Your March 16 editorial: Go shoot a steer instead, is way off the mark. The proposed Livestock Diversity Amendment Act is worthy of our support.
We live in an age of obesity and hormonal disruption. You can blame at least part of that on the widespread practice of feeding cattle hormones and antibiotics. And recently a spokesman for the chicken industry admitted that antibiotics are routinely fed to chickens, not necessarily to combat disease, but to prevent it! No wonder we are becoming increasingly susceptible to superbugs.
In contrast, alternative meats, such as bison and elk, are increasingly being chosen by consumers because they are leaner and often free of routine hormone and antibiotic applications. This can only lead to healthier people making fewer demands on our straining health-care system.
By enacting the new legislation, the government is assisting the citizens of Alberta by making alternative meats widely and safely available. Farmed elk and bison are subject to even closer government scrutiny than cattle, pigs, and chickens.
While discussing this issue with an elk farmer recently, I was told that since 2002, about 80 wild deer (not elk) have been found to have chronic wasting disease, while only one farmed elk succumbed to it. That’s in Alberta, Mr. Editor.
As for the optics of American hunters gunning down captive animals, it may not seem sporting, but there is a positive aspect to it.
It is far less traumatic for an animal to die in a pasture than on a kill floor. In the pasture, the animal is spared an uncomfortable ride in a truck, crammed in with dozens of other animals. As well, it does not have to worry about being forced with electric prods through a chute, and then, panic-stricken, onto a kill floor reeking of death.
By contrast, demise in a pasture is like dying at home.
Cattle, pigs, horses, chickens and turkeys had to be domesticated at some point in history. Most of us are glad someone did. What is so different about elk and bison?
Gerda Van Vliet
Red Deer County