I think so, yes. The meaning of murder though, at least as it is in the Oxford American Dictionary, involves premeditated killing of another human, but why differentiate between an animal that isn't human and humans? It's a superficial (purposeful) misunderstanding that keeps a lot of "unimportant" cases out of court.
Murder is the premeditated killing of any animal. The thought of killing a process, (consciousness in any form at all) is murder. This is even true for plants, though the severity differs greatly because plants aren't (as far as we understand the idea), conscious.
The problem is in the industry though, not the act of eating animals. It's human, to eat meat, but it's not human to treat meat as nothing more than a Big Mac. What I mean by that is, people used to respect animals and feel pain for each animal's death. Native Americans would purposely use every part of an animal that they killed to make it's death as meaningful to people as possible. There were spiritual aspects involved, but I feel the principle is most important.
We treat animals like shit now, if not worse. We raise them with the idea that they will all one day be shat out by someone a number of hours after being tasted. They are slaughtered without regard, which is understandable because of the emotional damage you would put yourself through if you had to slaughter so many a day... you would go insane, if you cared about each of them as your own pets...
Eugh, well my cat just died yesterday and I've been drinking to compensate for his loss... even though he was just a cat. Maybe I shouldn't be talking about the treatment of animals right now...
