A piglet and a puppy sit side by side on a roadside billboard off Highway 101 North near the Monterey Street exit stating “Why love one, but eat the other? Choose vegetarian.”
Despite its message, the billboard, a collaboration of the national animal rights non-profit Mercy For Animals (MFA) and local group Central Coast Vegetarian Network (CCVN), has received negative feedback, primarily from the online community.
Judith Lautner, co-organizer of the CCVN, said most of the negative comments the group has received about the billboard are on Facebook.
“We get a combination of responses — both positive and negative,” Lautner said. “Freedom of speech is mostly what we’re hearing.”
Despite controversy over its message, some people commended the billboard.
“I think this billboard makes a great point,” San Luis Obispo resident Julie Norfolk said. “All animals can suffer, not just the cats and dogs with whom we share our lives. All animals have individual personalities and feel emotions like joy, happiness, loneliness and frustration.”
Others said they didn’t feel persuaded to become vegetarian or vegan.
“Those pointy teeth in your mouth commonly referred to as ‘canines’ are for tearing through flesh,” San Luis Obispo resident Charles Bestwick said.
The billboard is meant to stimulate discussion and acknowledgment of how, culturally, some laws protect certain animals such as pets, yet others are not protected, including those raised for consumption by humans, Lautner said.
Not all local farms and ranches treat livestock in a negative way, however.
Santa Margarita-based Nick Ranch, which has been around since 1918, raises grass-fed, free-range cattle in the best conditions possible and has experimented with incorporating more humane practices into its daily routines, said Juanell Nick Hepburn, one of the owners of the ranch.
According to Hepburn, each of the 100 cattle at the ranch are able to wander any of the four designated pastures. The Nick family plants oak trees for shade, establishes large water troughs for drinking and bathing, implements misting systems for hot days and uses wildlife-friendly fencing in each of the pastures on their 1,300-acre property.
“We are going with the normal cycle of life,” Hepburn said. “No one is forcing us to do this, it’s better for the cattle.”
The cattle live stress-free, therefore producing better, tastier meat, Hepburn said.
Throughout the years, the number of visitors and questions to the ranch has increased and each year the questions get “better and better,” Hepburn said.
“(The majority of) our customers are so highly educated, and they do a good job with investigating,” Hepburn said.
Although customers might be growing more concerned with investigating the origins of their food, there is still work to be done.
Lautner said she hopes the billboard will educate people and inspire them to further research how factory farm animals are raised.
According to Lautner, it has already inspired some. She said a woman who was questioning her diet saw the billboard on a drive to San Francisco, and the message inspired her to become vegan.
Lautner said she hopes the billboard will have the same affect on others who may have never thought about the origins of their food.
Although not every animal raised for food is housed in confined factory-like conditions, the CCVN can’t “outright support” the consumption of meat from these ranches and farms because an animal is still slaughtered after living a considerably shorter life, Lautner said.
“Right now, it’s a crisis situation for animals, the environment and our health,” Lautner said.