70 Billion Killed Each Year

By Nova Deitering

Imagine you are in a pen with 200 other humans. There is no good food. The bottom of the pen is dirt, farther than the eye can see. You know the next truckload is going to be it for you. In the present time, this situation would never happen if you are a human, but it would if you were an animal. This breaks all the rules of society, all the rules of animal cruelty; yet it is okay, if you are an animal. How is this totally okay, but if the same thing was done to dogs or cats, you would get arrested? If you did this to cows, turkeys, chickens, pigs, goats and ducks however, it’s considered perfectly fine. Each day, three million animals are killed just from the meat industry, for you and I. Now, think back to if that were dogs, cats and humans. How would you feel if that was you, next to go in the truck, take a trip and never come back? 70 billion animals are killed for our consumption worldwide. To get chicken meat, they raise them in a barn with chemicals that could kill a human. They get so fat that they cannot walk, and their legs won’t work. After all of this, you may think that it can’t get worse. It can. Then they get sent  off to who-knows-where and end up in your grocery store. Cows are treated the same. They aren’t taken care of and the ones who have health issues are left to die. Pigs have a new litter of piglets every month and most die. After 2 years, the sows just get sent to slaughter. The beef cows are raised horribly with mud everywhere and little food and water. When the calf is born, they get separated from their moms. Some get put in chains and in a box for at least 2 weeks to be sold as vern meat. The fish industry also kills hundreds of billions of fish every year. Not only does this hurt the livestock, it hurts our wildlife. There’s a limited amount of land on this Earth, and farmers kill wildlife to make room for their business of cruelty. This means killing bison, wolves, coyotes and foxes. The list could go on and on. Nearly tens of millions of birds like starlings and black birds are poisoned each year, so they don’t eat the feed. Not only does this kill the birds and wildlife, it causes global warming. The earth was not made for chemicals like that to come, which speeds up global warming. Additionally, meat farmers clear hundreds of forested areas into more pens to hold the animals, each year. A point to make is if there was no need for meat, animals would not die in such terrible conditions and numbers. I am not arguing, “Everyone go vegan,” I am saying there are simpler ways you can help. Some suggestions include consuming less meat, maybe not consuming one type of meat and/or turning vegan.  Animals are dying in horrible ways in so many different places. If this was you, wouldn’t you want help? We need to save animals like they have saved us.