2 questions for ethical vegetarians?

Your first question regarding Zoos keeping animals from extinction. If you acknowledge evolution, then you have to expect species to become extinct. I actually have no problem with it. Dinosaurs, Neanderthals........they both had a shot, they both failed. The amount of time, money and energy put into keeping pandas breeding shocks me. Cute or not, I'd let them go. Therefore I don't think you'll be surprised to find that I'm not in favour of having a lion in a cage in the first place. No lion in cage, no need to throw an antelope into the cage. No need to breed animals to feed them.

Of course, this all falls to pieces when you consider that an awful lot of animals are only endangered because of humans in the first place, either with hunting them, or from the effects of global warming.

Ooh, this forces me to think. I like that.

Your first point. I don't know how I feel about raising meat to slaughter it to feed them. I would agree that in SOME zoos (which are dedicated to conservation efforts) it is the "lesser of two evils" as you say, to feed them raised and slaughtered meat. I SUPPOSE the zookeepers could shoot down an animal in the wild, but, is there a difference.

Yes, the difference is that the raised and slaughtered meat is domesticated, but the wild animal is allowed to be itself in the wild. I guess then, my answer is to have the zookeeper hunt down an animal in the wild, give the carcass to the animal in the zoo, and just hunt another animal when the zoo animal finishes the shot down animal.

I think the ideal thing is for animal reserves to have sufficient amounts of prey for the predators.

That's the way life is. If nature tends to be more brutal than domestic animals, so be it.

Good question by the way.

I find those fake meat foods to be highly processed, so personally I would avoid them for health reasons. Yes those Mcdonalds French Fries are deep fried in beef fat and their ice-cream is thickened with pig fat. I hate the bland & greasy taste of Mcdonalds chips because they are frozen, stored in plastic bags, then stored for months in a deep freeze, then deep fried. Just foul. However, I occasional eat French Fries (chips in Australia) that are freshly cut and fried in vegetable oils. It is really only vegans who are extremely hardcore about not using ANY sort of animal products. The hardcore vegans I personally know, would change the leather seats in cars. They would also avoid non-vegan condoms and avoid other animal related products. However, most vegetarians I personally know, will avoid products tested on animals and leather shoes, but I don’t think they would worry too much about changing seats in cars. I think the vegetarians and vegans I know would avoid buying a car with leather seats in the first place, but I doubt they would refuse to ride in a taxi with leather seats. Given that most car seats are made from material or vinyl – maybe not something even worth thinking about!. You can get too pedantic about the whole thing and everyone has their own set of limits anyway. I can only answer from personal experience and people I know - everyone is different. .

Some ethical conundrums stretch our moral dilemmas to the point of rebound oscillation between two disparate choices -- both holistically ethical within themselves -- yet each carries a mandatory condemnation for the chosen victim.

Our intellect, cognitive and technological capabilities behoove us to deploy a choice which honors two frustratingly irreconcilable options. In the not-too-distant future, I envision we could potentially resolve this quite elegantly, courtesy of: Science. Bio-technology. Lab-grown meat. Hence, our efforts *must* be directed at technological advances which can someday catapult us to a plane unimpeded by the limiting parameters that tie us down today.

Up until then, we shall bounce back and forth, some of us more than the others. Ultimately, humanity transcending its own confined and restrictive modes of thinking will be our greatest achievement. I hope we get there someday.

I'm a 22-year vegan. I never give any thought to that particular question. Why? Because the quantity of meat fed to zoo animals is incredibly tiny, compared to the quantity of meat eaten by humanity. I therefore focus on discouraging human beings from eating meat.

Never mind the meat issue, I don't think it is ethical to keep animals in zoos, depriving them of freedom and a normal life.

Well, from my standpoint, just because I'm a meat-freer doesn't mean every living thing is. Most animals can't survive without meat (such as lions, tigers, ext.) and refusing them of it would be wasting two animals: the one they're eating and the animals themselves.

Most wild animal rescues depend on road kill animals, which are not in short supply. In the wild, even the most voracious carnivores are also scavengers, so they have no problem with eating already dead meat.

About morals. Is it moral to send off your sons and daughters to war to kill and be killed?

Animals in the wild and humans are not that different but kill for different reasons.