emmelinemay | Animals != humans

Knut 'senselessly murdered the carp', fishing them out, playing with them and then leaving the remains.

Ok, seriously guys. It's a BEAR. Bears eat fish. If a lion kills an antelope, it's not murder, it's nature. Murder is a human concept, and not even a universal one at that. Go back into (even recent) history, or deep enough into the uncharted jungles you'll find tribes who won't understand the concept.

Does that mean anyone that eats meat is a murder? Or are you just an accessory to murder? Is it only murder if you kill someone for fun? If you eat a hamburger for fun, does that count?

This news popped up my my friends list at the same moment that my colleagues and I were discussing Louis Theroux's 'African Hunting Holiday' documentary (avialable on IPlayer for 5 days). I've mixed opinions about Theroux, I think he asks very leading questions and enters situations with a strong bias. I've found some of his shows really fascinating and a bit scary, but others I feel he tries to make an issue out of something that should be a non-issue. I felt a similar way about the game hunting episode - but then, it did resonate with my thoughts lately about my moral choices, my food choices, and how I see the world.

I've been to South Africa, and I admit, it did change me a little. It's hard to stand underneath that sky that goes on forever, and the landscape stretching around you, and everything being so open and different, without feeling yourself changing a little.

Mum has some rugs in her B&B, a zebra in the Zebra Room, a wildebeest in the cottage, and some form of bok (a blasebok perhaps?) in the leopard room (leopard skins are really expensive). At first, I was horrified by these rugs. Mum assured me she'd got them from licensed places, where the game is managed, in much the same way as those featured on Theroux's show.

I came to understand how things are in Africa, and understand why game hunting there is actually a really important industry. It is mentioned in the documentary, but I don't feel that it was truly a two sided argument you got.

Theroux has got emotion on his side - Lions are handsome, Impala are basically Bambi, and zebras are stripy horses. It is emotional watching people kill them for fun, when you love and respect animals, but if you can put that aside, you can understand that the industry is, perhaps paradoxically, vital to the survival of many species in Africa. It creates employment, provides industry in the meat and skins, and encourages tourism. All very important. It's important to realise that Africa != the UK. Things are very, VERY different there. One guy does point this out to Loius, that he was raised in a different culture, that to understand hunting you need to understand Africa.

An interesting point is made in the programme drawing a contrast between the game reserves and traditional farming, asking why is game hunting any more cruel than intensive farming? It's a good point. In many farms, the animals have little space to roam as they would in the wild, they're transported alive in cramped lorries to slaughterhouses where they are lined up and killed, sometimes (as in the case of Halal meat) pretty damn cruelly.

On a game reserve, the animals live out a free life in huge amounts of space, with little to fear from even lions as they're often kept separately, they're killed (on the one shown at least) with bolt guns which are quieter than shotguns to avoid stress to the other animals, they're killed as quickly as possible without any stressful buildup.

I, personally, cannot understand why anyone would find it fun to kill an animal for sport. But that is just me, and I am not going to say that it's wrong, just because I can't understand it.

I think the only person that really irritated me in the whole thing was Louis Theroux himself, when he said that he would eat the animal, but couldn't kill it.

I've always rather felt that if you aren't prepared to kill an animal, you shouldn't eat it. You should know where it came from, know what die for your chicken korma, or your kangeroo burger, or your crocodile steak.

I know that if I was stuck on an island, and had a choice between starving to death and killing a bunny rabbit, it's me all the way, sorry Bugs.

The reason I stopped eating meat, waaaay back before I was a teenager, was that I found the whole thing rather grim, to be honest. I remember becoming aware when I was very little that baa-lambs = lamb chops and thinking not 'awww, I can't eat the baby lamb' so much as 'euw, that's DISGUSTING I don't want to eat a dead thing'. My parents would get me to eat meat by making sure it looked nothing like meat.

Once I was old enough, I badgered my Mum to let me go veggie, and she relented. I've never looked back. Occasionally I'll think about a burger, but that's about it. Never been tempted, probably won't ever be, unless it's me or the rabbit on that island.

It was never a moral decision then. In time, as I learned more about the farming industry, it became a moral decision. I still see nothing wrong, however, with eating free range meat, 'happy' animals if you like. Animals that have a good, free, normal life up until the point they're used for food. I also see nothing wrong, if you're going to kill that animal for food, to use the rest of it as a by product.

It becomes sticky ground for me when you are killing it solely for the fur or skin, and the rest is a by product. It becomes even stickier when the animals are mis-treated in life.

I realised I had a dairy 'issue' relatively recently, maybe about 5 or 6 years ago. At first I used pills from America, but as I learnt more about the dairy industry, I was put off.

I was put off, and this is important, NOT because I think it's wrong to use animal products. I was put off because of the treatment of the animals in that industry. That's why I decided to avoid dairy.

Eggs do funny things to me, so I avoid them anyway. I hate the idea of animals being used for cosmetic testing, so I avoid those products where I can.

But I've never managed to be totally vegan, and to be honest, I'm no longer sure I want to. I've realised that for many vegans, it's all about seeing our use of animal products as inherently wrong, seeing the act of eating meat as an act of murder, seeing the act of wearing leather shoes as an unnecessary vanity.

I don't agree. All animals use all other animals, for food, protection, even for things like lice removal. Humans are naturally omnivorous, we have the teeth for it, and we can't get all of our nutrients from vegetables alone, that's why veggies/vegans need to take supplements to stay healthy.

I also think that many of the products used by vegans are possibly worse for the environment than the 'real thing'. Fibres and even food are so full of horrendous things (read the ingredients on some vegan cheese sometime) that can't be good for the environment, including petrochemicals. I've met a number of vegans who happily wear PVC, blissfully unaware of how damaging the production of it can be to the environment and animals.

So, because I disagree with, well, pretty much every vegan I've ever met, I can only conclude that I'm not, actually, a vegan.

I am a lactose and egg intolerant vegetarian. I might occasionally say in a restaurant that I eat a vegan diet, simply because that's easier. But I don't consider myself a vegan any more. It doesn't change anything about the way I eat, I still can't have pizza, or a fry up, but it does change the way I see myself I guess.

I stand by my opinion though, that if you are going to eat meat, you should eat any meat, not pick and choose which you will eat because some are 'cute'. I also think that if you are going to eat meat, you should be able to kill an animal with the knowledge that it will be eaten.

What do you think?

[Poll #1167728]

You can read a related rant, including what I think about PETA, here

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emmelinemay.livejournal.com

Then tick 'could' - it counts.

What animal was it?

I am far more respectful of meat eaters that can do that than I am of people that will eat a burger but turn away when an animal is killed on TV. If you're going to eat meat, you should damn well be aware of what it is you're eating.

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'It's like being attacked by the 80s!!'

Animals != humans

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