Unfortunately, the hunting season is here now. I hate it because I feel sorry for all the animals that get killed. Why don’t people wake up? Why can’t they realize that killing animals is wrong? I can’t understand how they think it’s fun to shoot another living being.

I don’t think that slaughter is game management

I remember when I trained to become an animal keeper, how one was forced to take part in the moose hunt. That year I turned 17 years old. The teachers had made it clear that we had to take part in everything they said because otherwise, we wouldn’t get any grades. I was a teenager that obeyed the adults, so I did what I was told to do. Therefore, I took part in the moose hunt for a week, meaning I had to follow a hunting team in the forest and watch when they shot moose and also spend one day in their slaughterhouse. People around here consider hunting as game management; I was taught that in school. I don’t think that slaughter is game management. It was the people who created the imbalance in nature for many years ago when they killed all the predators, so they became endangered, and now they don’t allow so many predators to exist.

Anyway, that Monday when the hunt started the hunting team had a meeting at the Sunday evening before that my classmate and I had to take part in. They called it “Moose prayer” and I didn’t like that they used the word “prayer” because I think they blasphemed since it wasn’t the right word to choose in that sense. That meeting was only to talk about the hunt and decide in which area they should hunt and where they should place all the hunters. They also put out more firewood so the hunters could keep themselves warm on their stands. It had nothing to do with prayers.

I was screaming inside

The following day, early in the morning, I had to follow an old, disgusting man in the forest and sit with him on his stand and not make a noise. A couple of young moose came walking far away from the stand; they were beautiful! The poor moose managed to escape the first time we saw them because the hunter wanted to wait and see if he could get a better chance killing them. I smiled inside myself when he couldn’t shoot them! I felt happy that the moose escaped! Unfortunately, the poor moose came back after a while and then the hunter aimed and shot the female moose. First one shot, but the moose kept running. I thought it was terrible! Then he walked over there and shot her another time and that time she died.

And then he started to behave like a crazy person! He got eager to search for his camera in his backpack and forced me to take a picture of him beside the poor dead moose. I didn’t want to do it. I felt bad inside. I was disgusted. But he got angry and forced me to do it. Have you ever felt the smell of a dead body? It’s indescribable. Maybe one can describe it like I was screaming inside because I really didn’t want to be there but I took the damn photo. I didn’t manage to follow all his instructions regarding taking a picture of him and the dead moose and then he became angry with me again. Later came the other hunters and helped him to take out the intestines. Then the moose was driven to the slaughter house where it got skinned; then they hung it on a hook. That afternoon the other hunters were happy for my sake since they thought it was lucky me that I got the chance to see a moose get shot. I didn’t say anything. I felt bad. I gave them a false smile since I was forced to spend time with them.

I turned off my feelings that week in order to survive it

I can’t describe the feeling inside me when I had to walk around among the dead bodies that were hanging on hooks in the ceiling… I love animals, but I had to walk among the ones that had been killed… I had to help the butcher by moving the parts that he cut off from the bodies from one place to another. After a little while, I knew all the names for the different body parts by heart. The smell was disgusting… By the way, meat parts like that are pretty heavy to lift and carry around all day long and today I don’t know the names anymore because I chose to repress it. I survived that awful day because I talked to my classmate that also was there and we laughed about something. Now when I am an adult and look back at this event, I assume I turned off my feelings that week in order to survive it. I laughed although I hated to be in the slaughterhouse because I have always been the good girl, polite and friendly, and who don’t cause scenes and did what others said even if I didn’t like it. Luckily I grew up and got the courage to stop eating animals even though it was hard in an environment where everybody was farmers or hunters or went fishing or did all those things. I didn’t know anyone that ate a plant-based diet. Even today, September 2016, I haven’t met a vegan in real life in this area.

The hunters came from all walks of life

The other days during that week I followed different hunters during the days. It was a big hunting team; they were around 30 hunters, and it was only a couple of women there. I discovered that they came from all walks of life. One was a Senior Enforcement Officer and some were police officers, others were janitors and farmers. Some were dressed in expensive hunting clothes while others were just wearing cheap clothes. Some talked to me, others not. The ones that were talking were nicer than the quieter ones that behaved like crazy sometimes. And then we had those men who didn’t think that a girl could walk in the forest. They didn’t believe that a girl could walk in rugged terrain. I became upset when they thought that girls only walk along the city streets! Especially since I was brought up with walking in the forest to pick berries and plant trees.

