Iowans for Animal Liberation made the news for allegedly dumping red paint on the official butter cow of the Iowa State Fair. (To be clear, this is a sculpture of a cow made entirely of butter, not a cow used to produce butter.)

The main reason I find this noteworthy is that the Associated Press described the group as an “animal welfare group,” not, say, the sort of group that uses the word “liberation” in its name and thinks dumping paint on a butter sculpture is an effect form of activism.

The individuals involved also wrote “Freedom for All” on the glass display case, according to the Des Moines Register. The Register described them as an “animal rights group,” which seems more apt than “animal welfare.”

Maybe I’m quibbling, but animal welfare is a cause near and dear to my heart, and dumping paint on a giant dairy sculpture doesn’t seem to advance that cause even the tiniest bit. Just my $0.02.

Photo credit: “Butter Cow” by anneh632 [CC BY-SA 2.0], on Flickr (NOTE: The butter cow pictured above is from the Illinois State Fair, for the record.)