Statistics: a list of individual tragedies

How often do we look at statistics and get lost in the mathematics of bigger numbers and smaller numbers, more or fewer, comparisons and graphs.

Look again. Every single one of these 74,171,872,986 was a unique individual – separate from all others just as you would be if you stood in a crowd.

Every single one had a mind and thoughts and wishes. Every single one did not want to die and for every single one their last thoughts were of pain, of terror and of desperation while their panicking heart pumped their lifeblood out through their slashed and broken flesh onto our killing floors.

I read so often the myth that ‘slaughter is humane and painless’. This is utter nonsense and tells us simply that the writer has chosen not to face the truth. However, even if that myth were true, it does not justify the outrage of what our species does to every other. None, NONE of these deaths was necessary.

Let 2018 be a year when we continue to represent the bleak and despairing individuals behind the statistics. For our needless victims, we fail them all if we fail to represent them as the individuals that they are.

Be vegan.

Statistics source: Food and Agriculture Organization – FAOSTAT Production – Livestock Primary – 2016.

Please note that although the graphic used was not created by me, I have painstakingly checked the numbers of slaughtered individuals quoted here and have found them to be correct.

This number does not include marine creatures (estimated deaths 2.7 trillion annually), male chicks killed soon after hatching by the egg industry (currently estimated at 7.4 billion annually), wildlife dying from loss of habitat or the millions who are killed annually in laboratories after having substances and procedures ‘tested’ on them, and numerous other groups not directly associated with ‘food’ production.