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Honolulu Lite
LET me see if I got this straight: We send our cops to Seattle, our prisoners to Texas and now we are sending our cows to Canada. This cruise no
carnival for cowsThis out-migration thing is getting a little ridiculous.
It is becoming increasingly clear that in order to survive as a resident of Hawaii you have to live somewhere else. Even the cows can't hack it anymore.
Big Island ranchers have decided to ship 6,000 head of young cattle to Canada because a drought has left the Waimea slopes grassless. Ranchers always count cattle by their heads. They can't say they're shipping 6,000 cattle. Or 6,000 cows. They say they're shipping 6,000 "head of cattle." They are actually shipping the entire cow, not just the head. Because, well, that would be silly. Who wants to ship 6,000 cow heads to another country?
Ranchers are about the only people who count their animals by their heads. I don't know why. It does make more sense than counting cattle by their feet. If you say you're shipping 24,000 feet of cattle to Canada; everyone has to take out their calculators and figure out that, oh, you're shipping 6,000 cows. The news media go along with the ranchers' way of counting cows because they don't want to seem ignorant of cattle grammar protocol.
If such accounting is good for ranchers, maybe it would be good for the rest of us. I could say I have one head of dog at home. And I have one head of bird. Or maybe, one beak of bird. And I've got about 33 head of gecko, although I'm not sure about the number. Geckos generally don't move as a herd so they're hard to count. My neighbor's got two head of cat. He doesn't actually have cats. Just two cat heads, in a jar, in his garage. Just kidding.
ANYWAY, we've gotten way off the trail on this heads-of-cattle discussion.
The point is that Big Island ranchers are sending 6,000 cattle, heads and all, to Canada because the cows and bulls need food. They'll travel by ship, a specially built Bovine Love Boat. According to Parker Rancho Honcho Robert Hind, the ships are like "big air-conditioned feed yards," which, when you think about it, are what regular cruise ships are for people. The difference is that after people get fattened up on the 24-hour buffet, they aren't slaughtered.
That's what is sort of weird about this cattle shipping idea: It's going to be awfully confusing to the cows. The cows stand around munching on dry grass on the Big Island, knowing it is their fate to become Whoppers and Big Macs. Their only hope is at least to become entrees in some swanky restaurant.
Then they find out that they are going on an international cruise! They're young and foolish. They think the world has finally gone vegetarian. They've been saved. Not only will they not be eaten, it's Didi Ah Yo and away they go! On a marvelous holiday to beautiful Canada where the air is clean and the grass is green.
Then after several weeks of chowing down on the green grass, they start noticing something.
"Hey, Clarabell, you're gettin' fatter than that pig over there."
"Oh, yeah? Well put antlers on you, Jumbo, and you'd be biggest moose in three counties."
My God! the cows will think. It's a trick! They're fattening us up for the kill! This isn't a holiday camp, it's ... it's ... a smorgasbord! Stop eating! Everyone stop eating!
But by then, it will be too late. Cows may have heads, but, sadly, there's not much going on inside of them.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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