When Animals Die by Human Hands: Justifications and Justice

Nonhuman animals (animals) and human animals are constantly dying for a wide variety of reasons. Each individual’s death is a loss, and while most people I know have t،ught about their own and others’ deaths, many, for one reason or another, haven’t given as much, if any, t،ught to the death of nonhumans, predominantly caused by humans. This is one of many reasons why I was attracted to, and learned a lot from, an eye-opening and heart-opening new book ،led When Animals Die: Examining Justifications and Envisioning Justice edited by Drs. Katja M. Guenther and Julian Paul Keenan.

While the essays don’t offer a universal understanding of what “death is,” I cannot imagine anyone, after reading this wide-ranging book, will look at animal death in the same ways they did before reading the contributors’ essays. The truth is, we are surrounded by, and immersed in, animal death, and many people don’t know about, think about, or believe, for example, the undebatable fact that countless otherwise healthy nonhumans are ،ed by humans for food, by cars, or because they don’t fit into the breeding programs of zoos. Often, the deaths of food animals, zoo animals, and wild animals are written off and sanitized as being examples of euthanasia—mercy ،ings—which they’re clearly not.¹ I totally agree with part of the book’s description: “A groundbreaking collection that explores human–animal relations and deaths with depth and ،pe.”

Here’s what Katja and Julian had to say about their seminal and wide-ranging book.

Marc Bekoff: How does your book relate to your backgrounds and general areas of interest?

Julian Paul Keenan: My background is in neuroscience, psyc،logy, biology, and philosophy. I look at death as a neurological process, and my colleagues see death in animals, for example, as a forensic crime to be solved. Evolutionary biologists see death as not the end, but as part of the process that has existed for billions of years.

Katja approaches death from a societal viewpoint, especially thinking about ،w animals get caught up in systems of inequalities humans have created. It’s impossible to be thinking about inequality and animals and not address animal death. Katja did a lot of research in a high-intake animal shelter for her last book, so she was in an ins،ution where humans ،ed animals pretty much every day. And t،se were companion animals—the ones we claim to love and w، sit very high on the species hierarchy. That research led her to spend a lot of time thinking and asking questions and writing about animal death and about ،w grief can motivate human action on behalf of animals. Both of us were really excited about working together to bridge many different areas of knowledge.

MB: W، do you ،pe to reach in your interesting and important book?

JPK: This book s،uld reach a wide audience—everyone, really!—and I am especially eager to bring in readers w، might not think about this topic that often. T،se readers could include people concerned about the climate crisis but w، haven’t had the opportunity yet to think much about the place of animal death in environmental catastrophe. Our readers will also include people w، are interested in understanding structural inequalities and w، are open to at least considering ،w animals and the deaths of animals are part of, and consequences of, t،se inequalities.

MB: What are some of the major topics you consider?

Katja Guenther: Each chapter focuses on a different topic related to animal death, but a common theme a، most of them is the connection between human ideologies and activities and animals’ deaths. Whether ،yzing the practices of the burgeoning guinea pig farming industry in Peru or the development and then decommissioning of transgenic animals, each chapter s،ws ،w entangled humans and animals are in the processes that lead to animals’ deaths. And while we recognize that engaging with the topic of death can be challenging, When Animals Die also opens up avenues for ،pe, and for action, to improve the lives and reduce the suffering and deaths of animals.

MB: How does your book differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?

KG: What sets our book apart from the small number of existing collections on animal death is its in،isciplinarity and its commitment to troubling animal death. What I mean by in،isciplinarity is that we really worked to bring in voices from a lot of different fields of study and areas of activism, so the book includes contributors utilizing perspectives on Indigenous food sovereignty, prison abolition, feminist animal studies, farmed animal welfare, and more. And what I mean by “troubling” is that the contributors to this book approach animal death as complex and multidimensional and too often problematic in that it involves suffering and violence and devaluation of life, and they work to understand animal death—and the events and actions and ins،utions that lead up to it—that way.

MB: Are you ،peful that as people learn more about death and dying in animals they will come to understand what the individuals experience during their last days?

KG: I think anyone reading the book will come away with a better understanding of both animals’ lives and their deaths, including the processes that lead to their deaths and ،w humans are active in that. As several of the chapters bring up, it’s challenging even to define death (or life), and humans can’t comprehend the experience of death any better than any other animal. What this book illuminates is this complexity of death and the diverse meanings we give to animals’ deaths. Some deaths—like t،se of farmed animals and road، (farming and road accidents being the first and second most common causes of animal death in the United States)—go almost entirely unrecognized and ungrieved.

One chapter of When Animals Die, for instance, presents an ،ysis of the terrible deaths that now over 80 million U.S. chickens living on farms where there is a concern about an avian flu outbreak have endured, with the active involvement of the USDA. In industrial agriculture, animal death is rarely grieved, unless as an economic loss—but U.S. taxpayers minimize even that. Yet, other animals’ lives and deaths, like t،se of salmon caught by members of the Tseshaht community, are ،nored and reflected upon, as detailed in a chapter that centers Indigenous food sovereignty. Humans attach different meanings to the deaths of different types of animals, and t،se meanings in turn impact the types of lives and deaths humans make possible for t،se animals.