The Daily Reveille: PETA2 exhibit exposes abuse

Video by Alix Landriault
Multimedia Editor
The Daily Reveille
@lsureveille

Story by Megan Dunbar

University students were both disgusted and impressed by the various facts about animal processing at the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' Glass Walls Exhibit set up on Tower Drive on Monday and Tuesday.

The inflatable tent made to look like a barn featured a display about animals having human-level intelligence, a life-size sow gestation box and a video about slaughterhouses.

Glass Walls Exhibit Coordinator Lisa Hines, who wore a shirt emblazoned with the slogan "Meat Sucks," said the goal of walking through the exhibit is to make students want to make a difference.

Hines is a vegetarian and has been for three years. She said the hardest part is getting used to a new routine, but once she found a replacement for her go-to meals, making the switch wasn't as difficult as some might think.

Photography junior Angel Casillo, who brought the PETA exhibit to campus, is also a vegetarian and has been for eight years since she first looked into PETA.

"I thought the things slaughterhouses did to animals were disgusting, and I thought, 'I'm never eating that again,'" Casillo said.

She contacted PETA after she saw the notification that the traveling exhibit was going to tour colleges and obtained the proper permits.

Casillo saw a need for heightened knowledge of the lack of slaughterhouse ethics in Louisiana after listening to her friends' misconceptions.

"Lots of Louisiana people assume the wrong thing, that the animals are just shot in the head with a shotgun," Casillo said.

She agreed with Hines, saying the people she has seen walk through the exhibit have been affected.

The first room was dedicated to the relation of animals to humans and features Hines' favorite animal: pigs.

According to the exhibit, pigs play video games with the intelligence of 3-year-old human children.

Hines said people should remember the animals they eat are babies when killed in slaughterhouses.

The second room contained pictures of slaughterhouse conditions, a model cage with chickens and a box made of metal bars where sows are left while they feed their young.

The third room showed a video narrated by Paul McCartney that is a compilation of PETA's undercover slaughterhouse footage.

Hines said the video is what affects people most.

"It brings the images alive," she said.

She said she sometimes has to step out and cry after watching the video, even though she's seen it hundreds of times.

"It's my motivation to keep going," Hines said.