Tracy Brighten
Aug 27, 2017 · 2 min read

Thank you for an interesting piece Drew. I agree with your observation that some of us want to pretend nature isn’t cruel, but I don’t see the fact that nature is cruel as a justification for breeding animals to kill and eat them. Wild animals kill for survival — that’s nature.

You say “Historically we’ve agreed that keeping livestock and growing crops is an acceptable practice.” Historically, we thought we needed to eat animals to survive — and perhaps we did given the limited food available. Now science shows we don’t need meat; there are successful vegan sportsmen and women, as well as vegans living a long and healthy life. The cultural practise of meat-eating is ingrained though.

Rather than keep justifying our killing animals as an act of nature, arguing that it’s okay if we respect life and death, shouldn’t we be looking at how we reduce the number of animals exploited for our use, whether for food, clothing, or pleasure? We can use our intelligence and compassion to live the most moral life we can, conserving nature and the environment.

I take your point about crop agriculture potentially killing animals, but shouldn’t we be looking at how we grow crops with the minimum harm to animals (as well as the environment and human health, but that’s another story). The attitude that if we’re killing mice and voles, it’s okay to farm animals and kill them doesn’t make sense to me. With technology, knowledge and global co-operation, we have an opportunity to reduce our impact on animals and the environment. It’s selfish if we don’t take that opportunity.

On the subject of the impact of agriculture on wildlife, you might like to read Philip Lymbery’s book, “Dead Zone”, which reports how eating meat indirectly impacts wildlife (how palm oil used to feed factory-farmed animals impacts Sumatran elephants for example) — not an impact that many people will realise.

You are living in rural America and treating and killing animals with as much care and respect as you can. I respect your honesty and choice of lifestyle and I can see you live authentically, having thought carefully about your values and lifestyle choices. But small-scale farming is a far cry from factory farming. Few people will be eating meat from animals they have raised and killed themselves. Factory farmed meat, fish, dairy and eggs is what most people eat. Whatever our differing views on whether we should eat animals, large-scale farming must be stopped. There is no respect in a system that treats animals as commodities with the priority being the bottom line.

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Tracy Brighten

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Healthy nature, healthy people advocate. Thrives on words, birds and enthusiasm. Freelance writer, copywriter and copy-editor at www.tracybrightenwriter.com.