Steer to stay free and live on a farm

Slaughterhouse agrees to sanctuary's offer
December 16, 2003

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BY EMILIA ASKARI
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER




The steer that fled a Detroit slaughterhouse two weeks ago, making a traffic-stopping dash across some of the busiest streets in the city, will permanently escape the knife.

After tense negotiations, the owner of a Detroit slaughterhouse and representatives of a sanctuary farm reached an agreement Monday that will spare the steer from becoming steak, participants said.

The steer has been monitored by federal food inspectors since it was shot with a tranquilizer dart in a vacant lot on Jefferson Avenue on Dec 2. Under federal rules, the steer could have been legally slaughtered Wednesday.

Instead, the Al Badr Slaughterhouse near Eastern Market will donate the reddish-brown-and-white animal to the Sanctuary and Safe Haven for Animals, according to Dorothy Davies, director of the Manchester farm.

The farm will pay the slaughterhouse an undisclosed sum to cover charges associated with the steer's break, including the cost of a crane to lift the sedated animal, two weeks' worth of feed and veterinary expenses.

Davies hopes to pick up the steer this week, perhaps on Wednesday.

Al Badr's owner did not return calls from the Free Press. A woman answering the slaughterhouse's phone said the owner was at a livestock auction.

Davies said the skittish steer had touched thousands who saw him stamping and snorting on television or read about his freedom run in newspapers.

"It's been a real surprise to me how many calls I got saying 'I eat meat and I'm not apologizing for that but I just want this particular animal saved,' " Davies said. "There was just some connection there that this was a feeling animal. He knew what was about to happen to him and he ran away. . . .

"He put a face on food. Looking at hamburger meat wrapped in a cellophane package is not the same at looking at that face. He touched people. He got some people thinking. He became an ambassador for his species."

One firefighter has called the sanctuary every few days asking how the animal was doing. "He'll say, 'We had cheeseburgers today at the firehouse and I couldn't eat it. I couldn't stop thinking about that cow. And I love cheeseburgers,' " Davies related.

About 30 people sent the sanctuary small donations to help purchase the steer, raising just over $1,000, Davies said. That is less than the amount that she has promised to give the slaughterhouse.

In addition, Davies wants to build a small shelter for the steer.

As part of the agreement with the slaughterhouse, Davies has agreed to give the steer an Arabic name, perhaps Al Badr, which is Arabic for moon or early morning.

Davies was stunned to learn that the steer had been raised near Manchester and sold at a livestock auction not five miles from the farm where it will spend the rest of its days. "He just wanted to come home," she said. "This was fated."

SASHA Farm can be reached at P.O. Box 222, Manchester 48158 or www.sashafarm.org.