lou. Bill and Lou may no longer be able to plow the fields, but no one at GMC needs to eat them in order to learn; nor does anyone economically depend on these oxen as a source of food.
Because there are many animals already being raised for meat on the campus farm, those in charge (who may be privately reconsidering the decision to slaughter Bill and Lou) can rest assured that the overall mission of the college — in terms of raising and eating meat — will not be undermined by an authentic change of heart. It would be a profound shame to kill Bill and Lou for the sake of sticking to one side of a complex, on-going conversation about sustainability. I hope the decision-makers at GMC can come to understand the importance of flexibility in ethics, for even Thoreau, Gandhi and Martin Luther King dared to change their minds about things when it mattered.
I have long admired Green Mountain College and some of my faculty colleagues there are also my friends. In this matter too, ethics are complex. I refuse to defame the college or end my friendships there — even if my friends make a decision to which I strongly object. Nor do I celebrate those among the protestors who purposely inflame the situation. That wouldn’t be right either.
It is clear to me, however, that because Bill and Lou have been offered a free home to live out their lives, they will no longer be using GMC’s resources. And if VINE is not an option GMC wants to take, there are many other working farms who would welcome Bill and Lou. What harm does it do to the college — its professors, staff and students — to have the courage to make an occasional exception to their “farm to table” meat-eating principle? The teaching has already happened; no one needs to die for it. Of course, sustainability matters; but so too does the sustainability of the heart.
Rebecca Kneale Gould (Associate Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies, Middlebury College)
Three Sheep Farm – Monkton, Vermont. (Daytime phone #: 802-453-2731)
When Exceptions Matter (October 29, 2012)
The debate about the fate of the injured oxen, Lou and his co-worker, Bill, has now spilled far beyond the campus of Green Mountain College. I have followed this heated conversation with interest because it directly engages those issues that I care about most, personally and professionally: sustainability, human-animal relationships, the high levels of cognition and emotion in non-human animals, local food and the importance of understanding the source of your meat.
I teach environmental ethics at Middlebury College and I try – in my own human, fallible way – to lead an ethical life. For me, the most ethical choices consist in knowing how to evaluate situations with an eye toward kindness, compassion and a refusal to see the world in black and white. For instance, I am a vegetarian at home and in my daily life I almost never eat meat. But when I am a guest in someone’s home (especially in a cultural context not my own), I eat what is offered. I believe that being gracious and grateful to others should trump my private, personal preferences.
As a small-scale shepherd, I also have been on the receiving end of the gifts of kindness. Shelburne Farms, one of the leading environmental education centers in the country, raises sheep for education, wool and the meat that is served in the Inn. Like Green Mountain College, they want their visitors to know where their meat comes from and what a sustainable working farm looks like. But when my spouse and I fell in love with a sheep called Lucky, a Farm Barn lamb who was “headed to the Inn,” the staff treated us (and Lucky) with compassion, not dogmatism. In the end, everyone was happy when we brought Lucky home. Just like us, Lucky loves good food, basks in a sunny day and smiles when she is happy. To this day, Shelburne Farms staff and visitors ask after her and are thrilled to know that she is thriving.
There are many complex answers to the question of what constitutes environmentally responsible living. “What is right” is conditioned by numerous factors including geography, cultural diversity and economics. As a teacher and scholar, my job is to foster thoughtful, nuanced conversation about all perspectives. In the case of GMC, however, critical thinking and valuable lessons about sustainability, food and resources have already happened through the passionate discussions – on all sides – about the lives of Bill and Lou. Bill and Lou may no longer be able to plow the fields, but no one at GMC needs to eat them in order to learn; nor does anyone economically depend on these oxen as a source of food.
Because there are many animals already being raised for meat on the campus farm, those in charge (who may be privately reconsidering the decision to slaughter Bill and Lou) can rest assured that the overall mission of the college — in terms of raising and eating meat — will not be undermined by an authentic change of heart. It would be a profound shame to kill Bill and Lou for the sake of sticking to one side of a complex, on-going conversation about sustainability. I hope the decision-makers at GMC can come to understand the importance of flexibility in ethics, for even Thoreau, Gandhi and Martin Luther King dared to change their minds about things when it mattered.
I have long admired Green Mountain College and some of my faculty colleagues there are also my friends. In this matter too, ethics are complex. I refuse to defame the college or end my friendships there — even if my friends make a decision to which I strongly object. Nor do I celebrate those among the protestors who purposely inflame the situation. That wouldn’t be right either.
