Slaughterhouses 181 Organization of the United Nations for 2003, which conservatively estimated that 53 billion land animals were slaughtered annually worldwide According to the AKC site: These numbers NOT include the many millions of animals killed each year in vivisection laboratories They NOT include the millions of dogs and cats killed in animal shelters every year They NOT include the animals who died while held captive in the animal-slavery enterprises of circuses, rodeos, zoos, and marine parks They NOT include the animals killed while pressed into such blood sports as bullfighting, cockfighting, dogfighting, and bear-baiting, nor they include horses and greyhounds who were exterminated after they were no longer deemed suitable for racing (AKC n.d.) Slaughterhouse violence is rising According to the FAO (2002, p 19): Between 1964–66 and 1997–99, per capita meat consumption in developing countries rose by 150 percent, and that of milk and dairy products by 60 percent By 2030, per capita consumption of livestock products could rise by a further 44 percent As in the past, poultry consumption will grow fastest The report also notes ‘An increasing share of livestock production will probably come from industrial enterprises In recent years production from this sector has grown twice as fast as that from more traditional mixed farming systems and more than six times faster than from grazing systems’ (p 6) In a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW 2012), for example, the rate of Australian meat consumption is estimated to be almost three times higher than the rest of the world This is not likely to decrease given the official endorsement of meat-eating by governments who still advise that the daily recommended intake for adults and children includes ‘lean meat, fish, poultry and/or alternatives’ (AIHW 2012, p 139) Ironically, it is the prevalence—or commonness—of the institutionally sanctioned slaughter of animals that poses one of the most important challenges to ending the killing Rather than compel people to take the issue more seriously, the scale of the violence complicates matters, making it for many too large and confronting to face This is even more confronting if other forms of socially sanctioned slaughter were included, such as the culling of animals in the name of animal management, such as sharks (see for instance, Small 2014), the ‘commercial harvesting’ of kangaroos