Fur store owner says he wants to go vegan

Rosebank fur salesman Robert Fischer says he’s considering becoming vegan. I heard him say this with my own two ears. So did my two fellow factory farm animals, Mrs Cow and Mrs Sheep.

Mrs Cow, Mrs Sheep and I, Mrs Pig, were on a walkabout of Rosebank’s upmarket malls on Sunday afternoon to raise awareness among shoppers and restaurant patrons about the plight of animals on factory farms. (Sadly, Mrs Chicken was not among us due to a shortage of volunteers.)

Anyway, each of the three of us was wearing a paper maché mask of our chosen animal, surrounded by headgear consisting of a cage.

We also wore T-shirts specially printed by Speak, the Society for People, Environment and Animal Kindness, explaining what we were up to.

The front of each shirt called for “Justice for pigs/sheep/cows”, as the case may be, and the sad facts of how each animal is treated on factory farms were printed on the back.

Did you know, for instance, that South Africa has 60 000 sows producing baby piglets that are butchered for bacon not long after birth?

We might have been small in number but we attracted lots of attention.

Small children were delighted to see us, giggling and pointing excitedly as we broke the boredom of being carted along by the grownups.

One small girl begged and pleaded to be given a mask like mine. A little boy who refuses to eat meat, according to his dad, was thrilled to see us but got stage fright about posing with us for a photograph. “Come on, you’re a vegetarian. Stand up for what you believe in,” said dad, to no avail.

Grownups of all sizes, shapes and hues responded to us in many different ways, from smiles and expressions of support to surprise, shock, laughter, disbelief or stony-faced disapproval (quite rare), but everyone was remarkably polite.

Even the security guards.

The security guards in Woolworths kept their composure as I strolled in and perused the meat section, then picked up a packet of ham and looked at it pointedly. They started moving towards me and I took the hint and took my leave.

Not long afterwards, a plumpish man approached the three of us and asked if he could film us. We let him do so, front, back and sides, and Mrs Cow asked him if he was vegan. No, he said, but he was considering it because it was a trend that everyone was thinking about.

Then I heard Mrs Sheep muttering “That’s Robert Fischer, the guy with the fur shop!”

Mrs Cow walked back to him and simply said, “Mr Fischer.”

“Yes,” he said.

We speculated what he was doing filming us and whether he was being truthful about considering veganism.

I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Miracles can happen, you know.