Roughly paraphrased, hunting ethics (especially deer) boil down to this: The video covers the alternatives pretty well. Hunting and livestock integration of sustainable farming is the most ethical...
Roughly paraphrased, hunting ethics (especially deer) boil down to this:
Provided that you're hunting a large population, hunting is one of the most humane deaths an animal can have.
The video covers the alternatives pretty well.
Hunting and livestock integration of sustainable farming is the most ethical alternative to the mass industrial farms of today, IMO.
I have no moral qualms about eating animals, death is a part of life. The alternative to inhumane farming of animals is not "happy animals," it's the animals not existing...we're not gonna keep a...
I have no moral qualms about eating animals, death is a part of life. The alternative to inhumane farming of animals is not "happy animals," it's the animals not existing...we're not gonna keep a bunch of cattle alive and not eat them.
They are creatures whom should have a symbiotic relationship with the world around them. Chickens are one of the best pest exterminators. Pigs and cows help with tilling and fertilizing fields. As alternatives to pesticide and fossil-fuel fertilizers, they help provide a healthier ecosystem. Animal-based textiles like wool and leather are often better than the plastic alternatives.
The problems mostly stem from the industrialization of these processes, mechanizing slaughter and favoring cheap, disposable goods over quality ones. We can't industrialize our way out of over-industrialization. The ideal path to sustainable, local farming involves animals in one way or the other. And fewer better ways to dispose of a carcass than eating it.
I think our fundamental disagreement is upon the value of existence. Is nonexistence worse than a life of suffering? As someone who literally helped his mother fulfill her desire to die so that...
I think our fundamental disagreement is upon the value of existence. Is nonexistence worse than a life of suffering? As someone who literally helped his mother fulfill her desire to die so that she wouldn't be trapped in a failing body, I disagree in the strongest possible terms. I think nonexistence is perfectly fine, especially if it's animals that were never born and thus never suffering at all.
I agree that raising animals that have a good life and a symbiotic relationship with the world around them are morally preferable to animals in a factory farm, but animals raised the first way will never feed a population of 8 billion people. If we're talking about feeding the world, other solutions are needed.
And you're right that plastic-based replacements for leather and wool aren't sufficient replacements for animal products. The good news is that there's plenty of companies working to grow wool, spider silk, leather, milk, and other "animal products" in ways that don't involve animal suffering. They aren't at full industrial production yet, but they're getting there.
I'm very much a fan of the small local farm that includes animals in their faming process. I think that it's great for the animals and the farm both. But I think it's inherently unscalable if you want to feed the world.
In an industrial scaling way? Yes. It's impossible to feed the world with < 3% of the population as farmers. What I'm describing is de-industrialization, where we head back to 20-30% of the...
But I think it's inherently unscalable if you want to feed the world.
In an industrial scaling way? Yes. It's impossible to feed the world with < 3% of the population as farmers.
I want to pop in with a total non-sequitur and say how refreshing it is to jump on Tildes and tune into a respectful debate about food systems where I full agree with both sentiments. Things like...
I want to pop in with a total non-sequitur and say how refreshing it is to jump on Tildes and tune into a respectful debate about food systems where I full agree with both sentiments. Things like agroecology, de-industrialization, and alt-animal products are very near and dear to by heart and yet so fringy I almost never run into them outside of topic specific arenas. Just wanted to appreciate you both.
I think you're on the money with this one. If we want sustainable farming, it necessarily involves de-industrialization and (therefore) a much larger percentage of people becoming involved in...
I think you're on the money with this one. If we want sustainable farming, it necessarily involves de-industrialization and (therefore) a much larger percentage of people becoming involved in agriculture in some way.
From what I can tell, integrating animals into small farm systems actually makes it easier for the small-scale farm to reduce dependence on outside inputs. The post-industrial farmer trying to eat a vegan diet sourced mostly from their own farm will have a difficult time. Without animals converting grasses, insects, and kitchen wastes into manure, the farmer ends up having to plant a serious amount of green manure crops to return fertility to their soils. It also becomes much trickier to eat a nutritionally complete vegan diet without present-day vitamin fortifications, etc. I wouldn't say it's totally impossible, but for most folks and situations it would be prohibitively difficult.
