I’m not 100% opposed. In fact, there is one type of meat I am currently willing to eat. I live in Indiana and until people can be convinced to return all the wolves and bears and cougars that were killed off by European settlers, the deer population has to be culled every year or it will explode and all of their food will be eaten too quickly, causing both their own population to collapse with a bunch of deer dying of starvation along with the population of other animals who were unable to get that same food due to the deer eating it all also dying of starvation.
So hunters are just necessary here. I am willing to eat hunted venison when offered to me because I’d rather it get eaten than just thrown out. That seems a lot worse to me. (This would apply to wild turkeys too, but I don’t like the taste.)
If their natural predators were re-introduced, I’d probably change my mind.
I would happily eat venison if there was an ethical way to get it into the food supply chain. Getting into hunting myself and doing all that is actually somewhat appealing, but I just don’t have the time or resources to make that happen.
Some states won’t let hunters’ surplus game to be donated or sold. Some will and do. It’s a good balance. Then you find the city slicker trophy hunter deer - whole carcasses, minus the rack. It’s disgusting, even for me (flexitarian), and we grew up raising or hunting our own food. We would never kill an animal that wasn’t an immediate threat that wouldn’t be eaten, except for rats and bugs, but we still didn’t go out of our way to prolong suffering (but we did to quickly end it).
I’m not opposed to ethically farmed meat. Factory farms are hellholes, but I don’t think years of free food, medicine, and security are an inherently bad trade for eventually being food yourself, assuming humane living conditions.
If these animals were ever born in the first place, they’d likely succumb to predation or disease long before they’d be slaughtered.
I’m not 100% opposed. In fact, there is one type of meat I am currently willing to eat. I live in Indiana and until people can be convinced to return all the wolves and bears and cougars that were killed off by European settlers, the deer population has to be culled every year or it will explode and all of their food will be eaten too quickly, causing both their own population to collapse with a bunch of deer dying of starvation along with the population of other animals who were unable to get that same food due to the deer eating it all also dying of starvation.
So hunters are just necessary here. I am willing to eat hunted venison when offered to me because I’d rather it get eaten than just thrown out. That seems a lot worse to me. (This would apply to wild turkeys too, but I don’t like the taste.)
If their natural predators were re-introduced, I’d probably change my mind.
I would happily eat venison if there was an ethical way to get it into the food supply chain. Getting into hunting myself and doing all that is actually somewhat appealing, but I just don’t have the time or resources to make that happen.
Some states won’t let hunters’ surplus game to be donated or sold. Some will and do. It’s a good balance. Then you find the city slicker trophy hunter deer - whole carcasses, minus the rack. It’s disgusting, even for me (flexitarian), and we grew up raising or hunting our own food. We would never kill an animal that wasn’t an immediate threat that wouldn’t be eaten, except for rats and bugs, but we still didn’t go out of our way to prolong suffering (but we did to quickly end it).
I’m not opposed to ethically farmed meat. Factory farms are hellholes, but I don’t think years of free food, medicine, and security are an inherently bad trade for eventually being food yourself, assuming humane living conditions.
If these animals were ever born in the first place, they’d likely succumb to predation or disease long before they’d be slaughtered.