In New Zealand, 210 cows were found with broken tails, and now their owner has been convicted of animal abuse.

West Coast dairy farmer fined $15,000 for snapping cows' tails https://t.co/Sh1MPwBbWG pic.twitter.com/fWT61A0nBT — Stuff (@NZStuff) December 7, 2016

Warren Arthur McNabb was fined $15,000 (US$10,800) and banned for six months from having any involvement with cows used for milk.

Ministry for Primary Industries inspectors and a veterinarian noticed the cows last year during a routine inspection of McNabb’s farms—which house 446 cows in total. Inspectors found 20 cows with multiple breaks and 15 with “fresh” breaks that had occurred within the previous three months. No cow had received any treatment for the painful injuries.

The veterinarian said that he had never seen this level of cruelty to animals before and that the severity of the breaks indicated “prolonged animal abuse.” During the court hearing, one witness reported seeing McNabb bend a cow’s tail into a “U-shape” before it finally broke. Experts noted that the pain experienced by the cows was “akin to a person having their fingers broken.”

This abuse is horrific but far from unheard of. Since 2013, at least four other farmers in New Zealand have been convicted of similar crimes, including one who was sentenced to four months of community detention for breaking the tails of 48 cows earlier this year.

Abuse like this isn’t confined to New Zealand. Cows on dairy farms are living in hell all around the world.

They’re raped and forced to live amid their own waste, all for a glass of milk.

Given the chance, cows nurture their young and form lifelong friendships. They play games and have a wide variety of emotions and personality traits. But most cows raised for the dairy industry are intensively confined, leaving them unable to fulfill their most basic desires, such as nursing their calves, even for a single day.

Many people don’t realize that in order for cows languishing on dairy farms to produce high quantities of milk, they have to be impregnated repeatedly. So on a device that dairy workers themselves refer to as a “rape rack,” female cows are forcibly inseminated time and time again. Mothers often cry out after their babies are taken from them so that humans can drink the milk that nature intended for calves.

You can help put an end to these atrocities.

The best way to save cows from the misery of dairy farms is to stop buying milk and other dairy “products.” There are many delicious nondairy items on the market, and they’re a whole lot healthier for you, too! And since you’re ditching dairy “products,” why not save nearly 200 animals a year by going vegan today?