PETA Responds to Nintendo's Milking Challenge

Last week, we reported on some rather fun news: Nintendo had been issued a cow-milking challenge by the Billings Farm & Museum in Vermont via Facebook… and accepted it, agreeing to send some people over to see who can milk cows better, veterans who have been milking cows their whole lives, or video game designers who have probably seen more pythons than cows (Not my best coding pun… a C+ at best).

It was worth a laugh and a smile, but there were some people who saw the news and weren’t laughing: PETA. They issued their own open letter to Nintendo, posted on Facebook, informing the entertainment giant that the cows in these milking facilities get less than ideal treatment at the hands of their owners.

“To simulate cow milking accurately, 1-2 Switch would need to show all the aspects of dairy farming, including the violent insemination of female cows on what the dairy industry itself refers to as the “rape rack”. Cows produce milk to feed their babies, but their young are torn away from them soon after birth so that humans beings can use their milk instead. A mother cow will bellow for her calf for days after the baby is taken from her. Perhaps you could add these sounds to your game in order to remind the players that by drinking milk, people support an industry that separates mothers from their babies”.

You can read the whole letter on their page, if you want. For what it’s worth, Nintendo hasn’t replied to this one yet (unsurprisingly) and I very much doubt PETA will get one. Nintendo intended this to be a fun little PR stunt, acknowledging the arguably cruel reality of the milking industry would go counter to that intent. This will probably just slip past them.

This isn’t the first time PETA has targeted Nintendo: they also made parody Pokémon and Mario games criticizing them for promoting animal fights and wearing fur, respectively. Those, similarly, received no response.