Re: Animal Liberation Torpedoes Cormo Cooks Tour Mk2

"David Berkeley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
> "Dutch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
> > "David Berkeley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
> > > "rick etter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
> >
> > [..]
> > > > ====================
>
>
> I note with interest that those posting against me in this topic are
> not disputing the main point in my original post -- that the live
> sheep trade represents substantial cruelty and is thus ethically
> indefencible,

I don't think you'll get too much disagreement on that.

> with the consequence that measures which mitigate this
> cruelty that do not result in equal or greater suffering to sensate
> beings are ethically defencible.

That's obviously a debatable point, two wrongs don't make a right, and all
that..

> I'm quite happy to discuss the
> separate question of the ethics of vegetarianism, but this is not
> really pertinent to the live sheep question, except as it reflects my
> desire to tread lightly upon the rights of sensate beings.

That's my topic of interest, thanks. There is no doubt that many abuses
exist.

> > > > No, if your were truely seeking to have the least impact you
wouldn't
> >  rule
> > > > out all meat categorically.  That there are meats available that
will
> >  cause
> > > > less overall death and suffering than the veggies you buy from the
> >  market is
> > > > not disbutable.
> > > >
> > >
> > > But that is precisely what is being disputed, and not only be me.
> >
> > The point is not being seriously disputed by anyone.
>
> Well if you look at some of the others posting ("ipse dixit" for
> example) it is.

He is not a serious participant here, it's a long sordid story.

> People *assume* that
> > eating meat is more harmful to animals than eating plant-based foods
because
> > they have not considered the issue of collateral deaths.
> >
> > > before you could make such a claim, you'd have to design a model
> > > encompassing the total impacts of the meats in question in each of the
> > > settings they are raised and compare them with alternative protein
> > > sources. I've looked for such things on the net, and elsewhere but
> > > apart from a few very small localised studies, I see none.
> >
> > You don't need to go to that length to form a reasonable opinion. If a
> > person kills a single large ungulate with a high powered rifle they may
have
> > 500 or more pounds of high quality protein. It's very unlikely,
considering
> > the effects of ploughing, planting, herbicides, pesticides, harvesting,
> > processing, storage and transportation that a similiar amount of soy or
> > other plant protein would be able to come anywhere close to that ratio.
>
> Bear in mind though that the ungulate killed with a high-powered rifle
> isn't a freeby. Land had to be set aside for it, it had to eat some
> fodder, that in turn had to be fertilised and protected from rival
> species.

I was referring to a wild animal, none of that applies to wild game. As you
approach pastured and "free range" domestic animals the balance shifts,
until you reach fully captive-bred animals where the balance has tilted the
farthest in favour of vegetable based foods. Of course you have to also
consider the very different methods of raising crops also.

In other words, the vegan dichotomy of veggies=good, meat=bad is obviously a
gross over-simplification.

> In Australia, kangaroos compete with sheep for fodder.
> Particularly during dry conditions, a key goal of farmers is to
> protect grazing lands from competing species. In the early days, the
> removal of kangaroos from grazing lands was often accomplished by
> poisoning local water holes (which had the "happy" consequence of also
> killing the local indigenous people, who, with reduced access to
> kangaroos, began "stealing" sheep instead).
>
> The introduction or rabbits also put massive pressure on pastures and
> forced some fairly brutal control measures undertaken to protect
> access to pastures for sheep and cattle.

Those measures protected the pasture for native species too.