Story: Darwin - When Love Isn't Enough
Darwin at Catskill Animal Sanctuary
When Dani, Operations Director at Catskill Animal Sanctuary, got approached by a family to take in a young calf, Dani was rather surprised. This case was different from all the other residents who came to the sanctuary. Most animals were rescued out of miserable living conditions. But this heifer lived at a small estate with other horses out on the field cared for by the loving hands of the 15-year old daughter, who named the animal “Darwin”.
Darwin was born in New York on a large factory farm to one of the 0.63 million cows kept for dairy. She would have followed in her mom’s footsteps and been repeatedly impregnated to produce milk. And then at around five years of age, when her body would be so depleted by the numerous births and lactation cycles, her udders would carry less and less milk. Rendered unproductive Darwin would then be sent to the slaughterhouse.
Yet, this little calf got lucky and started her life out in the fields. The young woman loved her deeply but couldn't help notice that Darwin wasn’t happy.
Cows have fundamental urges to socialize, enter into relationships, guard their young and stimulate their brains. These sentient herd animals exhibit complex group behaviour through emotional contagion (when one highly stressed cow will make the rest of the herd stressed) and emotional buffering (when a calm cow will help stabilize and de-stress other individuals). Cows lick each other to deepen relationships and create peace and order among them. They form friendships and stay within one group to be protected from predators. Darwin wasn’t able to express any of these behaviours with the other animals on the family’s estate.
Facing Darwin’s depressed state the 15-year old realized that she couldn’t provide the heifer with what she needed. She was faced with a decision: give Darwin back to a dairy farm, where she would be used for milk until ‘she runs dry’ and then killed for her meat; sell her straight to the slaughterhouse; or find her a place where she can live her best life as a cow: a sanctuary!
Sanctuaries offer animals with violent and abusive backgrounds adequate space, care, shelter, feed, medicine, and love so that these animals can live out their remaining days in comfort. The responsibility of all sanctuaries is to ensure that the animals are given appropriate care until their natural death.
When Darwin’s former family chose the Catskill Animal Sanctuary they picked one of the best in the country. This multiple award-winning 150-acre refuge in New York’s Hudson Valley has rescued thousands of animals over the last 20 years including goats, chickens, pigs, horses, turkeys and of course other cows, who call this sanctuary “home”.
Watch her arrive at the sanctuary where she is still regularly visited by the 15-year old girl.
Catskill Animal Sanctuary is a 150-acre refuge in New York’s Hudson Valley for 11 species of farmed animals rescued from cruelty, neglect and abandonment. Over the years, thousands have come to this place of profound peace. They continue to come — sometimes one needy soul, sometimes a flock of 100 or more at a time. It is our privilege to help each and every rescued animal understand what love feels like.
If we’ve learned anything from them, it’s the life-altering truth that, in the ways that matter, we are all the same. Animals are as individual as us, want their lives as much as we want ours, and experience the same emotions as we do. Pain, suffering and fear feel no different to a pig than they do to a human being.