A 'cull free' vegan society: Possible or impossible?

[Clueless Git]

Just a musing ...

If we had a totally vegan society would/could culls to protect our food sources ever be completely avoidable?

 

[Second Summer]

I'm sure it will be, definitely at some point in the future. When there is a will, there is a way. Once veganism becomes mainstream, people will generally want to live cruelty-free lives, so they will put time and effort into inventing solutions, clever gadgets and technology to assist in this most worthwhile endeavour.

 

[ledboots]

I'm sure it will be, definitely at some point in the future. When there is a will, there is a way. Once veganism becomes mainstream, people will generally want to live cruelty-free lives, so they will put time and effort into inventing solutions, clever gadgets and technology to assist in this most worthwhile endeavour.

I don't hear of culls here in the US, but farmers killed pretty much all the wild wolves here years ago. They are killing non-native pythons here in Florida in the everglades, and they let hunters kill a certain amount of alligators each year.

 

[SummerRain]

Hmm my instinct is that I think it would be avoidable, by combining an understanding of the natural world and the animals that live in it which technological/practical solutions.

For example, as raised in the other thread, you can't expect to kill off all the wolves/big cats/etc and then not have an ever-increasing deer population. But by sensitively re-introducing predators (for example, by choosing animals that are shy of people and tend to stay away from urban environments) you can maintain a more natural balance of prey animals.

Interestingly, in a vegan society it would be the prey animals that would be the big problem, as there wouldn't be farm animals for predators to attack (or infect). Culling prey animals is always going to be difficult because they tend to breed very quickly, because they are prey animals and so otherwise they wouldn't survive, which is why - despite vigorous attempts at wiping them out - animals like rabbits continue to thrive. I don't know a lot about farming, but in the UK I would think the biggest problem animals for crops are birds and insects, which aren't currently "culled", so perhaps it wouldn't be a big problem.

 

[shyvas]

I don't hear of culls here in the US, but farmers killed pretty much all the wild wolves here years ago. They are killing non-native pythons here in Florida in the everglades, and they let hunters kill a certain amount of alligators each year.

That is very sad and I often see them doing so on TV ; even for cooking shows !

Well, someone is making money out of the culls, as they are setting up companies to do the dirty work :

http://badger-killers.co.uk/who/

 

[Forster]

IMO unavoidable unless we get our population under control.

 

[Clueless Git]

Something that has not been touched on yet ...

A totaly non-culling society would have to allow a natural population of natural predators to exist and roam as freely as roams their natural prey. That goes without saying?

What I was wondering is this:

How many of us would genuinely be happy about say, taking the kiddies out for a teddy bears picnic, once we have the risk that we or, less importantly, our kiddies could become a 'picnic' for real live teddy bears?

What about predators that become too familiar with humans (as with Bears in N. America) and pose a direct risk to human beings?

Would in, one way or another, we still have to tolerate some culling purely out of self defence?

("I wouldn't have minded him eating the missus's foot but the greedy b'stard wanted a whole leg ... so I had no choice but to shoot him in the head ..")

The only way I could see that not happening is if a non-culling society is prepared to stick to it's guns (as it were) and view occasional loss of human life as an acceptable price to pay for having a natural balance of predators roaming free.

 

[Forster]

Just curious, would insects fall under said non-culling society?

Anyway I think a non-culling society is more of an ideal than a practical reality. There is just too many people to every come back to any kind of balance in nature.