Good vegan intentions

[Smileypotato123]

I went vegan in 2007 after being veggie since 2005. Its the best decision I ever made... leading me to think if only I'd always been vegan and that the same for everyone else. It got me thinking that if everyone had always been vegan then there would be so much good intention and everyone would be much healthier, much happier and there would be less suffering. If all the dangerous animals were prevented from breeding and only animals that can survive as vegans were allowed to live then the world would be a much safer place.

 

[Emma JC]

Your idea is somewhat sweet however I do disagree with your ban of dangerous animals as they are awesome and unique and keep the world in balance and, also, who determines which are dangerous? mosquitos kill more people than any other animal...

Emma JC
Find your vegan soulmate or just a friend. www.spiritualmatchmaking.com

 

[Lou]

If all the dangerous animals were prevented from breeding and only animals that can survive as vegans were allowed to live then the world would be a much safer place.

except for all the "dangerous animals"

also what about pet dogs and cats. I'm sure this is a controversial statement, and I'm not going to take the time to gather "evidence" but I bet there are more cows, chickens and pigs killed to make pet food than all the animals lions, tigers, and bears (oh my) kill.

 

[Natnik98]

except for all the "dangerous animals"

also what about pet dogs and cats. I'm sure this is a controversial statement, and I'm not going to take the time to gather "evidence" but I bet there are more cows, chickens and pigs killed to make pet food than all the animals lions, tigers, and bears (oh my) kill.

Pets is such a delicate matter. I think that the lab-grown meat could be the answer in the future. I don't have cats (which I love) or dogs because I couldn't force myself to buy and cut meat My vegan sister does have a cat and feeds her with regular pet food.

When it comes to wild predators, it is sad that cruelty naturally exists but at least it's not factory farming. I mean, hunters' activity was not as harmful as current method of producing meat in the capitalist era. Plus animals don't have conscience, we do.

 

[Lou]

Plus animals don't have conscience, we do.

It might just be anthropomorphizing , but I think I've seen dogs look guilty. Wild animals may have acted with compassion. or even exhibit acts of bravery. Chimps mourn their fallen friends. Crows hold grudges.

One of the best known experts on Animal Intelligence has said something along the lines of we are not smart enough to know how animals think.

 

[secondmayfly]

Hey, environmental science student here. I understand where you're coming from with reducing suffering by removing carnivorous animals, but unfortunately that's not really how nature works. What they do is brutal, but predators are a part of nature's self regulation. If the population of herbivores wasn't controlled by carnivores, the herbivore population would explode and they'd overgraze, damaging and possibly eliminating plant populations. Without any predators, there'd be total ecological collapse.

 

[Lou]

Hey, environmental science student here. I understand where you're coming from with reducing suffering by removing carnivorous animals, but unfortunately that's not really how nature works. What they do is brutal, but predators are a part of nature's self regulation. If the population of herbivores wasn't controlled by carnivores, the herbivore population would explode and they'd overgraze, damaging and possibly eliminating plant populations. Without any predators, there'd be total ecological collapse.

Yes, I remember in some college class we looked at some case studies. In several places, like Colorado, Montana and Minnesota, they removed all the wolves and the deer overpopulated and either died from illness or starvation.

However hunting (by humans) does not control the deer population like wolves do. Wolves prey on the sick and weak. Hunters will kill whatever they see.

 

[Smileypotato123]

I'd like to think that animals could evolve with intelligence to not destroy the plant kingdom. Unless vegan humans really take control then dangerous animals will rule the world with other meat eating humans.

 

[Smileypotato123]

This is why there is no easy solution because non violent vegans dont stand a chance of stopping the killing.

 

[shyvas]

I'd like to think that animals could evolve with intelligence to not destroy the plant kingdom. Unless vegan humans really take control then dangerous animals will rule the world with other meat eating humans.

I've lost the plot here.

 

[Natnik98]

It might just be anthropomorphizing , but I think I've seen dogs look guilty. Wild animals may have acted with compassion. or even exhibit acts of bravery. Chimps mourn their fallen friends. Crows hold grudges.

One of the best known experts on Animal Intelligence has said something along the lines of we are not smart enough to know how animals think.

