It’s estimated that more than 150,000,000,000 non-human animals are slaughtered for human consumption every year.
To put it into perspective, that’s like one and a half September 11th attacks happening every second of every day.
Two Pearl Harbors every second.
A “Fat-Man” atomic bomb every fifteen.
Almost three Holocausts every hour.
“Every year our nation’s experimenters kill 100 million lab animals, hunters kill 200 million ‘game’ animals, and motorists kill nearly 400 million road animals. Only America’s meat-eaters take a larger toll than its motorists.” (link)
Before I researched this statistic, I’ve been thinking a lot about eating animals, and I don’t think it’s so bad to eat them. I just think we way we go about it is the problem. I know what the reality of the situation is, and I don’t think the whole system is going to change any time soon. I certainly have cut back my meat consumption since animal cruelty was really something I focused on, and I also tend to buy more expensive/hopefully more humane meat products. I’m doing what I can. But, I end up feeling worse, somehow, for the roadkill animals. There are far fewer of them, but thekind of animals are far greater. This stat is just for the US, but habitat destruction is a terrible problem all over the world. There’s not much we can do about the land we’ve already taken from the rest of the animals, but we know they have as much right to it as we do now, and we should be able to stop it. This is how I feel about the meat industry - it’s too late for me, but I’m going to try my best to show my kids the joys of imitation meat that I just can’t handle. I figure if they’re exposed to it as children, they’ll be much more inclined to stick to it when they’re old enough to make the decisions themselves. These statistics show 4 kinds of animal cruelty. We see protests of experimenters, hunters, and meat eaters, but not much for drivers. I feel like the people who don’t want us to eat meat should be just as upset at people who drive, no? Drivers don’t kill nearly as many animals as consumers, but 400,000,000 (in US alone) is still quite a bit (notice the headline doesn’t mention US or Worldwide - I have to imagine it’s Worldwide, so give a huge boost to the 400mil and we’re getting close to our original stat for consumption). I really do think hunters are in the most deplorable position of the statistics mentioned above. I mean, killing animals for fun, what the fuck is wrong with you? I mean, there has to be some other outlet. We don’t just let people kill humans for fun, we lock them up. The same should be done with all hunters. Find a new way to spend your time, or give the animal a chance at least! Go in with a hand axe that you actually made and fight! Have you ever seen those hunting shows with the hunters dressed in camo hiding in tents with long range rifles like cowards!? I can’t tell you how pissed off I was when I watched these fucking people kill a deer and pose with it.
(via bonedust)
