About 85 students at Carbon Canyon Christian School in Brea, California, watched as a butcher immobilized and then slaughtered a 2-year-old 1,000 pound steer named T-Bone. The steer had been raised at the school, and was part of a project to teach children where meat comes from. Of course, animal rights activists were less than thrilled.
Despite the fact that the school obtained parental permission for all children who watched the slaughter, animal rights activists were aghast that children would be exposed to seeing how cows are slaughtered from meat. Of course it wasn’t so long ago that many young children would have been actively participating in the killing of animals on the farm.
About a dozen teenaged animal right activists from other schools in the area unsuccessfully tried to stop the slaughter, and Lacey Levitt of Last Chance for Animals from chiming in that, “Studies have shown that when children view violence against animals, it desensitizes them to animal cruelty and makes them more aggressive.”
After slaughtering the animal, the butcher gave the children a close-up look at the heart, tendons and other internal organs of the cow.
Although the activists were troubled by the slaughter, the kids seemed to handle it okay. The Associated Press reported that a few got queasy but that others found it an educational experience. Suzanne Daigle, 14, told The Orange County Register that, “I want to be a surgical nurse and that proved to me that I could handle watching it. The butcher was very skilled. It wasn’t violent.”
Sources:
Cow’s Slaughter Causes Uproar. KCBS Channel 2000, May 19, 2001.
Class gets a graphic lesson on meat. Chelsea J. Carter, The Associated Press, May 19, 2001.
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