Twelve Arguments Against Animals
Argument THREE
If we don't kill
animals, they will die more horrible deaths.
This excuse for killing animals is most often voiced by recreational hunters.
They say that a quick bullet in the head is preferable to death by starvation or
being torn apart by another wild animal.
Yet simply ask those
hunters who voice these arguments if they are willing to receive a bullet in their own
heads since 40,000 of their own species die of starvation daily, while thousands
of others meet with violent deaths.
This is one of the many problems with the argument. Hunters do not seek out
starving animals, or animals about to be devoured by predators. They don't know
which animals are starving or in danger: and they don't care.
They seek out the healthiest animals: which will make the best trophies. Or they
just shoot the first animal they see.
This would be equivalent to us opening random fire on people because some people
will starve and meet with violent deaths!
It is certainly not a moral justification for murder.
This argument also ignores
the fact that predators have a right to live too. And that means they have a
right to kill other animals for food (since they are carnivores.) Humans -- who
are not carnivores -- do not have this right, and are interfering with nature
when they kill animals.
The jaws of a wolf may be more painful than a well placed bullet, but the fact
is, ...
...at least one out of every three bullets is not well placed, and the wounded
animals probably suffer longer than they would if they had been killed by a
natural predator.
Starvation may seem cruel to us, but it is one of nature's checks and balances
which prevents overpopulation and environmental degradation.
A natural death may not be pleasant: but neither is it immoral.