He Shot Her in the Head

Aiden, the sheep I have known since his birth three years ago. He rules.

The first time I saw someone murdered, I was nineteen.

The victims didn’t have names. To their killer, they were mobile units of production.

Every day, in a nondescript building, more than a hundred someones are killed, their lives cut short without remorse or second thought.

This slaughterhouse belongs to a university, a renowned agricultural college. If you happen to be an animal science major and want to get your hands on that piece of paper stating YOU GRADUATED, then you have to attend the slaughter lab. No ifs, ands or buts.

Perhaps that piece of paper is not so important to me now, but to my 19-yr-old self it was everything. It meant a real future helping animals, and if it meant I had to watch two animals die, so be it. It was not that simple, of course. I was vegetarian (not quite vegan, that would come later) and adored animals immensely. My whole childhood was a lead-up to a life of helping animals. The idea of watching a slaughter was appalling.

But I was not the one being slaughtered.

I do not remember walking into that room with 20 other students. I cannot recall what I wore or my initial impression of the sterile kill floor. I have no recollection of my TA’s name or even what the butcher looked like. There is much I have forgotten about that place.

But I remember her. And him, oh how I remember him well.

She was a lamb. Six months old. I do not know if she comprehended what was about to occur – the room had been cleaned of the blood and gore that must stain it on a normal, working day (keep it clean for the kids, right?). I know she understood it was scary. She fought and kicked and oh, how I desperately wanted to run across the floor and hug her close.

As she was dragged to where the captive bolt gun lay still and benign, she looked at us. There was fear etched in every visible feature, from her wide-eyes to her tense body. They, they, say killing a frightened animal ruins the taste, so it is in their best interest to kill calm, subdued animals. Before me stood an animal, alone and scared, in a slaughterhouse that, even at peak production, kills less than 1% of a normal slaughterhouse. If she was petrified beyond belief, no doubt her brethren at other facilities were equally frightened. There can be no calm submission in such a place of terror.

The sound of the pneumatic gun discharging is akin to a car backfiring. Most of us gasped. I startled. And the lamb dropped to the floor, dead. This was not merely a stunning blow, it was a killing one. Her short life was over in two seconds. Soon she was bled, and then, in an attempt at humor I will never comprehend, the butcher chopped off her head and lobbed it at us.

No one laughed.

Soon she was reduced to body parts and people relaxed. Gone was the tense atmosphere, the stark realization that we were witnesses to a brutal killing, a sad death. We were asked to hold her intestines, to see how long they were – nearly 30′…I’m sure she’d be proud. I did not touch them.

And then, when her body was removed for further dismembering, a pig was brought out.

He was a runt, much smaller than the normal 250lb babies slaughtered. He squealed and it was so obvious why he cried. Fear, panic, a desperate plea for help.

In this slaughterhouse, the pigs are not shot with a gun. Their skulls are so thick that stunning is difficult. Instead, they are electrocuted. Electrocution can render an animal unconscious, kill an animal or just immobilize the animal (meaning they can still feel pain). And sometimes, when the current is off-kilter, the animal is not even stunned. That is what happened to this pig, and I cannot say much about his fight to live, because I was curled up in the bathroom crying. I heard him, though, and it is a sound I will never forget, an indelible memory of such torture and pain. Silence. It was a blessed lack.

I knew, sitting on that cold, concrete floor that I was the only one there. The only one in that entire building crying for those animals. It was such an empty, lonely feeling. On that day, I swore to remember, remember, remember. I swore to do everything in my power to make this world better for farmed animals. I stopped thinking the university cared about animals. I hardened myself for the journey ahead, and I dreamed of the day I could hold a lamb close, watch him grow up, and offer compassion and comfort when he died. When his life would be his own for however long he wanted it.

There are many animals I have failed, those two rank in the top five. I will spend my life trying to make up for it. I’ll never be able to, really. Those animals never cared about my intention or feelings or tears. They cared about living, and no one did anything to help them pursue that innate, instinctive desire to breathe. Not any student. Not any teaching assistant. Not me.

So I write. I take pictures. I give tours at the sanctuary and educate young and old alike about farmed animals. I help on rescues. I help with legislation. I speak and table and leaflet. And none of it will ever bring those two, beautiful, passionate animals back to life. Nothing. But it helps ease the pain a little, helps me focus on nonhumans I can help.

Sometimes I am asked if I’d do it over again. For that piece of paper I keep in a box under my bed.

Oh. Yes. I would not be here, otherwise. Maybe I would still be vegetarian, but I probably would not have been vegan. I would not know what it is to see an animal murdered and why it is wrong. I would not know what I know. I would not be helping animals the way I am. To know is to be able to help.

Please keep knowing, continue helping. We are a small collection of mostly like-minded people, and we are their only hope. We can only expand our circle by acting on our knowledge – educating, rescuing, writing, speaking. Doing. Nothing changes without us acting.

(And, if you know someone interested in pursuing veterinary medicine, encourage them to major in something other than animal science. You can fulfill all the entry requirements for vet school with any major. The animal science major serves only to promote the oppression and exploitation of nonhumans.)