Will animals become extinct if we do not eat them?

I never expected to say this but veganism is not an act of will any more. I don't miss dairy at all – even ice cream, which is the deal breaker for many. When I think about what ice cream really is, and what cows have to go through to provide the ingredients, it turns my stomach. And not being a tea or coffee drinker I was never big on milk or cream anyway (besides which, I find hemp milk works just fine in my porridge and baking).

The hardest thing is not the food but other people's responses. I wasn't prepared for having to justify my own food choices so often – which occurs whenever my husband and I are out eating with others. When eating in the company of others my food choices these days are always commented upon, even though I don't initiate any of it. Part of my 'journey' has been reflecting on questions I've been asked that I wasn't expecting, and which have often taken me by surprise.

The latest came about a week and a half ago while out in a restaurant. Once again my food became a talking point, and it wasn't long before the question was put to me:

"But, if we didn't rear animals for food there would be no animals, would there?"

Actually, this is something my husband had mentioned before, driving through the countryside near where we live. If farmers didn't rear animals for slaughter there would be no charming country scenes, no artfully scattered cows and sheep on the hillside. News headline (as if I didn't know): these animals not there to look pretty; they're there to be taken to a slaughter house and murdered.

As are all those other creatures we love to butcher and cook. If we didn't eat them, use their skins, fur, bones, eggs and milk, they simply wouldn't exist: entire species would become extinct. Wouldn't that be a great tragedy?

Yeah, yeah, I get it. And it's something I've always found hard to address. I haven't really had any satisfactory answers, for myself or anyone.

And back in the restaurant, I was starting to feel that the 'if we didn't eat animals there would be no animals' line was being used once again by meat-eaters as a 'checkmate' argument. And this was a 'checkmate' moment. I didn't know what to say. Again.

But I did know it was potential blog fodder. And so here it is.

I think it's a flawed argument, based on warped logic. In a true case of esprit d'escalier, I wish that what I'd said in the restaurant was, "So you're saying that if I love animals so much, I should eat them?"

I know this is a glib response. However, it does seem to be where my thoughts end up, once I start wondering down this path. And turning the argument round doesn't seem to work either. While there are plenty of animals that we don't eat and which are under threat of extinction, there are also plenty that we do, and which nevertheless remain at risk. We're told that fish stocks are dwindling, particularly cod. Yet it continues to be eaten despite the fact that it's disappearing from the seas.

It's not as if the current situation is a sure-fire way of protecting any species. The amount of animals and habitat lost in order to create the space for cattle trumps this question too. Natural ecosystems such as forests and rivers have been lost or damaged in preference for convenient and cost-effective ways of farming animals for food.



Then there's the fact that farmed animals never reach adulthood. Their natural life spans exceed the ages at which they are slaughtered by many years. Millions of male chicks and calves are already killed shortly after birth because they are of no use. Simply to say that eating them saves their lives is a slight exaggeration, as they do not have much of a life as it is.

The argument is also complicated by animals' sentience. The animals we eat are essentially man-made creations that have little in common with their once wild ancestors – pets, essentially. And like our pets, the cows, pigs and sheep that we eat are intelligent beings who trust humans. We routinely betray that trust: these animals experience trauma when they are killed for food. That alone is an argument for veganism.


It seems to me that the assertion that certain animal species will become extinct if we don't eat them is an argument used by some meat-eaters (not all) to make themselves feel better about the suffering that animals have to go through. Not only is it used as a 'checkmate' argument, but also as reassurance that there is no need to challenge the situation as it remains.

Farmers do not breed animals in order to save species, that's not their motive. Farmers are not conservationists. Their motive is to breed in order to make a living.

Human interest is at the heart of this argument, not animals'. That's not to say that I think people deserve to lose their livelihoods. It's the current paradigm that's all wrong, not those who are trapped in it. The paradigm has grown out of control, too big, messy and profitable for those in whose interests it really lies.

But still, the intensity at which animals are currently farmed certainly does not excuse us eating them. And to treat this issue as one of supply and demand – comparing animals to Betamax video recorders or audio cassette tapes – is simplistic. Even if they were to 'die off' there is still no reason why we should torture them instead.

Humans are certainly responsible for many species' demise, but it's also hasty to presume that it is we who keep species going. If by some miracle humans stopped eating meat and dairy, and exploiting animals for their body parts, it would be nice to think that we would be able to keep the species we currently farm as pets, for example – humanely. How nice it would be to be able to live side by side with them for no other reason than as friends, and in harmony with a natural balance.

I don't care if that makes me sound soft, soppy and naive. Perhaps it is sentimental. And it would of course never happen because there is no financial incentive. The only way we would ever get close to anything like this is if financial value may be derived from animals in some other way from how they are now – petting farms, for instance.

The current paradigm is wrong, though, and we need a new one.

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