PETA is at it again. It has rolled out Carly the cow to US schoolchildren, telling them of the complex emotional lives of cows and their suffering at the hands of dairy farmers and the wider industry.
Carly, a life-size mechanical cow, is voiced by actor and longtime animal rights activist Alicia Silverstone, who most recently starred in American Woman.
Silverstone narrates Carly’s trauma as a dairy farm cow, seeing calves taken away from their mothers when they’re just 1 or 2 days old. PETA says this also helps children understand that cows have a lot in common with humans, e.g. feelings of love, loss, and loneliness. This campaign is a response to the dairy industry’s promotion of milk in US schools.