It is clear to me, however, that because Bill and Lou have been offered a free home to live out their lives, they will no longer be using GMC’s resources. And if VINE is not an option GMC wants to take, there are many other working farms who would welcome Bill and Lou. What harm does it do to the college — its professors, staff and students — to have the courage to make an occasional exception to their “farm to table” meat-eating principle? The teaching has already happened; no one needs to die for it. Of course, sustainability matters; but so too does the sustainability of the heart.
Rebecca Kneale Gould (Associate Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies, Middlebury College)
Have you or would you consider sending one of your beautifully written letters to USA Today, Boston Globe, and New York Times? It appears that all three of the papers have run stories that present and favor the school’s position more than Bill and Lou’s.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/01/college-oxen-slaughter/1676227/
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/10/25/fire-mountain/f8mIXuOFwg201TopTbeXiK/story.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/us/oxens-possible-slaughter-prompts-fight-in-vermont.html
Green Mountain College postpones oxen slaughter over threats
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201211011227/NEWS07/311010024
as i wrote before, while there may have been threats i’m sure that the more peaceful and world-wide revulsion at about the very thought of killing Bill and Lou also played a role – nobody likes “losing face” but in this case it’s clear that GMC should just simply say that they have decided not to murder Bill and Lou BECAUSE IT IS THE WRONG THING TO DO – what a lesson in humane and compassionate education this could be for students and faculty – no one is going to say “i told you so” or ridicule for them for agreeing that it’s the wrong things to do – let’s all pray that Bill and Lou are finally allowed to live out their lives in peace and dignity and not wind up being served as burgers ..
Governor Shumlin, http://governor.vermont.gov/
State USDA Office, Sec of Ag Chuck Ross 802-828-1619
Attorney Donald Goodrich’s Bennington VT office as I spoke to him last week about this and he said he’d help . At that point, there was nothing he could do as we thought they’d be gone in a day or two..
http://www.docatty.com/Attorneys/Donald-W-Goodrich.shtml 802-681-4729
And those who are extremely distraught over this, please seek professional care and document it so we can send the bills to GMC. Robert Gould , the security guard on the campus, who is really the Vice Pres for Enrollment Management( but was summoned to ask my friend and I to leave, twice, after we tried to speak to Pres Fonteyn)was told that my friend(who I am NOT obligated to disclose) was so upset she is seeking medical care as she felt as though she might have a nervous break down. Vermont Human Health Stature governs mental and psychological abuse.
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/statutes/fullsection.cfm?Title=33&Chapter=049&Section
=04912
Let us leave NO stone unturned.
So outraged by this were towns people and the librarians, protests were launched, newspapers wrote, public meetings were held, and much came to light that would never had were it not for our ability to sound off and use our vocal cords, a luxury Bill and Lou do not have. The short of it was, after much discussion, anger displayed, and public outcry, the Board of Trustee’s apologized over and over again for making the wrong decision, rescinded the restructuring effort so no change in staff, and Library Director resigned. This caused so much suffering but the end was good for all. The Director and everyone got a huge moral learning lesson and trustees did everything to make it right. That is what I feel GMC should do, over slapping everyone in the face, stomach and heart for our connection to animals as beings.
What a good analogy — and a good outcome. Love your idea that it is wrong to slap down those who, out of the pure goodness of their hearts, are compelled to save two lovely, loyal oxen.
Thankfully, GMC still has a chance to find that same “connection to animals [Bill and Lou, anyway] as beings” — feeling, thinking beings with a strong desire to live out their days in peace. Surely a change of heart and mind will bring the GMC community that same sought-after “sanctuary” peace.
If not it should be archived tomorrow and you will find the link at the same site – I wish i could be more precise but that’s all they told me – all the best AND THANK YOU FOR HELPING TO KEEP BILL AND LOU ALIVE! marc
The 11-year-old ox, named Lou, was put down after a recurring injury to his hind leg continued to deteriorate, Green Mountain College in Poultney said.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/vt-colleges-oxen-slaughter-plan-riles-activists-17689083#.UKAdeqU1ifS
The college said Lou’s work partner, Bill, would not be sent to a sanctuary and instead would stay at the school farm and receive care consistent with appropriate livestock practices.