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Why Slaughterhouses Must Shut Down For Good

From Sandra Isobel Kyle
Facebook posting, August 2022

I have been an emotional mess today, because I saw video footage of cows being shot in the head with a captive bolt gun at one of my local slaughterhouses. As they waited in the kill chute, terrified, ears pricked up, a worker hit them around the head with a plastic bag, presumably to stop them moving around in agitation. Poor innocent animals suffering so intensely in their last moments.

slaughterhouse Cow
A cow about to be slaughtered in Whanganui, New Zealand

As far as I know I was the first person to do a slaughterhouse vigil in New Zealand and one of the few anywhere in the world who still does them, often alone, on a regular weekly basis. Back in 2015 someone had mentioned doing vigils as an action for animals, and a flash went off in my brain. From that moment on I knew I would spare no effort to work for the end of slaughterhouses.

I believe we need to close slaughterhouses as a matter of urgency, for the following reasons:

1 The moral reason
The world currently is carrying out an animal holocaust. We continue this despite knowing that the species we kill for food and body parts are intelligent, sentient and emotional beings who value their lives and fear death, much like us. This act of cruelty and violence on other creatures who are helpless against us is a great moral transgression, and a black stain on our souls. If we want a world without wars, if violence is to stop in the world, if we want to be a ‘humane’ humanity, then slaughterhouses must close for good.

2 The climate reason
We are in a climate emergency, with extreme weather events becoming more and more common, threatening life as we know it on the planet. Climate change affects not only us, but other species - for example an estimated three billion animals burned to death in recent Australian bushfires. Animal agriculture represents, here in New Zealand, a full 50% of our greenhouse gases, and is a large percentage of gg gases in many other parts of the world. Ceasing animal agriculture will go a long way to preventing climate change from worsening.

3 The pandemic reason
Every pandemic in the last one hundred years has had an animal origin, from the Spanish flu in 1917-1918, to Ebola, SARS, MERS, Mexican flu, Avian Flu, Swine Flu, and HIV. The coronavirus started in a live animal market. According to the World Agriculture Changing Disease Landscapes report published in 2013, seventy percent of new diseases that have emerged in humans over recent decades were caused by the consumption of animals. The jet age has dissolved borders. Diseases now have a global reach within a matter of a few hours. If we continue eating animals, pandemics will continue also.

4 The social justice reason
When we stop animal agriculture - and therefore close down slaughterhouses - there will be more land and food available to feed people who are currently starving or malnourished. This will bring about a more just world.

5 The Zeitgeist reason
Every era has its own ‘spirit of the times’ that shapes it. In general, across the millennia, cultural evolution has been in a positive direction, moving towards greater justice, humanity and opportunity for all. It is a widespread belief in vegan circles now that the prevailing zeitgeist is taking us beyond using other beings for food. We no longer need to breed and slaughter animals to eat them, often causing intense suffering to them. Protein substitutes are readily available, just as tasty, and healthier for us too. Future generations will look at what we consider to be normal – the systematic carnage of other beings in order to eat them or use their body parts – as barbaric. And so it is.

I have been an emotional mess today, because I saw video footage of cows being shot in the head with a captive bolt gun at one of my local slaughterhouses. As they waited in the kill chute, terrified, ears pricked up, a worker hit them around the head with a plastic bag, presumably to stop them moving around in agitation. Poor innocent animals suffering so intensely in their last moments.

How could we do that to them? What on earth will it take to convince you, the meat and dairy eater, that what we are doing is just plain wrong and it must stop? If I were Prime Minister of this country every single slaughterhouse would be closed immediately. Of course that won’t happen, but there’s still the possibility that we can be slaughterhouse-free by 2025 if the government begins to chart the course out of animal agriculture by shifting subsidies and financial incentives from industrialized livestock production to sustainable plant based agriculture. This is what a wise, progressive government, one that can read the signs of the times, would do.
Meanwhile, activists in New Zealand and all over the world will continue doing vigils and other work to bring about the transformation we desire. A world where we no longer engage in animal carnage is not only possible, it is, I believe, inevitable. So what are we waiting for? If enough people make the individual decision to transition to a plant-sourced diet then slaughterhouses will no longer have a reason to exist, and the world will be a much better place for all. We will also have gone a long way in fixing our souls.

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