28.11.2025
None of Them Want to Die: Sandra Higgins discusses the killing of a Red Stag Deer in Newbridge Demesne, on East Coast FM, 28 Nov 2025
“There is no moral difference between killing a free living animal, such as a red deer, and killing a hen, cow, pig, fish or sheep. Each of them is a sentient being with the right to life and we do not have the right to use them as our resources. The public are rightly outraged that a red stag was killed, beheaded and dismembered. But every time we buy eggs, dairy, fish, flesh, wool, leather or silk, we pay for someone to kill, behead and dismember a farmed animal who, like the stag, was a sentient being with feelings who did not want to die.”
If newspaper headlines (Irish Times, 28.11.2025; The Journal, 27.11.2025) are to be believed, people are outraged at the callous killing of a red deer in Newbridge Demesne, Co Dublin, this week. Sandra Higgins, director of Go Vegan World and Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary, chats about the appalling killing with Declan Meehan on East Coast FM Radio.
Public outrage is understandable and justified, if somewhat confused. Most people are appalled at unnecessary violence. Killing, beheading and dismembering a sentient animal for something as unnecessary as using their antlers as a trophy is an abominable act.
However, public outrage is hypocritical unless it is accompanied by a belief in animal rights and the manifestation of same through vegan living. After all, every individual one of the more than hundred million animals killed annually in Ireland, and the 90 billion animals killed worldwide every year, shared the red deer’s capacity to feel and to value their lives. It is as morally wrong to kill a domesticated farmed animal as it is to kill a free living animal. It is worth considering that it is legal to hunt, kill, and dismember deer as long as one has a licence. If the deer had been killed by someone with a licence, their story would never have reached public awareness. The problem is not how this deer was killed. The problem is that we still live in a speciesist world with the belief that other animals are ours to use.
If you are outraged by the senseless brutality meted out to this deer, please think about what happens to the pigs, chickens, turkeys, cows, sheep, goats, geese and other farmed animals every time you pay for them to be exploited and killed for products you do not need such as eggs, dairy, fish, flesh, wool, leather or silk.
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