Let $G$ be a finite simple graph with $m$ edges and degrees $d_1 \le d_2 \le \dots \le d_n$ in nondecreasing order. The annihilation number $a(G)$ is the largest $k$ such that $\sum_{i=1}^{k} d_i \le m$. We formalize the bound $\alpha(G) \le a(G)$ on the independence number, due to Pepper. The proof observes that the vertex degrees of an independent set sum to at most $m$, since every edge has at most one endpoint in the set, and that the $k$ smallest degrees sum to at most the degrees of any $k$ vertices.