Originally posted by Nightingale
my opinion on eating meat:
"if it gets caught, it deserves to be eaten."
this can be taken two ways, and both are accurate... if an animal is dumb enough to become captured/killed, it deserves what it gets... ie... becoming my lunch.
So what happens when everybody decides they want tiger burgers and fur or people decide they like sea turtle soup. Its too easy now to kill. Anyone can do it and with little skill, there are very few places to hide and killing methods are that much better now. Whole species have become extinct (or nearly) because its easy to catch most animals. Look at whales. They were almost hunted to extinction and the hunters used every usable part (oil, blubber, meat, baleen, even bones). How can we justify the extinction of a species just because we can and we'll use the remains.
A side note on the same subject:
Sea turtles mate and lay their eggs on the beach. The young then hatch and make a mad dash to the sea. On land they are attacked by birds, dogs, fox or whatever other predator happens to be around for an easy meal. When they reach the ocean they are initially hit by sharks, 'cudas and tarpin. There used to be enough to make the journey and scientists and filmographers refused to help and instead let nature take its course.
Here's my gripe. There are less turtles mating and laying eggs because humans hunt the adults for specialty dinners (along the Baja coast especially). The adults are also dying of exotic tumors that have only been manifesting over the past few decades (leading many to believe because of pollution). Finally, far fewer young are getting into the sea because there are more predators on the beaches (introduced stray dogs kill more turtle young than any other land creature, and sea bird populations have risen due to increased food availability from human garbage and landfills and decreased sea bird predator populations due to pollution). These are all caused, at the root, by man. So if it is our fault that the turtles are dying off, why can we not help the population by literally taking all the hatchlings and putting them directly into the water or by chasing off the predators on hatch nights. Still many areas try to say it is immoral or illegal to help the hatchlings. Think about how easy it would be to get people to show up and help a little turtle to the ocean. You could even make money from ecotourists. Also there would likely be little impact on the environment from more turtles. The main food source is sea vegetation and jellyfish. Pollution levels have rasied the amount of nitrogen in the water and cause increased sea vegetation growth and algal blooms, therefore the amount of plankton (who feed on algea) and finally the amount of jellyfish(who feed on plankton) have risen. I have heard many a fisherman on the ocean talk of how many more jellyfish they see nowas there are few predators of jellyfish beside the sea turtle. So where is the downside to aggressively aiding and reintroducing this creature?
Look ma, I built a soapbox. :soapbox:
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