Slaughterhouse Vigil, Whanganui, New Zealand 1 September 2019

End Animal Slaughter website owner Sandra Kyle has been attending and documenting slaughterhouse vigils for years, the last several under The Save Movement banner.

This is her latest vigil, at the AFFCO Imlay slaughterhouse in Whanganui, New Zealand.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE VIGIL: FIRST DAY OF SPRING 2019

My Vigil partner Monica is still away so I did the Vigil alone today, at the slaughterhouse that specialises in killing sheep and bobby calfs, main male babies, slaughtered at just days old because they are a ‘waste product’ in the dairy industry. I was hopeful I would bear witness to a truckful of bobbies, as many are being born and transported around now  (two million average are killed every year in New Zealand).   However, none came while I was there.

Instead, a load of sheep arrived. The road between Whanganui and  Palmerston North an hour’s drive away are filled at the moment with mother sheep sitting in paddocks with their little lambs, who trot after them wherever they go. I wonder how many babies are missing their mothers today, and if any of the girls in my photos are pining for their offspring? At Christmas it will be the lambs’ turn to board the truck for the slaughterhouse, and then the horror cycle will start all over again.

In Christianity and other schools of thought lambs are a symbol of purity and cleanliness. For reason of his stainless nature (and also because he was ‘sacrificed’) Jesus Christ was called the ‘Lamb of God’. But not only lambs, all animals are free from sin. They are completely innocent. And instead of loving and protecting them we slaughter them on an industrial scale, the most relentless, heartless and destructive behaviour ever inflicted on sentient beings.

Look into the faces of these sheep, and recall RALPH WALDO EMERSON:-

“You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.”

RIP dear sentient beings.  We will continue fighting for you.