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  • From: Doug Willhite <drwillhite@earthlink.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] The Good Hunter & the ethics of killing animals for food
  • Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 05:27:39 -0700

There are already too many predators (humans) in proportion to the numbers of wild prey, so promoting hunting wasn't my point in sending the post.

As a "farmer" raising animals for meat / slaughter, I feel that the ethics of hunting are quite similar to the ethics involved with animal husbandry and meat eating. Anything that helps folks see meat eating more clearly for what is involved -- including the quality of life & death of the prey animal -- I think will eventually help guide consumers toward making more conscientious choices in the animals they choose to purchase & eat.
_________________________

Paul, please remind us what the acronyms CAFO & YMMV represent. :)

thanks,
doug

___________________________________________________________

From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] The Good Hunter & the ethics of killing
animals for food

Interesting topic. Personally I'm not a vegetarian on principle, and get very little meat or dairy, but it's for a couple reasons. One is a health concern and the other is a larger issue - the waste of land and freshwater for excessive, CAFO meat consumption in this country. And I'd rather see predators allowed to multiply and regain a natural balance in the wild instead of hunting. YMMV

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
--Henry David Thoreau
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

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On Apr 13, 2010, at 10:21 AM, livingontheland- request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

Lloyd: What’s your opinion of veganism as a philosophy and way of life?

Petersen: Veganism is a morally valid, albeit nutritionally extreme,
attempt to live ethically in an overcrowded world of finite material
resources and seemingly infinite cruelty. But is it worth the bother
in the big picture of life and death on earth? Biologically speaking,
the human animal, like our brother the bear, is an opportunistic
omnivore. We have a predator’s front-set eyes and an omnivore’s gut,
teeth, and nutritional needs. But at least vegans are thinking about
life’s problems and experimenting with theoretical solutions, which
is more than I can say for most people, including most hunters.

There are many hidden ecological and economic costs of veganism and
vegetarianism. Ted Kerasote, in his well-researched book Bloodties,
coined the term “fossil-fuel vegetarianism” to describe what’s going
on today. If someone wishes to forgo meat — either for moral reasons
or because they believe eating meat is unhealthy — I say more power
to them. But how many vegetarians grow or gather all their own food?
Practically no one falls into that category, which means you’re
buying farmed products. Somebody has cleared land, costing many birds
and animals their homes. Maybe that land was cleared a hundred years
before you were born, but you’re a direct beneficiary of that
destruction of the wild. Then there are all the chemical fertilizers.
Even if you’re using organic fertilizer, it has to be shipped using
fossil fuels. Every spring a big diesel tractor will be used to till
the soil and will smash burrows and kill countless moles and mice and
burrowing owls and even deer fawns. This considerable carnage is all
conveniently invisible.






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