These Pictures Prove That Animals Don’t Want to Be Slaughtered [Not Graphic]

Imagine that it was your last chance to gaze at a clear blue sky, your last breath of fresh air—would you know that these were your final moments on Earth? For these animals on livestock transport trucks, this may have been their first and last glimpse of a world outside the pain and misery of animal agriculture. It may have been their last moments of life.

For a year, Sympathy at Slaughter’s Hannah Elizabeth has been recording the final moments of pigs and cows on transport trucks outside slaughterhouses and at truck stops, with the intention of offering some solace to individual animals before they’re driven to be slaughtered.

“Each time I am there the animals are always so curious, gentle and forgiving enough to come closer,” she says.

“Patterns vary as each truck and each animal has a different story,” she adds. “I am always struck by the penetrating emotion expressed in their eyes. The heart-rending scratches that populate their human-like skin.”

Looking at her images, one can’t help but wonder what these animals, packed into these filthy trucks, must have been going through.

Was this their first moment of human compassion?

Was this their last gentle touch …

their last friendships …

their final peek at sunlight …

and their last glimpse of the world outside a slaughterhouse?

“See me,” their eyes seem to plead.

If nothing else, remember the way that they look directly at the lens pointed at them …

how exhausted they look …

and terrified …

some struggling to stand, surrounded by filth …

others overheated, foaming at the mouth and desperate for water …

wounded, scraped up, and spray-painted …

yet for a moment, unaware of the horrors that await them.

All photos courtesy of Hannah Elizabeth/Sympathy at Slaughter.

Together, we have the power to stop this.

The first step is going vegan.