Pigs want to live, too, so why slaughter them?

THERE are many ways to skin a cat, and now it seems there are also many ways to kill a pig. We need not be surprised, though we may allow ourselves to experience a certain degree of shock and disgust.

Throughout this country, hundreds and sometimes thousands of pigs are slaughtered every day in what we are led to believe is humane slaughter, a misnomer if ever there was one.

While it is far preferable to effect the kill quickly and with as little foreknowledge by the animal as possible, the fact is the pig does not want to die.

The tragedy is not in how we kill pigs; it is that we deem it both acceptable and necessary to kill them at all.

It is a shocking act that most of us cannot even contemplate, yet we are happy to eat the end product.

Gerry Boland

Keadue

Co Roscommon