As Britain Basks in the Heat, Animals Are Dying on the Road to Slaughter
The UK is experiencing record-breaking heat, with temperatures soaring above 37C for the first time in recorded history in June.
While humans rush to buy fans, plan trips to the seaside, and complain about sweat, the vast majority of those experiencing the heat have far more to worry about than running out of ice cubes. Hundreds of millions of animals are packed into cramped factory farms across the country. And many of them are dying of heat en route to the slaughterhouse.
Recent research shows that twice as many animals died from heat-related casualties on transport trucks in the summer of 2025 as in 2024. Around 6,600 animals died in transit last year, up from 3,100 the year before. Most of them were chickens. With unprecedented hot weather once again overwhelming the country, it’s likely that this number will continue to soar.
Heat Kills Exploited Animals
It’s no surprise that animals are dying from the heat. Our industrialised system treats feeling, thinking individuals as nothing more than commodities to be confined and packed into crates, and this doesn’t stop during periods of extreme heat.
Imagine spending your entire life in a dark, filthy barn with thousands of others, struggling to move due to your huge, genetically engineered size. You spend your life terrified, surrounded by dead and dying individuals, while being forced to endlessly breathe in the foul stench of waste and ammonia that becomes even stronger in the blistering summer. Then, you’re roughly grabbed by your legs and shoved onto a crowded crate on a truck that’s packed with others so tightly you can barely breathe. That’s the reality for chickens all over the country.
Transported for Hours with No Water
Pigs, goats, ducks, geese, sheep, and cows are also confined and hauled onto scorching hot, overcrowded trucks where they may succumb to the elements before humans get the chance to kill them. Without water in transport for hours on end, their suffering is unimaginable. While sunbathers enjoy picnics across the UK, munching on chicken sandwiches, the animals who survive transport in these heatwaves endure conditions that are anything but a picnic.
People who buy meat from supermarkets may hurry home to refrigerate it before it starts to spoil, without giving a thought to the sweltering conditions endured by the animals before their violent deaths.
They have more concern for the animals when they’re dead than when they’re alive.
Farming Animals Is Causing Heatwaves
The deaths on lorries bound for the slaughterhouse are even more tragic when you realise that, if humans didn’t eat animals, the unprecedented heatwave may not be happening at all.
Animal agriculture is a major contributor to the climate crisis. A 2023 study found that food emissions alone would heat the world beyond the 1.5C limit outlined by the Paris Climate Agreement, even if all fossil fuels were eliminated.
As well as producing a hefty chunk of emissions (including methane from cows, which is 80 times more warming in its first 20 years in the atmosphere), animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation – with vast amounts of land being destroyed to make way for both feed and the animals themselves. Land use is arguably the most significant environmental problem we face. It removes vital carbon sinks, releases carbon into the atmosphere, and drives species extinction.
Go Vegan for Animals and for Us
This heatwave should be a wake-up call. When we stop eating animals we can spare them a horrifying, gasping, prolonged death in a sweltering truck, as well as reverse some of the worst effects of climate change, allow nature to begin healing, and give us the best chance we have to save life as we know it.
PETA is always here to help you remove animals and their secretions from your diet. Sign up for free Vegan Starter Kit today:
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As Britain Basks in the Heat, Animals Are Dying on the Road to Slaughter
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