Thinking the Way Animals Do

I'm not a vegetarian, and until recently I had never seriously considered becoming one. My general philosophy has always been that it's okay for humans to eat other animals as long as we treat them decently while they're alive and kill them as humanely as possible. It's different, though, to think abstractly about slaughtering a generic cow and to think specifically about slaughtering Jack Sparrow and Leroy, our steers on the campus farm. Even worse, I helped auction off poor Zoot at the lamb auction at Sheep & Wool Festival after having spent the last two months training him for a lamb show (where we won third place in our class!), which means that he's pretty much doomed. And anyway, is it even possible to give an animal a "humane" death?

Baby Zoot (the white one)

I recently read a series of articles, including "Thinking the Way Animals Do," by Dr. Temple Grandin, a designer of "humane slaughterhouses." Dr. Grandin was born with autism. She believes that this condition helps her understand how animals think, feel, and behave. She says that, like animals, she never experiences any language-based thoughts, only images. Her thoughts consist of highly specific visual associations between different objects and experiences, which is similar to the way animals think. More importantly, she describes how fear is the principle emotion in autism and compares this to the mindset of prey animals like sheep and cattle. In her experience, Dr. Grandin has found that things that tend to scare people with autism- like sudden movement- also tend to scare animals.

Dr. Grandin has used her understanding of animals to design slaughter facilities whose basic structures are arranged to decrease the stress that animals experience when passing through them. For instance, her facilities use curved chutes to guide cattle into and through the slaughterhouse because cattle (and sheep) have a natural tendency to circle, so moving this way causes them less stress. Furthermore, they can't see people and machinery moving at the end of curved chutes, so they aren't exposed to frightening images.


Dr. Grandin's ideas are hugely influential in the agricultural world: about half the cattle that are slaughtered in the US pass through a facility designed by her. The way I see it, that can only be a good thing: whether or not you think killing animals for food is ethical, I think we can all agree that if animals are going to be slaughtered, it ought to be done in a way that minimizes pain and stress. And what does Dr. Grandin think about using animals for food? She says:

"I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect."

And I think I agree.