IMO small-scale farms that humanely integrate livestock are the most resilient and ecologically sensible path forward.
I have a few other semi-tangental topics I'd love to dive into if you'd be up for it. I appreciate your perspective on this topic and would love to hear what you think on a few adjacent ones....
I have a few other semi-tangental topics I'd love to dive into if you'd be up for it. I appreciate your perspective on this topic and would love to hear what you think on a few adjacent ones. Specifically reintegration of predators and the justification for eating other, lower impact, animals. I'm wrestling with a few of these questions myself and it would be interesting to hear your insights. They are also totally off topic so feel free to disregard if the questions aren't interesting to you.
The other main justifications I hear for culling deer, happening adjacent to the hunting for food, is the idea that deer are an out of control pest that impact other forms of agriculture and decrease driving safety. I'm always suspect of this argument, because these are usually the same folks that advocate for hunting deer and never support calls to re-store or reintroduce traditional predators, most cases being wolves. It drives me nuts. There are economic subsidies for shepards or ranchers who lose livestock to apex predators, and yet they still clamor for culling programs. Idaho is my favorite example where the state spent millions of dollars on wolf restoration and protection programs, saw amazing economic benefits (though largely in the tourism sector), and then did a 180 and reintroduced hunting and trapping programs. WTF. Ok, enough context. Do you think the same ethical consideration is warranted in developing predator reintroduction? (i.e. a purposeful human driven reintroduction program that impacts the deers in a similar manner)
Another parallel question of consumption looks at fisheries. However unlike terrestrial animal based food systems, there are more questions about sentience, pain, and life in general. The larger question you bring up makes me think of fish farming vs wild catch, though for high trophic species like salmon it doesn't feel like you could feasibly, ethically farm high trophic fish. But if we follow that line down the trophic scale, we hit shellfish. I always thought of shellfish as a perfect example of the sustainable, ecosystem positive animal based protein source. Think oysters, mussels, clams, scallops... They filter and clean waterways, they have almost no negative impact on the surrounding ecosystem, they don't bioaccumulate toxins or heavy metals, they are high value fisheries, and in many cases they are run as small, artisanal collectives. They check all my boxes - ecosystem health, plant health, livelihood diversity, decentralization of wealth, and even green/grey infrastructure! But then come the actual ethics of killing/eating them. I only recently found out (as stupid as this sounds) that oysters are still alive when you eat them. This means I'm giving them an acid bath in vinegar and citrus before semi masticating them and letting them finally perish in my stomach acid. If that isn't a miserable way to go, I'm not sure what is. When I brought this up with friends (Our local friend group is almost exclusively comprised of marine biologists) they always repeat the same thing: shellfish have a lower level of sentience and no concept of pain. But honestly, I'm not sure I buy that. They retract and recoil for a reason (always brushed off as 'instinct'). I'd be really interested to hear where you land on this debate.
I'm personally in favor of predator reintroduction as a way of balancing excessive herbivore populations, as the boom/bust cycle of unchecked herbivore populations isn't great for anyone, the...
I'm personally in favor of predator reintroduction as a way of balancing excessive herbivore populations, as the boom/bust cycle of unchecked herbivore populations isn't great for anyone, the animals included. I recognize that reintroducing predators does mean sudden deaths from being hunted for some herbivores, but as the population pressure from predators will lower the overall numbers of herbivores, I feel that the fewer overall deaths from starvation and disease makes up for the weaker ones dying to predators.
As far as fisheries go, there's been significant recent findings regarding fish sociability and intellect that, for me, put them in the same sort of mental category as chickens; they're not smart, but they do have an identifiable personality that makes me question eating them.
For shellfish, it really depends on the type. Octopus and squid are pretty clearly aware. The filter feeding bivalves definitely react to sensation, but so do plants. I'm allergic to shellfish now and hated the texture before, but for me I worry less about them, as without a central nervous system their experience of the world is far enough away from mine that I have less empathy for their situation. I can absolutely see why people would make the other choice, though.
Something's going to eat a deer either way. There's nothing inherently unethical about eating meat. It's how we treat the source of it. If a hunter doesn't eat that deer, then another predator...
