'Dairy Is Cruel, Go Vegan,' Animal Advocates Urge Outside Farm

AQUEBOGUE, NY — A pregnant woman led a protest Saturday outside a popular local dairy farm, aiming to spread a message about protecting the rights of calves that are separated from "their distraught mothers soon after birth so that the milk meant for them can be collected for humans to drink instead," she said.

Lining Route 25 in Aquebogue outside Goodale Farms, Inc., in front of a pen of baby goats, protesters held signs that said, "Not Your Mom, Not Your Milk!", "All Mothers Deserve Love And Respect," and "Dairy Is Cruel, Go Vegan."

"The prospect of having my baby taken away from me is impossible even to contemplate, but mother cows used by the dairy industry endure this unthinkable trauma over and over again," Alecia Moore, who works on a North Fork vegetable farm and who is pregnant, said. "We can all stand up to this sad and unnecessary cruelty simply by going vegan and pushing dairy farms to modernize by producing fruits, vegetables, or artisanal nut cheeses instead."

People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has a motto that says "animals are not ours to eat." Before the protest Saturday, PETA sent out a release stating that in the dairy industry, "cows are repeatedly and forcibly inseminated on a device that the industry itself has called a 'rape rack.' Mother cows have been heard calling out for their stolen babies for days after separation. Male calves are often shipped off to be slaughtered for veal, and females eventually face the same fate as their mothers: Their bodies are exploited for their ability to reproduce, and they're used as milk-producing machines for their whole lives."

Hal Goodale, owner of Goodale Farms, released a statement to Patch after the protest from the entire Goodale family: "This morning, a group of people who oppose the dairy industry as a whole protested outside Goodale Farms and their claims against us are false. While we understand the concern about other farms in the news, our family has always prided ourselves on the healthy and caring treatment of all of our animals. We encourage anyone who has been unsettled by this protest to stop by our farm and meet us and see for yourselves how the care of our animals is our number one priority."

Speaking with Patch after the protest, Goodale said the animal rights activists were protesting practices found in the overall global dairy industry, practices he does not adhere to in his business. "I tried to explain to them — and they didn't want to listen — that when I started this company 10 years ago, I went undercover in the dairy and meat industries to see what was going on in the corporate places. I started my business because I was appalled by practices in some of those big companies."

At his farm, Goodale said, his animals are all in the pasture. The protestors, he said, "are saying that cows are artificially inseminated. I have never artificially inseminated one in my life. They're all in the pasture, doing their business when it's time to do business. That's the way it goes — I don't watch or keep track of that kind of thing."

He added: "When the babies are born, they hang out with their mother. Cows make more milk than the baby can eat. You have to milk the mother or else she will get sick."

Of the protest, Goodale said: "They're trying to put the face of big dairy on me and it's not fair."

While Goodale said the protest was, for the most part, mellow, there were times when he got "offended," especially when the protestors faced off with customers and small children who were feeding bottles to the baby goats. "If someone really wants to talk to you, they can come talk to you on the sidewalk," he said.

A Riverhead Town Police car was stationed outside the dairy farm for most of the protest.

John Di Leonardo, PETA's manager of animals in entertainment and IGC outreach and Long Islanders Orchestrating For Nature's executive director, said the protestors turned out "to urge the public to go vegan and educate them about the inherent cruelty involved with the dairy industry. Right behind me, there are a bunch of babies torn from their mothers." Those babies, he alleged, were overheated. "These are animals suffering, right here in people's backyards," Di Leonardo said.

Moore, he said, was motivated to organize the demonstration when she saw the the babies "outside sucking on the fence. They wanted their mother but were torn away." Moore, he said, "couldn't imagine her baby being torn from her."

Goodale said the goats suck on the fence because they have teeth on the bottom and like to rub their gums on things.

The goal, Di Leonardo said, is to try and convince dairy farms to change their business models and transition to non-dairy models.

Moore said when she saw the calves, "saw their umbilical cords, knowing the night before they'd been taken away from their mother, it really touched something inside of me." Working on a North Fork produce farm, she said, "I know there are so many other options. I'm not looking to put farmers out of business. I'm looking to help them evolve into something less cruel."

Goodale added that in the United States, everyone has the right to their own opinion. "If you're vegan, do your thing. But if someone wants to drink milk, why go after them for that?""

He started his business with two cows, he said. "I now have 40 cows. Do the math. I didn't get rid of any cows. They're all here. My first cow is still here; he's still out in the pasture, hanging out with his friends. Don't come here and make accusations, or apply other people's practices to me. That's not what I do."

Saturday wasn't the first time animal advocates have been in the area in recent months: In March, a group, led by a costumed pig, turned out at the Riverhead Walmart on Old Riverhead Road to protest the Oscar Mayer "Wienermobile."

Also in recent years, Di Leonardo and others gathered in Greenport to protest the elephants and other live animals showcased in the Cole Bros. Circus; Di Leonardo said Saturday that he believed such awareness raising gatherings led to end of the road for the circus in 2016.