In Reply to: help 'C' understand the basic errors in his message. posted by Stephen Psallidas on November 11, 1996 at 00:41:07:
> * Cows (of the variety purely bred for slaughter) would indeed
> become useless, and could not survive on their own in the 'wild',
> they would be wiped out by other creatures.
> Solution: we just let them die out naturally and without cruelty
> by preventing them from reproducing. This wouldn't take long,
> I mean a cow's lifespan isn't exactly centuries is it ?1) Most cattle breeds are breed for meat and dairy. Preventing
them from breeding and causing them to become extinct sounds
horrible and definitely inhumane.> * You seem to be unaware of the fact that energy transfer from plants
> to humans via beef (cows eat grass, people eat cows) is very inefficient.
> This means that the amount of land required to feed one person eating
> a meat-based diet could feed at least SIX people eating a vegetarian diet.
> So humans would actually have MORE room to live if we all ate vegetables.2) YOu err somewhat, but it could turn into semantics. While the USA does
have obesity, heart, digestive health problems .. these are much more commonly
caused by abusing high fat snacks (potato & corn chips, nuts, cheese puffs) and
large consumptions of process sugars (candy, pastries, soda, etc, alcohol (beer
and wine). tobacco consumption.. etc.... The majority of athletes, laborers,
medical professionals eat meat wisely and avoid nasty snacks. It is the countries
where vegetarianism is a majority where we find large numbers of malnutrition cases
which I volunteer my time to get out vitamin and mineral supplements to prevent
related illnesses.> * Who cares whether cavemen couldn't eat many berries millions of years ago
> because they were poisonous ? The point is that TODAY we have hundreds of
> different vegetables which AREN'T poisonous.I laugh along with you on this one :) Heh heh!
> Reduction in demand for meat would reduce cattle herds, since
> it is obviously not economical to raise, fed and slaughter
> livestock if there is no market.
> Eventualy livestock farmers would stop breeding further animals,
> abandon the unprofitable meat industry and sell the last of 'their stock'.Hmmmm, ranchers don't breed there cows.. bulls do. Artificial insemination
accounts for less than 2% of the births of slaughter cattle... it is not
cost effective. Having some biology and animal husbandry background.. I
can assure you that a population explosion would
occur since the lifespan and length fertility is significant in the bovine
species. There would be lots of suffering naturally as starvation, accidents,
predator increase etc increased.I see humane management as the only answer. again... this is my opinion and I
think we need to look for reasonable solutions to animal management. Including
humans :)