ok. Do you mind if I run with that idea in my usual way? Maybe I will start with Genesis where some people say there was no death before the fall of creation. If that were so then animals would have been perfect and would never die no matter how long they lived. But now, after the fall, animals must die. One might take a wooden literal sense from the story, and it might not be wrong, that since the fall, animals, in order to retain their created perfection - or as much of it as they can - animals have had to resort to using reproduction and death to maintain the perfection of good undamaged genes before sickness or death got hold of them. So since the fall of perfect animals in Genesis animals have adapted the strategy of defeating the imperfections of their fall by good selective breeding and by adapting predators to capture any genes that may be disadvantageous. So animal species are kept very pure and healthy despite having to contend with a fall from perfection, by adapting a very severe solution, selection and death.
Because you are European you probably know about the Scottish deer herds all over the highlands. For several centuries there have been no predators of deer in Scotland. The wolf became extinct long ago. In the interests of preserving the vegetation of the Scottish highlands and preventing starvation it became necessary to cull the deer
scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/deer-cull-should-continue-says-scottish-wildlife-trust/. Some talk of reintroducing wolves to the highlands floats around at times but I see that there are 350,000 red deer in the highlands and that will mean a huge number of wolves to control them. I don’t think residents would be too happy. Now, you can extend that line of thinking across Europe. In the interests of animal welfare and nature we will let all farmed cattle go free from farms into the wild, if there is any left. The hardier breeds which did survive the first winter would quickly multiply and cover Europe. Because they have no predators they will out grow the environment and begin to die slowly of starvation and sickness, like the deer, after they have damaged the vegetation of Europe. Culling and wastage would be inevitable.
As I said in the beginning, nature has established balances for animals. Those balances don’t harm the animals, they actually benefit and help the animals to live. Animals are not people, they are not rational, they don’t manage themselves. They rely on nature to manage them. If nature fails to manage them they start to suffer. Humans are part of nature. We contribute to the management of animals and in many areas we take over the role of nature altogether where people have found they cannot tolerate living with wild predators. We do rationally what nature does by necessity.
I also am not killing them for fun! I am killing them because they are vermin and rodents and are dirty, disease carrying critters. I do not want them bringing fleas, parasites, and other grossness into my home and infesting my food or my pets’ home!
I love YOU!–nice list & thought provoking!!
