Will High School Show Kids Cows’ Slaughter?

PETA’s Humane Education Division Seeks Full Transparency in Program in Which Students Raise Cows to Be Killed for School Lunches

For Immediate Release:
August 29, 2018

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

After learning about a Prairie Heights Community School Corporation program in which agriculture students help raise cows who will be killed for the district’s school lunches, TeachKind—PETA’s humane education division—sent a letter today urging Superintendent Jeff Reed to ensure that the program doesn’t hide from students what happens to the animals when they’re slaughtered.

“If the school district’s goal is to show students where their food comes from, that must include a look inside the slaughterhouse,” says PETA Associate Director of Youth Campaigns Rachelle Owen. “TeachKind is confident that if students were to witness the deaths of the cows they’ve befriended, they would steer clear of this program and embrace healthy, humane, vegan meals instead.”

TeachKind—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—notes that each person who goes vegan improves his or her own health, helps the environment, and saves nearly 200 animals every year from immense suffering. Cows raised for food, for example, are torn away from their mothers within hours of birth and are castrated and branded without painkillers. At the slaughterhouse, workers shoot them in the head with a captive-bolt gun, hang them up by one leg, and cut their throats—often while they’re still conscious and able to feel pain.

The group’s letter to Superintendent Reed is available upon request. For more information, please visit TeachKind.org.