peta and fishing
- Thread starter BichirMohawk
- Start date
PETA is not only concerned with fishing and fish keeping but all animals including your pet dog or cat deserve liberation. Does that mean we are to release all the domestic animals back into the wild? Now that seems cruel.
Yeah exactly
If you don't enjoy MFK why not just don't log on? Why cause yourself to get banned?
S
skjl47
My post re: worldview was not directed at the topic of this thread; it was directed at what I perceived to be
J
jaws7777
misunderstanding of the worldview concept. I didn't mean to be commenting on the grocery store thing from earlier in this thread. Sorry for the confusion.
I AM interested in this topic though. Here's my take, per J jaws7777 request:
I don't like PETA or their methods for bringing attention to what I consider to be a worthy cause; animals rights. Some animals clearly are worthy of certain rights in relation to human society. Many animals are smarter than we give them credit for, feel pain in a similar way to the way we feel pain, and experience at least some emotions that are similar to humans. How similar animals are to us in these regards is not as clear as PETA would say it is... this is an active area of scientific inquiry.
On the other hand, humans are heterotrophic. We have not figured out how to turn ourselves into autotrophs yet, and until that happens, we need to consume. Some might argue that it is more sustainable to eat non-animal protein, which I am perfectly happy to do personally if it tastes good. Meat protein (and fat) tastes good to humans, and so is therefore preferred, which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.
All this considered, personally, I don't think eating meat is wrong. Consequently, I am not a vegetarian. I do try to limit my consumption of farmed mammals (pigs/cows) because I think it is more likely that they experience human-like emotions/feelings than poultry given that evolutionarily we are much more closely related. And in the case of poultry, they deserve everything they get because their ancestors (the dinosaurs) terrorized our ancestors (primitive mammals) and pay-back is a *****.
I have no problem eating non-farm mammal protein (e.g. deer, pig) where the hunter is being diligent to try and avoid unnecessary suffering of the animal. Subsistence hunting is actually a very sustainable practice so long as the target of the hunt is expendable in an ecological sense. In the United States many areas are over-run with deer that are very successfully exploiting human-altered habitat and causing ecological problems by virtue of their density. That same deer on the edge of its range where there are few individuals, probably shouldn't be hunted from an ecological perspective, though it still might make sense to hunt it from a sustainability perspective (i.e. as opposed to going to the grocery store).
As for fishing to eat, I eat fish, I don't see a problem with eating fish from an animal rights perspective given our current understanding of how fish feel pain/emotion etc. The problem with eating fish is that we prefer to eat fish that are positioned at high trophic levels (e.g. tuna or salmon). There are many ecological, health, and sustainability problems associated with this. Eating fish from a lower trophic level (e.g. Tilapia) is much better from an ecological and sustainability perspective, but has it's own health risks.
As for sport fishing, I support it in the sense that it is an outlet for people to commune with and achieve a greater appreciation for the natural world. Personally, I don't like sport fishing because it bores me to death, many of the fish that are "released" after being caught are released with the scars of being caught with a hook/line, and when they are released after the "fight" they are more susceptible to disease and predation.
I AM interested in this topic though. Here's my take, per J jaws7777 request:
I don't like PETA or their methods for bringing attention to what I consider to be a worthy cause; animals rights. Some animals clearly are worthy of certain rights in relation to human society. Many animals are smarter than we give them credit for, feel pain in a similar way to the way we feel pain, and experience at least some emotions that are similar to humans. How similar animals are to us in these regards is not as clear as PETA would say it is... this is an active area of scientific inquiry.
On the other hand, humans are heterotrophic. We have not figured out how to turn ourselves into autotrophs yet, and until that happens, we need to consume. Some might argue that it is more sustainable to eat non-animal protein, which I am perfectly happy to do personally if it tastes good. Meat protein (and fat) tastes good to humans, and so is therefore preferred, which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.
All this considered, personally, I don't think eating meat is wrong. Consequently, I am not a vegetarian. I do try to limit my consumption of farmed mammals (pigs/cows) because I think it is more likely that they experience human-like emotions/feelings than poultry given that evolutionarily we are much more closely related. And in the case of poultry, they deserve everything they get because their ancestors (the dinosaurs) terrorized our ancestors (primitive mammals) and pay-back is a *****.
I have no problem eating non-farm mammal protein (e.g. deer, pig) where the hunter is being diligent to try and avoid unnecessary suffering of the animal. Subsistence hunting is actually a very sustainable practice so long as the target of the hunt is expendable in an ecological sense. In the United States many areas are over-run with deer that are very successfully exploiting human-altered habitat and causing ecological problems by virtue of their density. That same deer on the edge of its range where there are few individuals, probably shouldn't be hunted from an ecological perspective, though it still might make sense to hunt it from a sustainability perspective (i.e. as opposed to going to the grocery store).
As for fishing to eat, I eat fish, I don't see a problem with eating fish from an animal rights perspective given our current understanding of how fish feel pain/emotion etc. The problem with eating fish is that we prefer to eat fish that are positioned at high trophic levels (e.g. tuna or salmon). There are many ecological, health, and sustainability problems associated with this. Eating fish from a lower trophic level (e.g. Tilapia) is much better from an ecological and sustainability perspective, but has it's own health risks.
As for sport fishing, I support it in the sense that it is an outlet for people to commune with and achieve a greater appreciation for the natural world. Personally, I don't like sport fishing because it bores me to death, many of the fish that are "released" after being caught are released with the scars of being caught with a hook/line, and when they are released after the "fight" they are more susceptible to disease and predation.
This whole thread has been a troll anyway, minds well just post in the fishing section but Ill bite anytime. lol
Sure, it's baiting for reaction, but it's still an interesting topic to discuss.
