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It is killing whatever term you choose to call it.

Our complex attitudes to killing animals

Deep down in our consciences those of us with any empathy to animals are obviously uncomfortable about the act of killing them which manifests itself in our confused use of expressions to describe it. Whether a professional or layman, we seem to have a subconscious hang-up about discussing or contemplating what we mostly view as a taboo subject. For those with little empathy and who enjoy killing animals for fun and entertainment there is no issue

If we kill a fellow human without justification, we call it murder, and it is viewed a heinous crime unless legitimised by war, when we tend to use the word kill. When we deliberately and brutally kill a large group of humans, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group, we use the terms genocide or massacre and when we legally terminate the life of a condemned person, we execute them. We almost exclusively reserve these words to describe human on human killing, but when it involves animals, for some inexplicable reason we refrain from using such terms as they appear to offend our sensibilities and prick our consciences if used in this context.

Instead we prefer to use more agreeable phraseology that we feel befits the occasion and the type of animal involved, such is our idiosyncratic approach to killing millions of them each day. In order to appease our sensibilities, we even manage to categorise certain animal groups as being more worthy of our compassion.

hunting, shooting, country pursuit

The act of euthanasia for companion animals has become almost a ritual”

The most popular generic term for the act of killing an animal is euthanasia, which derives from the Greek words Eu and thanotos meaning ‘well killing’ or ‘good killing’ and has been used since the 1600’s to describe mercy killing of both humans and animals. We tend to reserve its usage for companion animals, particularly dogs and cats, which we hold in more reverence because we view them as almost human family members and our friends.

The act of euthanasia for companion animals has become almost a ritual, carried out with extreme compassion, sensitivity and veneration as suits such a situation, and it is usually performed by a qualified veterinarian in calm circumstances by injection, and with a familiar face present, often in the owners’ home, and is as humane as possible, so different to the way we treat other animals in their final moment.

Some people though, still find this term too severe and so we use more assuaging phrases such as ‘putting to sleep’ or ‘putting out of its misery’, to make it appear less callous when we are discussing it, as though in some irrational way it makes it a more pleasant experience for both the animal and ourselves.

When it concerns farmed food animals our sympathies change, and we go out of our way to distance ourselves from any emotion or guilt. For a start we call them livestock instead of animals, ‘live’ because we have to accept they are living creatures but also ‘stock’ because we need the assurance that they are also a commodity for us to utilise. We then employ the somewhat ruthless word of ‘slaughter’, the definition of which, in the context of humans, is brutal killing, but with animals just means killing for meat. Slaughter is of course an apt description as it is a rather brutal and ruthless death no matter how humanely done. We are also happy to use the same term for the place where the carnage takes place, so we call it a slaughterhouse in preference to a ‘euthanasia-house’ which we obviously find strangely unsettling because of its inference to pet animals.

We find using the word ‘harvesting’ more agreeable for the act of wholesale slaughter of animals.

When it involves wildlife our compassion unaccountably changes again, and we choose to ‘cull’ them and the heartlessness of this term is borne out by the word’s definition which is ‘removing an inferior person or thing from a group’ and ‘something regarded as worthless, especially an unwanted or inferior animal removed from a herd’. Culling can involve just an individual, a certain species or millions of individuals.

Conservationists appear to find the word culling a little harsh in certain instances, so they find the term ‘harvesting’ more agreeable for the act of wholesale slaughter, usually with the tag that it is implemented in their long-term interest. But it doesn’t end there as different professions where killing animals is intrinsic also try to ease their sensibilities by using other phrases such as humane killing, hunting, management euthanasia and zoonasia.

We are psychologically uneasy about the killing of animals.

It is obvious that as a society we are uneasy with our various deeds of ending their lives and prefer to distance ourselves from any thoughts of their demise, but it doesn’t stop us from committing animal genocide the world over. The bottom line is that whichever term we choose to use they all mean the same thing – the intentional and premature ending of the life of a living creature.

As already mentioned, when it is time to put companion animals ‘to sleep‘ the procedure is treated with great compassion, sensitivity and veneration as it should be, but it does seem a pity that we cannot extend the same deference to all animals by at least giving them the courtesy of using the same terminology.

Related articles:

What is Zoonasia?

Big Game trophy hunting always in the headlines.

The Shooting of Harambe the gorilla

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The U.K. ‘nation of animal lovers’ myth

It is a long-held belief in the UK that we are a nation of animal lovers and this confidence is perpetuated by the media, our self-righteous selves and even the Government who in a recent report on animal welfare stated in the first line that: ‘We have the best animal welfare in the world and we are a nation of animal lovers’. We tend to wallow in this self-professed accolade, never question it and for some inexplicable reason actually believe it, but this false sense of security is one of the reasons animal abuse continues unabated in the UK and is arguably on the increase.

Nation of animal lovers, Pug Puppy Face
They need more than love from us

It is a mind-set that needs to change, and we must take a long hard critical look at our animal keeping habits and the way we regulate pet ownership, otherwise any improvement is impossible. It has unfortunately become obvious to me during a forty-year career in the animal welfare industry that the status of animals and standards of care have not improved and have arguably worsened as we have only ever paid lip service to our claim of being a nation of animal lovers. In reality we are no more loving than any other.

What about the fact that we keep so many animals, were the first to have welfare laws, to set up animal charities and to spread animal welfare ideals around the world I hear you cry?

Well, the problem with this premise is that if we are such a country of animal lovers why do we have thousands of animal charities in the UK attempting to solve all the irresponsible ownership and so many laws to protect them. Surely, a civilised and well-regulated society such as ours, that respects and cares for its animals has no need for them, but there are more being established every week; and why are an estimated 10 million pets caused physical and mental stress each year; why are hundreds of thousands of unwanted pets treated as disposable items and discarded into animal charity re-cycling plants; why does the RSPCA receive over a million telephone calls and have to investigate 150,000 complaints of cruelty and why are our laws so ineffective and badly enforced?

We allow all this to happen because we are too busy labouring under the false impression that we are this nation of animal lovers to recognise that we have an endemic problem of uninformed and thoughtless animal ownership in the UK, which neither the charities or government are able  to combat because of misguided policies and a lack of resolution.