A moose calf became orphan

One day I and the hunter I followed heard on the radio that one of the men had shot a moose with milk in her udder. Some of the other hunters got upset, not because they weren’t allowed to shoot a moose who had a calf, but because the one who killed had said it on the radio, meaning other hunting teams could have heard it. They only cared about how they looked in others eyes and what they would think about them. The poor calf was heard calling for his/ her mother the rest of the week; it became an orphan. Another time a hunter was shooting several times, but no moose ended up dead, no one knew where those bullets went… They shot around 26-28 moose that week when I was there.

I learned that some hunters didn’t like to kill moose calves

In order to cope that week and make the time go faster, I decided to ask them questions about hunting. Then I learned that some of them didn’t like to shoot moose calves. One man said that he hadn’t had any problems with that before he got children of his own, but when he became a father he found it harder to shoot the calves and preferred not to do it. So why don’t people wake up? Why do people do stuff they don’t want to do? I experienced it as that the men who came from the city thought it was just nice to spend time in nature and socialize with the other people. I also found out that the men didn’t like to spend the day in the slaughterhouse with the butcher, they preferred to go out in the forest. And I discovered that the men felt masculine when they made a fire next to the stand, and they had different ways to do it. I found it funny to watch how the different men behaved.

Why do people continue to kill animals although you can thrive on a plant-based diet?

Recently I heard a wise man say that people who eat meat are asleep. The question is, why don’t people wake up? Why do people continue to kill animals although you can thrive and be healthy by eating a plant-based diet? Because individuals who fix a barbecue for their friends or as a festive occasion for their teammates, or stop at a restaurant chain to buy hamburgers take part in killing innocent animals. They are responsible for that millions of animals are killed each day and that some of the poor animals get tortured before they die like when they get skinned alive and so on. For instance, there are about 15 000 male chickens that get minced alive every day here in Sweden just because people want to eat eggs. People don’t want to admit that they are responsible for this because no one wants to hear if you say that but it’s the truth. Because as long as people continue to buy meat and other products from animals, other people will continue to kill them so they can have their steak, fried eggs and eat hamburgers with their friends. It’s like you hold a life in your hand when you hold your wallet, since every time a person goes into the grocery store he or she has a choice if an animal shall die because of the products the person is buying or not.

I wonder how many people would continue to eat meat, eggs and dairy products if they had to kill and butcher the animals by themselves? But some are so crazy so they would say yes to that because one woman told me once that she just had to have meat, that she wouldn’t mind killing the animal herself. That was a woman who bullied me.

They treated me like I was a low-life

I have a similar experience, and that was when I followed a few people once to train in another city. The other women gave me looks that could kill when they heard that I didn’t want to join them when they were going to eat hamburgers. They treated me like I was a low-life. I felt very bad by their mean attitude towards me, so bad so I was afraid to meet them again. And these women also bullied me on and off for a few years. I was in a group of people where everybody ate animals and products from them. And some in this group were hunters; I remember like it was yesterday how they laughed about killing moose and how exciting they thought it was.

And maybe that’s the answer to why they treated me badly and left me outside. They had already turned off their feelings every time they ate so why would they bother to turn them on again for a fellow human who is vegan. I was the outsider, and they were better than others, that’s what they told me. I assume that Thomas A. Edison would have called them savages since he said: “Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”

Why don’t people wake up?

But why don’t people wake up? Why can’t they understand that they hurt others when they behave badly and that they are responsible for that animals get killed when they choose to eat meat? I find it especially sad when I sometimes have seen that someone’s true self is a genuinely great person but still end up acting like the bad ones. I read that it is proven to be true that an individual who is in a bad environment eventually ends up like the nasty ones because our brains function like that, our brains mimic others behaviors. I can only continue to hope that the glimpses I have seen of true loving kindness among others, that those people find the courage to follow their hearts so the good win over evil.