Kean students paid $1 for four minutes of their time

Photo credit: Rebecca Panico

By: Nicole Brown on Sept. 24

National nonprofit organization 10 Billion Lives, which campaigns against human consumption of animal produce, paid Kean University students one dollar each to watch a four minute video on animal cruelty outside the University Center on September 23rd and 24th.

Students gathered around four touch screen monitors and watched the mournful video that revealed the bloody treatment and slaughtering of farm animals. In the video, a cow moaned for her calf who was ripped from her side. Immediately after, she laid unconscious on the floor with her throat slashed in a pool of her blood.  

In another clip, chickens were crammed in their coop and climbed on each other searching for comfort and trying to spread their wings. Chickens who are deemed useless, such as most newborn male chickens, are thrown down a chute with sharp revolving blades where they are minced alive.

Some students squeaked while others held their breath in dismay as they watched the animals fear for their lives. For Quakiesha Myers, a freshman student, the raw content of the video struck her from the beginning to the end.

“It was tragic. The pigs squealing….wow,” said Myers. “We should have raised [them] differently, not to eat meat.”

According to John Kane, lead operator for the East Coast 10 Billion Lives tour, the mission of the organization is to bring awareness to human through videos and photographs about the abusive environments and barbaric butchering of animals.

“We want them to see the plight of these animals so that they can eliminate their suffering by transitioning to a vegan diet,” said Kane. “Animal lives have intrinsic value.”

For Eddy Dort, a Mathematics and Special Education major, it was an interesting video that posed a difficult challenge. “You really don’t think about the cruelty of animals,” said Dort. “It is a hard task to be a vegan.”

The 10 Billion Lives tour is a year round event that brings its mission to college campuses, street fairs and large festivals educating thousands of people each year.

“We see 100-250 viewers on a given day who are very receptive to the video,” said Kane.

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