Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Doug Willhite <drwillhite@earthlink.net>]

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  ***********

http://chihuahuavalley.net



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.