The cow who escaped her slaughterhouse in Great Falls, Mont., and evaded authorities for six hours attained national notoriety last week to the point where an anonymous benefactor paid for the cow’s clemency.

The cow, a 1,200-pound heifer named Molly B., reacted to its good fortune with what workers at the slaughterhouse characterized as “her customary humility and grace.”

Molly B., appearing before reporters at a news conference yesterday, mooed for the release of all her brothers and sisters, cross-species-ly. “It’s a travesty,” she intoned, “that the most advanced nation in the history of the planet continues to kill and eat animals like the barbarian cultures of days of yore.”

Her cry for a moratorium on all meat-eating activities was met with derision from pundits around the country.

“Of course she doesn’t want to be eaten,” said noted columnist Rags Bigsdale. “Who would?”

Farm animals from around the world reacted decisively, however, with many reported sit-ins, slow-downs, well-placed defecations and other non-violent protests. But a bull in Idaho gored its farmer-owner, nearly killing him, and a trio of pigs in Kansas combined forces and blew down a farmhouse, injuring the farmer and his buxom daughter.

Bart Simpson, a popular cartoon character, was interviewed on Good Morning, Waffle Breath. He cautioned both animals and humans to “not have a cow” about the whole thing.

Molly B., interacting live through her new Web site, www.freetheanimalsfromthechainsofhumanity.com, said she was planning on staging a “Grazing Across America,” to bring more attention to her cause.