MaxedOutMama
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Just asking
What do vegetarians do when a horde of mice and rats attack their stored corn? Do you kill them to preserve your food, or do you say you can't destroy an animal?
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Yes. It wasn't meant as a snarky comment or anything - I really am curious. What happened is that we turned up the corn field and the mice have invaded, and I started wondering. First I thought sure they would - they'd have to. Then I thought no, because after all from the animal's point of view what matters is getting killed, not whether his funeral occurs in your stomach.
Those of us who are vegetarians for health, environment and economic reasons have no problem killing animals to protect our food. Beyond that, of course, its seems very clear to me that farms are highly preventative of animal life (in the higher phylae), though I stuppose they don't end it.
That makes sense.
Well - I suspect the effect of small-field farming is good for animal life, because the fields provide a lot of food, but the land is very cut up with a lot of wooded areas. And then a lot of farmers dig ponds for back-up irrigation. So we have an astonishingly varied small eco-system here. Growing grains attracts a lot of rodents, snakes, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, birds, raptors and deer. The geese winter here and glean off the field close to the ponds.
But when you work the field, it disrupts the homes of snakes, rabbits, mice, voles and moles. It was worse than usual because we had to leave it so long this year. I was sort of upset at the effect.
Large-field farming is very efficient, but probably cuts down on the overall diversity of the wildlife. On the other hand, because it is so efficient we actually have a lot less land being farmed in the US then we did a century ago and more wooded areas. I suppose there is no way for this many humans to live on the planet without having an impact.
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Well - I suspect the effect of small-field farming is good for animal life, because the fields provide a lot of food, but the land is very cut up with a lot of wooded areas. And then a lot of farmers dig ponds for back-up irrigation. So we have an astonishingly varied small eco-system here. Growing grains attracts a lot of rodents, snakes, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, birds, raptors and deer. The geese winter here and glean off the field close to the ponds.
But when you work the field, it disrupts the homes of snakes, rabbits, mice, voles and moles. It was worse than usual because we had to leave it so long this year. I was sort of upset at the effect.
Large-field farming is very efficient, but probably cuts down on the overall diversity of the wildlife. On the other hand, because it is so efficient we actually have a lot less land being farmed in the US then we did a century ago and more wooded areas. I suppose there is no way for this many humans to live on the planet without having an impact.
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