An Animal Rights/Vegan Activists' Strategies Article used with permission from All-Creatures.org

Lia Wilbourn discusses the upcoming inaugural International Calf and Cow Mothers' Day and the importance of honoring the mother-child bond of all species while speaking out against the industries that seek to destroy it.

Celebrate International Calf & Cow Mothers’ Day Inaugural Global Event
From Lia Wilbourn, IDA In Defense of Animals, idausa.org
April 2026

Photo Credit: Beth Lily Redwood / We Animals

The first annual International Calf & Cow Mothers Day, May 9–10, 2026, is a global two-day event honoring the sacred mother-child bond among all species while amplifying their inherent value and right to bodily autonomy and freedom. We’re partnering on this inaugural initiative for Mother’s Day weekend in solidarity with the Million Vegan Grandmothers and Climate Healers.

This movement creates a new Mother’s Day tradition for all mothers and their young, amplifying compassion and justice for other animals and their sacred habitats on Mother Earth across land, water, and sky. The babies of farmed animals are torn from their mothers, as are puppies and kittens bred for sale, and baby whales, seals, elephants, bears, wolves, deer, and all manner of wild animals who are hunted.

Photo Credit: Ira Moon / We Animals

The dairy industry is a particularly heartless symbol of cruelty and violation of the mother-child bond, while also being deceptively marketed as harmless and wholesome for human enjoyment. This is reinforced by faulty nutrition messaging that implies humans should consume the breast milk of another species.

Most people are unaware of the brutality inflicted on mothers and their babies in animal farming. It is carefully hidden behind the closed doors of “small family farms,” “factory farms,” and slaughterhouses.

Mother cows carry their babies for nine months, just like human mothers. Both mother and baby suffer trauma when they are separated, with many mothers bellowing out in anguish for days afterwards. Their male calves are considered disposable in the dairy industry because they don’t produce milk; some are shot on small farms, others are sent to a slaughterhouse within days or weeks, and others are slaughtered for “veal.”

Most female calves in the dairy industry are confined in isolated hutches for several weeks, subjected to agonizing mutilations including burning off their horn buds, and forcibly impregnated as young as one year old. Male baby chicks in the egg industry are also killed because they don't produce eggs. Their mother hens are slaughtered, too.

Mother pigs, turkeys, goats, ducks, and sheep all have families and love their babies too, yet farmed animals are the most ignored, tormented, and killed individuals on the planet.

May all those who care about animals come together to reject and expose this devastating system of violence and deceit by embracing nonviolence, compassion, and living vegan.

Join

May 9, 2026:
We are co-hosting an action for Mother’s Day in Los Angeles, in solidarity with the Plant-Based Treaty, LA Animal Save, and Animal Alliance Network. The event will be posted here.

May 9-10, 2026:
You can get involved with ICCMD by hosting your own event, submitting ideas, art, writings, ordering pro-animal Mother’s Day cards, and much more here.

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: April 24, 2026
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