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If you would not personally slice a chicken's beak off, or castrate a pig without pain relief or slice open an animal's throat, why pay someone else to do it for you? Where is the basic integrity in entering into this mercenary relationship? [. . .] Eating meat involves paying people to do things for us that most of us would not do ourselves.
With no natural predators for massive numbers of deer, hogs, and other wild animals, how soon before our crops were overrun by waves of hungry animals, cars hitting them and people dying, and then disease could break out that could then effect us in horrid ways.
I hunt, and I eat what I hunt. Truth be told, I'd probably still hunt even if there were natural predators for these animals, but they are mostly dead. No one wants bears, wolves, mountain lions, and coyotes running in their back yard.
Since most of the natural predators are there, the killing, and therefore eating of animals is a must to sustain the proper population size.
Raising and slaughtering animals for food (in a humane fashion) is a more ethically defensible than clear-cutting forest or destroying prairie to mono-crop soybeans which destroys the entire ecosystem and makes sure the animals never come back.
Animals have a part in a diverse ecosystem. Most food crops do not.
Except in the case of feedlots, it really doesn't hold water anyway. The only native prairie left in my part of the world is stewarded (quite well in most cases) by ranchers. Most of the cattle operations work closely with orgs like Ducks Unlimited (wetland conservation), Cows and Fish (water quality and riparian health), the Nature Conservancy of Canada and others.
As well, the prairie here needs to be grazed by large ruminants in order to maintain a healthy state. With the demise of the bison in most areas, this has been left to cattle.
I also eat a lot of wild meat, and in that instance his argument falls laughably flat.
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He also argues that eating meat drives up the price of grain. Again, this is an appropriate argument for feedlot cattle operations, and hog and chicken operations. However, it again falls flat when free range cattle or wild meat are considered.
As most non feedlot operations here rely on native range from spring through fall, and on hay crops in the winter (generally more native range that was cut rather than grazed), there is very little, if any grain used. And, since most rangeland exists on soils that are, at best, marginal, there isn't really an opportunity to utilize them for cropland.
As for wild meat - it actually drives down the price of grain. Geese in particular are notorious for feeding on farmer's crops. By removing some of the geese, the farmer is able to get better yields. Better yields all around means more grain, which means lower prices.
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As for his cruelty argument, it again falls relatively flat when put against free range or wild animals.
It's also funny that he should use pigs in his argument. It's quite evident that he's never spent much time around pigs before. If he had, he'd know that, apart from being highly intelligent and somewhat charming animals, they're also vicious and omnivorous to the point of ridiculousness. If you enter a pen full of pigs, they will attempt to push you over and eat you. They will eat anything you drop on the ground (even tools), they will eat each others tails. And if an animal becomes sick or weak, they will devour it (alive, no less). Pigs have no ethical dilemmas when eating. If they can get it in their mouths, then it will be eaten.
So, he argue Dawkin's point of not raising ourselves above the level of our cousins, while simultaneously demanding that we do just that.
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And finally, he comes to the point. Vegetarianism and veganism is an ethical or moral choice. And that's fine, so long as that's all it is. Frankly, it's not all that different from kosher or halal diets, when put in perspective.
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So, to add it all up. I'm glad I eat meat because I get to support the conservation of native prairie, wetlands and other habitats (and the wildlife they support), rather than see them turned to cropland. It gives me a chance to help local farmers bring in greater yields by removing pest animals.
What about the corn used to produce ethanol to replace gasoline, which is not in short supply; and only possible with tax subsidies. PETA - People Eating Tasty Animals.
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