Stop unnecessary slaughter by providing naturally deceased animals free to butchers in exchange for hides.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Now what we've been doing with the dead cows is burying them. There's no..., everything's wasted. Śrīla Prabhupāda is proposing that why not the butcher take, we give free, he simply returns us the skin of the cow, and with the cowhide we properly tan it, we can make mṛdaṅga heads for the khol, and shoes, straps, whatever may be needed. The idea being that in the Western countries especially, people are accustomed to eating animals, animal flesh. So we have no objection. Prabhupāda: Beef, especially beef. Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Especially cows and beef.
So we have no objection, but they should at least wait until it dies naturally. What is the harm? They still get the same thing, and one devotee, Kīrtanānanda, I think, was saying that when they slaughter an animal even in the slaughterhouse, it has to sit some time, some number of days before they distribute it. So I proposed that the Westerners, they consider that this is superstitious, this protection of the cow.
Prabhupāda said, "Why superstitious?" The cow is providing milk. Every child knows that he's getting milk from the cow; the cow is mother. So why in the old age we should slaughter mother? Is this a good argument that like, for example, they say in India how so many people are starving, why don't they eat the cows?
So Prabhupāda proposed that "So if you're starving, does it mean that you eat your mother and father?" Prabhupāda: If you want to eat, let the father and mother die, then eat. [laughter] Who has objection? Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's so reasonable. It's so reasonable.
At least, Prabhupāda says, for the saner section, they will accept. Hari-śauri: The thing is, people are mad after meat.
Prabhupāda: Madman... Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But they still get it.
Prabhupāda: But he'll get meat. Hari-śauri: But then their argument is that if we don't have big, big slaughterhouses, then there won't be enough supply.