True but I thought more about full conscience, like we have it. Animals do have deeper feelings, especially mothers mourning their children but when predators kill they don't really feel bad about it, I suppose. It's how they function, they need meat in their diet. Domesticated animals are generally less violent (and domesticated doesn't always mean that they live with humans - highly recommend "The Goodness Paradox" by Richard Wrangham (btw, he's a vegetarian ).

 

[Lou]

I'd like to think that animals could evolve with intelligence to not destroy the plant kingdom. Unless vegan humans really take control then dangerous animals will rule the world with other meat eating humans.

No!
Plants and animals have co-habitated earth for like 500 million years.
Agriculture showed up About 5000 years ago . if you take life on earth and compress it into 24 hours, humans have only been around for a minute.
Humans are responsible for habitat destruction. Predators have been in equilibrium for millions of years.

 

[Tom L.]

Hey, environmental science student here. I understand where you're coming from with reducing suffering by removing carnivorous animals, but unfortunately that's not really how nature works. What they do is brutal, but predators are a part of nature's self regulation. If the population of herbivores wasn't controlled by carnivores, the herbivore population would explode and they'd overgraze, damaging and possibly eliminating plant populations. Without any predators, there'd be total ecological collapse.

(bold emphasis mine) This is the generally-accepted view. But I don't think it's quite that simple......

As far as I know, elephants and rhinoceroses*** have no significant predators other than humans- but they also have low reproductive rates and don't appear to have population explosions the way rodents and cervids (for example) do. I'm not sure about giraffes; I think lions manage to kill them sometimes, but there's a video on YouTube(?) showing a giraffe stomping on a lioness (which is apparently badly injured already at the start of the video).

Another puzzle: what keeps the populations of top predators (such as eagles, orcas, lions, and wolves) in check, when they don't appear to have significant predation upon them? (I think I've read accounts of lions and wolves killing each other- I don't know about the other two, but it wouldn't surprise me.)

One might just as easily argue that most prey animals evolved high reproductive rates because of predation pressure on them.

***I had to look up the plural of "rhinoceros" to be certain it was correct- although apparently "rhinoceri" is used sometimes- THANK YOU, Google AI (and other websites) !!!

 

[secondmayfly]

(bold emphasis mine) This is the generally-accepted view. But I don't think it's quite that simple......

As far as I know, elephants and rhinoceroses*** have no significant predators other than humans- but they also have low reproductive rates and don't appear to have population explosions the way rodents and cervids (for example) do. I'm not sure about giraffes; I think lions manage to kill them sometimes, but there's a video on YouTube(?) showing a giraffe stomping on a lioness (which is apparently badly injured already at the start of the video).

Another puzzle: what keeps the populations of top predators (such as eagles, orcas, lions, and wolves) in check, when they don't appear to have significant predation upon them? (I think I've read accounts of lions and wolves killing each other- I don't know about the other two, but it wouldn't surprise me.)

One might just as easily argue that most prey animals evolved high reproductive rates because of predation pressure on them.

***I had to look up the plural of "rhinoceros" to be certain it was correct- although apparently "rhinoceri" is used sometimes- THANK YOU, Google AI (and other websites) !!!

Yeah, more things than just predator population control prey growth. I was trying to simplify for OP. Arid climates are basically the opposite of what I study, but I can only assume that the amount of available food and water is what limits the growth of large mammals in the Savannah. However, many prey populations do have enough resources available to them to have destructive populations booms, and that's where predators are really important.

As for apex predators, it's usually the availability of food that limits their growth. There's a lot less animal biomass than plant biomass in natural environments, so food is more sparse for them.(This is a generalization, but nature being nature has a million exceptions and qualifiers that I can't get into). Also, don't forget that for predators, available food doesn't just mean "species that are their prey" but means organisms that they can actually find, catch, and kill. If there was a population boom in say, lions, they would consume more of their prey. Because of this, their prey populations would drop, reducing prey density and making it harder for predators to eat. The lions would then reproduce less or starve due to their lack of food availability, bringing their population back down.