Something's going to eat a deer either way. There's nothing inherently unethical about eating meat. It's how we treat the source of it. If a hunter doesn't eat that deer, then another predator will (barring that, a carrion eater will.) In fact, a kill from a well-trained hunter will be less traumatic than any non-human predator.
That implies that a human is an ethically neutral party, with no more agency than a wolf or a parasite or a falling rock. If a rock falls and kills a person, that's an accident. If a person...
That implies that a human is an ethically neutral party, with no more agency than a wolf or a parasite or a falling rock. If a rock falls and kills a person, that's an accident. If a person intentionally shoots and kills another person, that's murder (or some other legal term for killing, don't @ me.) Is the same not true for a deer that is killed?
I don't believe so, no. We are not herbivores, biologically speaking. We can choose to be herbivorous, but my belief is that doing so is not automatically an ethically superior choice. Now, if...
I don't believe so, no. We are not herbivores, biologically speaking. We can choose to be herbivorous, but my belief is that doing so is not automatically an ethically superior choice.
Now, if you're killing a deer just to kill it (and likely mount its head on your wall in the ultimate display of tackiness), that's unethical. But for the meat? That's how a decent portion of the animal kingdom rolls. And we are animals, after all, even if we're tool using, upright standing, agriculture inventing animals.
I'm a little more conflicted on killing an animal just for its hide (if the hide is a byproduct of hunting for meat, then have at it), but that's at least making use of it instead of doing it for sport.
But relying on our natural state as animals as a place of moral standing is pretty questionable. Even restricting the list of awful things that animals do to only look at apes includes many things...
But relying on our natural state as animals as a place of moral standing is pretty questionable. Even restricting the list of awful things that animals do to only look at apes includes many things that are pretty horrific. If we wanted to hold that as our ground for appropriate behavior, we'd consider various things appropriate including...
various horrific things apes do
bestiality, rape, gang rape, lynching of outgroup members, eating other creatures while they're still alive, torture, etc.
Eating meat, much like other actions taken by apes, may be natural, but nature isn't a baseline for morality. And an increasing use of the corpse definitely makes killing something more socially defensible, but when you draw the line between taking the head and taking the meat, you're saying that there's a line where your benefit from killing exceeds the deer's right to live a full life. That a living creature is fundamentally a resource for you to harvest when you see fit. Your line is one of desire for meat and leather, and someone who just wants the head has a desire for social standing, but in both cases you're killing something because you can and because it'll make your life better. At that point, where is the line between a deer and a man except for social acceptability?
Everyone has a line that they draw. For me, it's that the meat is used to sustain life. And for me, that's enough. I will admit to being selfish, as well... the idea of humans being used for meat...
Everyone has a line that they draw. For me, it's that the meat is used to sustain life. And for me, that's enough. I will admit to being selfish, as well... the idea of humans being used for meat is disturbing not just because I am one, not just because I could feasibly have a conversation with one, but because one might be a doctor, or lawyer, or engineer, or someone else that might have a benefit to society as a whole. And there's further selfishness in that I could never eat an animal I am specifically emotionally attached to.
We are, generally speaking, complex creatures. Our logics may not always agree. But I feel mine are consistent, and even ethically and morally neutral, even if we disagree on that point.
That said, I respect you for making that choice for yourself, and wish you the longer life it most likely will bring you.
The question worth discussing here, IMHO, is this: is hunting more ethical than farming animals?, to which the answer is clearly yes. However, debating is eating meat ethical as a whole? is not as...
The question worth discussing here, IMHO, is this: is hunting more ethical than farming animals?, to which the answer is clearly yes. However, debating is eating meat ethical as a whole? is not as productive because the answer is most certainly no and arguments to the contrary are incredibly weak.
I eat meat because it is delicious, practical, and, in my location, very affordable. Not because it is ethical. That's more of a personal note, but given my flavor and texture restrictions on the kind of food I cannot tolerate, and the fact that I basically don't have a kitchen right now, a radical change in habits would be specially troublesome. But I do plan to become a pescatarian in the future.
