Is Your Social Media Page Hurting the Industry?

By Jennifer Hill

Everyone loves to post on Facebook. Pictures of grandkids, scenery, adventures and even what someone ate for dinner regularly fill my newsfeed. It’s a great way to keep up with old high school friends, cousins you don’t see often and promote what you believe in. In fact, as beef producers we are told by advocacy groups that we must use social media to tell our story, but is there a potential for oversharing it?

Seeing pictures and posts from ranchers all over the nation doing what they do is incredible. I have learned a great deal about how other operations function, regional differences and many new and interesting ideas from these posts. I’ve seen cattle worked in just about every way imaginable (if you haven’t seen the video of the broke to ride steer allowing the cowboy to rope calves and drag them back to the fire, you are missing out).  But I get squeamish when I see posts that leave us open for attack from animal rights advocates.

  Branding, castrating and ear notching are a reality of life for most of us. In my area cattle rustling is real and branding and ear notching are some of the best preventatives. But I also know that no matter the necessity of these practices PETA and other groups like them will never approve. I know that these groups will stoop to low places to convert well-meaning but unknowledgeable city folks to their cause. Without your knowledge a video of your daughter branding her first calf, or the neighbors gathered to help you cut steers in record time can be copied and used as propaganda for the vegan cause.

  I understand the urge to share these aspects of our lives with our family and friends. We feel pride at the work we do, the animals we raise and the people we surround ourselves with, and we want to share that. I encourage agricultural producers everywhere to tell their story, but be discerning.

Unfortunately staying vigilant of our own social media posts is not always enough. We must also be aware of what other people are recording around us. Several years ago during hunting season my husband and I discovered one of our cows lying in a field suffering from an extreme case of bloat. Regrettably this field was right next to our hunting camp, during hunting season.  We worked to save the cow with a variety of procedures right where we were, as she was unable to stand. As we worked I looked over my shoulder and saw a hunter standing nearby with his phone out videoing the entire thing. I knew that to the average person with little livestock knowledge what we were doing to this cow may look cruel, when in reality what we did was save her from a slow, miserable death. She did eventually get up and walk off the rest of the bloat. But do you think PETA would share that portion of the event?

After we were done I gently approached the hunter and asked him why he had filmed us and what his plans for the video were. He very excitedly explained that his son wanted to be a veterinarian and would think what we did was cool. At that moment I took a risk and decided to trust the man, assuming that a hunter was unlikely to be an animal activist, but I have worried about it ever since. What if he posted it to social media and it hurt my industry? Should I have explained my concerns to him and asked him to delete it? Probably.

We know these malevolent organizations use a variety of shady tactics to hurt us. They plant employees and cameras and have developed a fondness for drones. With so many ways for animal rights advocates to push into our operations and twist our story we must be extra careful that we don’t inadvertently hand them fuel for their fire.