Why are only some animals protected?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We don’t eat dogs, but eat cows.

We don’t wear cat fur, but we use lamb skin to wash our cars.

Killing seals is cruel, but my wife just bought Omega 3 capsules made out of distilled krill.

“Killing a puppy” is a euphemism for extreme cruelty, but “choking a chicken” is a type of joke.

Chickens get all sorts of shocks and things to make their death less painful, but lobsters are boiled alive.

Also, why do dolphins get all kinds of special treatment? You never hear about sharks accidentally caught in tuna nets, although probably they’re caught as often as dolphins.

2

Some people eat dogs, some people don’t eat cows.

Cat fur would suck as a coat, it’s not that fluffy.

Plenty of people think killing seals is just dandy.

I submit killing kittens as a masturbation euphemism.

There are other ways to kill a lobster.

Dolphins are smart and have better PR agents than sharks.

And the last topic ties into - humans often feel for critters that are cute or closely “allied” with us.

3

Why are only some humans protected? Until so recently that it’s only a historical instant ago, it was okay to enslave some people because of their skin color or national origin, but not other people. It was okay for adults to beat their own children, even badly enough to do permanent damage, but not other people’s children. It was okay for a husband to force his wife to submit, but not to rape random women.

What happened? We changed – some would say we grew better.

It is possible to imagine that similar changes will take place in our relationships with animals, and one day it won’t be okay to do terrible things to some because they are uglier, or because we’re just used to it.

4

Some animals are delicious. Some animals are cute and fluffy. Some animals are too stupid to live and choose diets that aren’t great for them and refuse to mate like pandas or are sexually attracted to fire and so need our help to survive.

5

Combination of intelligence, loyalty, tastiness, usefulness (somewhat tied to intelligence) and similarity to humans and their offspring. Cats can be held like little babies – cows can’t.

6

I often wonder why I can buy free range and antibiotic free chicken and beef, but have no options when it comes to pigs.

The pig lobbyists must stink. (Sorry about the pun.)

7

Free-range pork does exist in the US (unless you were just looking to make a pun :wink: ), but according to this Slate article it ain’t all roses and Wilbur. As with most free range and organic food, if you’ve got the time and means, read up on what the parameters actually are for its definition where you live, and try to support local producers.

8

For the same reason when a bunch of mice got into my house I felt bad killiing the first one and then it became the same as smashing a fly after that.

Try this say to someone “Hey I heard McDonalds hamburgers have pieces of ground up dead cow in them.”

For two seconds the person will be like “ew” then they realize cow = beef

As the man said “There’s more than one way to skin a cat, but there ain’t no way to do it so the cat is gonna like it.”

9

Feral hogs. I can attest that the females are good eating. They are terribly abundant (free range) and routinely contaminate waterways and produce farms with e-coli (antibody free). I’m surprised that the many people hunt and trap these pests haven’t tried to market them to bunny and tree hugging crowd.

10

Probably because they taste far “gamier” than commercially raised pork. An acquired taste, and many never acquire it.

The little bitty baby feral pigs - if eaten while still milk-fed and before they start eating anything else - are supposed to be quite good eatin’ but then you have the problem of marketing itty-bitty baby critters as food, which has its own PR problems.