Tag Archives: slaughter

Victims in the shadows: octopuses, squids and cuttlefishes

Posted on July 9, 2021 by There's an Elephant in the Room

Octopus are soft-bodied, eight-limbed molluscs of the order Octopoda. The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. This blog was originally inspired by the many excellent articles I’ve read … Continue reading →

Posted in Aquatic individuals, Octopuses, squids and cuttlefishes, Victims in the shadows | Tagged cephalopod, consumer demand, consumers, cuttlefish, dream, exploitation, food animals, harvest, intelligence, intelligent, octopus, profit, respect, slaughter, sleep states, squid, vegan | 4 Comments

Looking at language: Pests

Posted on January 18, 2021 by There's an Elephant in the Room

I recently posted about fireworks and the devastation they cause, illustrating the post with a tragic picture of countless dead birds on a city street following new year fireworks. It is well documented that fireworks terrify all the living individuals … Continue reading →

Posted in Global disasters, Terminology | Tagged animal rights, badgers, balloons, bears, consumer demand, death, decency, fireworks, foxes, harm, insects, litter, littering, pest, pests, pigeons, poison, pollution, rabbits, rodents, slaughter, speciesism, strays, toxins, trap, vandalism, vermin, wedding doves | 3 Comments

About a goose

Posted on September 28, 2020 by There's an Elephant in the Room

Having recently come across the concept of ‘International Rabbit Day’ which is apparently on 26 September, I was idly investigating which other species of humanity’s victims had ‘days’ and came across ‘Happy Goose Day’ on 29 September. This puzzled me. … Continue reading →

Posted in Advocacy, Chickens and eggs, consumer demand, Victims in the shadows | Tagged Chickens and eggs, commodification, consumer demand, feathers, foie gras, geese, goose, goose eggs, goose hunting, Happy Goose Day, slaughter, Torture, vegan, veganism, victims | Leave a comment

‘To finish’; looking at language

Posted on April 10, 2020 by There's an Elephant in the Room

‘Finishing’ is yet another of the words with which the animal use industry glosses over the monstrous activities of our species. ‘Finishing’ is part of the practice of making victims out of gentle and defenceless individuals for nonvegan consumers to … Continue reading →

Posted in Terminology | Tagged consumer, consumer demand, euphemism, feel-good, finish, finished, finishing, glossy, sentient, slaughter, slaughterhouse, welfare, welfare standards | 3 Comments

Thinking of ducks

Posted on February 28, 2020 by There's an Elephant in the Room

Ducks. As a child I used to love visiting duckponds. It was a Sunday treat and few children of my generation in my part of the world haven’t been enchanted by ‘going to feed the ducks’, clutching a bag of … Continue reading →

Posted in Advocacy, Statistics, Victims in the shadows | Tagged Chickens and eggs, cooking, down, duck, duckpond, ducks, feathers, foie gras, shooting, slaughter, speciesism, sport, vegan | 4 Comments

Looking at language: Cull

Posted on September 13, 2019 by There's an Elephant in the Room

Cull. We see the word applied increasingly to the mass killing of numerous species; to deer and to foxes and to seals, to pigeons, crows and even swans. The word is in the news at the moment, being applied to … Continue reading →

Posted in Speciesism, Terminology | Tagged animal agriculture, badgers, cull, environmental destruction, habitat destruction, nonveganism, profit, slaughter | 6 Comments

Thoughts on the price of folly

Posted on September 12, 2019 by There's an Elephant in the Room

Planet Earth is experiencing an escalation of extreme weather events. This escalation will continue for as long as we fail so utterly to grasp that one of the main causes – if not the main cause – is our own … Continue reading →

Posted in Global disasters, Sentience | Tagged anger, animal agriculture, climate crisis, climate disaster, death, death row, disaster, disease, disgust, ecological disaster, fire, flood, Flooding, folly, images, sentience, slaughter | 2 Comments

Victims in the shadows: emus

Posted on August 16, 2019 by There's an Elephant in the Room

This series of short blogs hopes to shine a spotlight onto ways that humans exploit other creatures for financial gain, ways about which the majority of consumers are unaware. This is not intended to shock; it’s intended to illustrate and … Continue reading →

Posted in Speciesism, Victims in the shadows | Tagged butcher, consumer demand, consumers, emu, emu oil, emus, feathers, flay, flesh, leather, oil, oppression, plucking, prejudice, shoppers, slaughter, slaughterhouse, speciesism | 8 Comments

Chicken executions at night

Posted on August 11, 2019 by There's an Elephant in the Room

Today I did a taxi run in the early hours of the morning, passing the slaughterhouse at about 03.45 as the pre-dawn glinted on wet black roads, and again at 07.00 in the rain-drenched grey light of day. Approaching the … Continue reading →

Posted in Advocacy, Chickens and eggs, consumer demand | Tagged agony, animal lovers, blood, chicken, chickens, consumer, consumer demand, consumers, infants, miasma, processing plant, shoppers, slaughter, slaughterhouse, stench, terror | 5 Comments

A brief thought about words: euthanasia

Posted on May 31, 2019 by There's an Elephant in the Room

A recent comment sought to amend my terminology when I described the killing of Emma the shih tzu as ‘slaughter’. The terms ‘put to sleep’ and euthanasia’ were not only preferred, but my use of the word ‘slaughter’ was condemned. … Continue reading →

Posted in Advocacy, Terminology | Tagged burial, death, Emma, euphemism, euthanasia, execution, killing, kindness, language, put to sleep, shih tzu, slaughter, speciesism, Terminology, veganism, words | Leave a comment