# How many animal lives is one human life worth?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-animal-lives-is-one-human-life-worth/493662>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [April 19, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-animal-lives-is-one-human-life-worth/493662 "2009-04-19T22:45:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 86

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**Author:** ![mutantmoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a87d85/32.png) [@mutantmoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mutantmoose)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-animal-lives-is-one-human-life-worth/493662/86 "2009-04-22T21:52:24Z")

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> I also hunt. I’m not being bloodthirsty.

Yes you are. What else would you call it when you go out with a gun with the intention to hunt down and shoot something? You thirst for blood. You are, quite literally, bloodthirsty.

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> I don’t kill animal I don’t intend to eat

You don’t need to kill any animals to eat. You can just go to a shop and buy your meat. There’s something extra involved here - above and beyond the desire for food. I assume there are shops where you live? You wish to kill. Nothing will assuage this desire until you have tasted blood.

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> A deer I go out and kill has led a freer and probably more pleasant life than one raised on a factory farm.

And it would have continued to lead a pleasant, free life if you hadn’t showed up and shot it.

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> And if claiming that animals that die in slaughterhosuses die “cleanly” is sadly ignorant. Given the opportunities for research made available by the internet, it is also willfully ignorant.

It’s a cleaner kill than somebody blundering around the woods with a shotgun taking potshots from 50 yards away.

And why do you want to do it anyway? Why not just leave it alone?

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