Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Vegetarians and Vegans

On Saturday I was at a party. It was the end of year party of our poetry group and one of the most enjoyable I have been to. The food was great, the company was excellent and the poems were of a very high standard too. While surveying the most wonderfully varied choice of snacks, the subject of Vegetarianism came up and with it the idea of the exploitation of animals. Somebody saying how poor cows were forced to produce more milk than was natural and chicken kept to lay eggs etc. Now, I am against animals suffering, but I am not sure that the exploitation of animals is the evil that some  animal lovers believe. Think of all the animals we share our world with. There are those we  use for our own purposes, and those we compete with for living space and food. The first multipy and thrive, the others are pushed towards extinction, unless preserved in game parks and reserves and there, of course exploited too, to make money as tourist attractions.

Animals do have feelings, but are we right when we equate their emotions with ours. I am reminded of friends from our dog club who asked me to sign a petition against using  animals in circuses.  "These creatures, " they said. " are put in cages, taken all round the country and made to perform tricks." I said that I thought it a bit hypocritical of us to condemn the practice, because it was exactly what we were doing with our dogs. We train them to run Agility courses, take them to events in different places and keep them in cages at shows when not competing. I am not just trying to justify it when I insist that the dogs simply love it. You just have to see my terrier's excited reaction when he is taken to a show.  Just because animals are made to work, doesn't mean that they are unhappy or badly treated. We may prize freedom, but do animals feel the same way? An animal in a well-run Zoo, kept safe and fed regularly is probably happier than the same creature in the wild, often hungry and in constant danger of predators or if a predator itself, in competition with other dangerous animals. We may get sentimental about the natural life in the great wide open spaces, but given the choice, we nearly all opt for a safe suburbia ourselves.

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