You can see this phenomenon in prey/predator population graphs, where prey population booms lead to predator populations increasing, which then drops the prey population, thus reducing predator populations.

 

[Lou]

Somehow we have ventured into basic biology.: Population Dynamics. It's actually taught frequently from grade school to graduate studies.
yes, large herbivores are limited by the food supply and slow reproduction rates
smaller animals, which usually have high reproductive rates are limited by various environmental factors , food supply and predations.

As that above graph shows, populations have some built in elasticity.
And before the human expansion and agricuture and technology showed up most ecosystems in equilibrium for long periods of time.

 

[Smileypotato123]

I've lost the plot here.

Yes its eas6 to do so I find, its just that all the so thought beautiful animals are pretty dangerous maybe its their influence why some people wont give up meat.

Somehow we have ventured into basic biology.: Population Dynamics. It's actually taught frequently from grade school to graduate studies.
yes, large herbivores are limited by the food supply and slow reproduction rates
smaller animals, which usually have high reproductive rates are limited by various environmental factors , food supply and predations.

As that above graph shows, populations have some built in elasticity.
And before the human expansion and agricuture and technology showed up most ecosystems in equilibrium for long periods of time.

What I want to know is why green vegan energy supplier Ecotricity charges more than British Gas and how will the world be able to improve itself if the cost doesnt come down?

 

[Smileypotato123]

Somehow we have ventured into basic biology.: Population Dynamics. It's actually taught frequently from grade school to graduate studies.
yes, large herbivores are limited by the food supply and slow reproduction rates
smaller animals, which usually have high reproductive rates are limited by various environmental factors , food supply and predations.

As that above graph shows, populations have some built in elasticity.
And before the human expansion and agricuture and technology showed up most ecosystems in equilibrium for long periods of time.

What about the theory that technology has always been around but the people in control or the machine itself wont reveal all or much at all sometimes.... just a thought.

 

[Lou]

What about the theory that technology has always been around but the people in control or the machine itself wont reveal all or much at all sometimes.... just a thought.

any evidence?

 

[Smileypotato123]

any evidence?

Any evidence... it's a pure guesstimation. However maybe it's more like technology rules and humans are some kind of biological hazard. I prefer to think technology is on our side as long as its respected. Or are people using mind control to create the illusion that technology acts upon its own free will? I'm not sure its possible to find out the answer unless you're lucky I suppose. Its just I've seen unbelievable things without the use of drugs or alcohol and so its hard to see the truth about this existence.

 

[g0rph]

I went vegan in 2007 after being veggie since 2005. Its the best decision I ever made... leading me to think if only I'd always been vegan and that the same for everyone else. It got me thinking that if everyone had always been vegan then there would be so much good intention and everyone would be much healthier, much happier and there would be less suffering. If all the dangerous animals were prevented from breeding and only animals that can survive as vegans were allowed to live then the world would be a much safer place.

Humans have essentially played gods for millennia. We are the reason the world is choking to death.


Preventing certain species from breeding would be the ultimate act of hubris, and quite probably spell the end of life as we know it.
Nature is certainly cruel, but it's a balance.
Without us on the planet it would be covered in forest, jungle, grasslands and be teaming with life.

As it is, less than 4% of the mammalian biomass on Earth is wild animals. That's what we've done to it... And you want to reduce that further?
Without predators, certain herbivores would decimate the environment...
This is the very reason, for instance, here in Sweden, where the wolves have all but been driven to extinction, that hunters get to kill moose, deer and wild pigs in the name of conservation.
And the thing is, they do need to be reduced in number. Sure, we could find non-violent methods, but they would be more expensive and let's face it, are not going to happen.

By the way, no non-human animal can be vegan. Veganism is an ethical position, not a diet. Gorillas are plant-based, but also eat insects, and even deer and moose and zebras and wildebeest will consume a certain amount of insects also.

Your ideal, predator-free world would essentially be teaming with rabbits, koalas and 3 toed sloths. Most other species of herbivore are also opportunistic omnivores.

Ruminants, who do eat mainly grass and vegetation also take the occasional egg or baby bird. Even horses will eat small rodents or birds from time to time.

I do understand the idea, but haven't we already meddled enough?