The sanitized term for the spontaneous mass killings of animals — usually on industrial farms — is “depopulation.”

The average American consumes an estimated 224.8 pounds of red meat and poultry each year — primarily chicken, beef and pork. That level of consumption requires a robust, accessible, safe and inexpensive supply chain to bring animal products from farms to tables. During emergencies, however, it also demands the rapid destruction of large populations of animals, including aggressive policies to prevent the spread of zoonotic avian influenza among fowl or COVID-19 among the agricultural workforce.

The sanitized term for these mass killings of animals — usually on industrial farms — is “depopulation.”

Depopulation differs from the slaughter of animals for food in both its speed and scale. It also differs significantly from humane animal euthanasia in which the comfort and individual circumstances of the animals are prioritized.

As long as Americans consume meat in large quantities, depopulation will prove a necessary evil. Yet it is likely that few consumers of meat or poultry are aware of this phenomenon.

If they were, they would likely lose their appetites.

There are many methods of depopulation. But one of the approaches that has been approved and is increasingly relied upon by the American industry for killing chickens and pigs under crisis circumstances is ventilation shutdown plus, known as VSD+.

This is a highly misleading euphemism: The process subjects targeted animals to hyperthermia, essentially inflicting slow, painful deaths upon them through heatstroke. Such gratuitous cruelty is unnecessary. Alternative methods — such as portable electrocution units, conversion of slaughter houses to carcass production, captive bolts, nitrogen gas-infused foams or even carbon dioxide whole house gassing — are less likely to cause torture or suffering. They may increase slightly the costs and effort, but we believe most consumers will pay a penny or two more for meat per pound to avoid inflicting unnecessary agony.

Animals, after all, are not the only victims of inhumane killing methods. The collateral damage inflicted upon the human beings who care for these creatures is also significant. Evidence suggests that individuals who work with food animals — veterinarians, technicians, farmers and plant production workers — often suffer psychological distress from exposure to animal suffering. Swine veterinarians, in particular, have been shown to suffer profound moral distress after encountering VSD+. The veterinary profession is steeped in an epidemic of suicide with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that 1 in 6 veterinarians contemplated suicide in 2014. The persistently invasive moral distress imposed by mass killings of animals is surely contributing to this crisis.

Food animal veterinarians and farm production workers are among the small segment of the American population who must bear witness to animal suffering in order to meet our society’s demand for animal products. They confront the challenge of caring for animals that are later harvested — and often of having to kill those animals. As a result, they often experience psychological distress, moral injury and even post-traumatic stress disorder.

Society has an ethical obligation to adjust depopulation methods to shield these caregivers from trauma.

In addition to altering depopulation methods, efforts should be made to reduce the necessity for depopulation events. Lawmakers, farmers and veterinarians already possess the tools to do so. But it is American consumers who have the powers to persuade them to act. One major step forward would be to reduce the demand for so-called concentrated animal feeding operations, known as CAFOs, another euphemistic term for meat, dairy and egg production units that confine over 1,000 animals in excess of 45 days per year.

The widespread growth of CAFOs has increased the need for potential depopulation events. Large scale agricultural enterprises that hold large numbers of chickens in battery cages or pigs in gestation crates generate the environments that spawn rapid mass culling. Such methods may prove marginally cheaper in the short run, but they are unnecessary to feed American diners and run contrary to the traditional values of family farming.

Several legislative efforts are under way to tackle these challenges. In 2021, the Farm System Reform Act was introduced in the House and Senate, and it seeks to limit the creation of additional CAFOs and scale back existing ones by 2040. Similarly, in 2018 California voters approved Proposition 12, which sets minimum confinement standards in the industry. The National Pork Producers Council has challenged the initiative, and the Supreme Court appears likely to resolve the matter later this year.

In the interim, both animals and their caregivers across the nation continue to suffer.

In a well-known short story, “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas,” the late author and humanitarian Ursula Le Guin describes a society in which the extreme suffering of a young child is necessary to buoy the prosperity of the community. We currently live in our own version of this story; a small fraction of the population witnesses animal welfare atrocities so that others may dine in benighted impunity. The horrific burden of VSD+ is one that neither animals nor their caregivers should have to carry.

Indu Mani is associate veterinarian at VCA Brookline Animal Hospital in Massachusetts. Jacob M. Appel is director of ethics education in psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City and the author of “Who Says You’re Dead?”