Says you. Flying termite night in Cameroon was awesome. On this one night thousands of flying termites come out. You turn on a light next to your house and they all swarm. You can run your hand through the air and catch a dozen of them. It’s an hour of good fun before you have a bucket full.
The next day you roast them with some salt. They are greasy and crunchy and proteiny- exactly the delicious things that the traditional diet of millet, millet and more millet does not provide.
Flying termite night is just once a year, so obviously you can’t rely on that. But other insects are plenty easy to gather, especially if otherwise unproductive children are doing it. It wasn’t uncommon to see a bunch of five year olds picking through fallen leaves looking for edible insects (and of course playing while they do so.)
I doubt they’re being killed for their nutritional value.
Tigers are a highly *Endangered *(IUCN Red List) & CITES Appendix 1 species - *all *trade in them (wild-caught) is illegal.
Ironically, Lions are a *Vulnerable *& Appendix 2 species - regulated trade in them is allowed as long as it doesn’t endanger the species as a whole.
Of course, those are probably farmed tigers, but I don’t know if that makes it much better - I do know I’d personally disown any friend who ate an Appendix 1 or 2 animal that he didn’t know the source of personally (e.g. my wife has eaten Elephant, but was at the cull location herself)
I consider myself a fairly adventurous eater (alligator, snake, mountain oysters, etc.), but I would not be able to knowingly eat dog. I seem to be getting more sentimental in my old age, and I couldn’t eat a species that I can feel an emotional attachment to. Cattle, sheep, and pigs, no problem. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but there it is. Also, is it true that in some parts of Korea they torture dogs before cooking them because they think it tenderizes the meat, or is this PETA progaganda?