That's an interesting argument in its own right, and one that didn't fit into any of the other threads here, so thank you for prompting this question. Personally, I'd argue that within some...
That's an interesting argument in its own right, and one that didn't fit into any of the other threads here, so thank you for prompting this question.
Personally, I'd argue that within some frameworks, hunting is less ethical than factory farming. Take two animals, one that has had a life of free roaming, breeding, doing whatever it wanted, honed by evolution to do its thing, whatever that may be. The other was raised in uncomfortable, limited conditions, cared for only to the degree that it could keep on putting on weight, and bred to grow meat with no consideration for quality of life. Each of them die near instantly from a spike of metal to the brain, one from a hunter's bullet and the other from a butcherer's captive bolt pistol.
If one of those animals had to die to feed you, which life would be better ended?
This of course sets aside all of the issues with factory farming as a whole, but within the system as it exists I'd argue that hunting culls more potential positive experience from the world than killing a farmed animal.
The video that I shared contains answers to some of those questions. According to the researcher, a deer that was predated instead of hunted would endure a prolonged chase and would not die...
The video that I shared contains answers to some of those questions.
According to the researcher, a deer that was predated instead of hunted would endure a prolonged chase and would not die instantly, remaining more or less conscient while it was devoured. Also, a deer dies of natural causes because its teeth are not longer able to chew food, so that's a slow agonizing death as well.
A farmed animal will have a terrible life followed by death by pneumatic pistol, but you should know that such pistols are not nearly as efficient as you anticipate, and the animals often take a lot of time to actually die, and sometimes are still alive while being dismembered.
So yeah, happy life followed by a clean kill does seem like the better option here. At least if you assume that the hunter is a good shot and is using the correct gun and ammunition for the animal, which sadly is not always the case.
Except that predation will focus on the old and the weak, so it's mostly the ones that'd be dying of something else that are instead killed by predators. Not that being eaten is pleasant, but...
Except that predation will focus on the old and the weak, so it's mostly the ones that'd be dying of something else that are instead killed by predators. Not that being eaten is pleasant, but absent a brain shot, a deer that was shot will take 30-45 minutes to die, with times extending up to 8 hours or more if nothing vital was hit. I'd be comfortable saying that neither one is super pleasant or quick, though probably being eaten is worse than being shot and less bad than being dismembered by a butcher.
Fair enough; I have no personal experience with it, but there's various sites that quote around the same average times. Some of that might be the hunters overestimating the time in order to keep...
Fair enough; I have no personal experience with it, but there's various sites that quote around the same average times. Some of that might be the hunters overestimating the time in order to keep from startling a deer that is taking a while to die, rather than the actual amount of time for the deer to bleed out?
Roughly paraphrased, hunting ethics (especially deer) boil down to this:
The video covers the alternatives pretty well.
Hunting and livestock integration of sustainable farming is the most ethical alternative to the mass industrial farms of today, IMO.
Most ethical alternative to the mass industrial farms of today, while still eating animals, right? There's other options.
I have no moral qualms about eating animals, death is a part of life. The alternative to inhumane farming of animals is not "happy animals," it's the animals not existing...we're not gonna keep a bunch of cattle alive and not eat them.
They are creatures whom should have a symbiotic relationship with the world around them. Chickens are one of the best pest exterminators. Pigs and cows help with tilling and fertilizing fields. As alternatives to pesticide and fossil-fuel fertilizers, they help provide a healthier ecosystem. Animal-based textiles like wool and leather are often better than the plastic alternatives.
The problems mostly stem from the industrialization of these processes, mechanizing slaughter and favoring cheap, disposable goods over quality ones. We can't industrialize our way out of over-industrialization. The ideal path to sustainable, local farming involves animals in one way or the other. And fewer better ways to dispose of a carcass than eating it.
I think our fundamental disagreement is upon the value of existence. Is nonexistence worse than a life of suffering? As someone who literally helped his mother fulfill her desire to die so that she wouldn't be trapped in a failing body, I disagree in the strongest possible terms. I think nonexistence is perfectly fine, especially if it's animals that were never born and thus never suffering at all.
I agree that raising animals that have a good life and a symbiotic relationship with the world around them are morally preferable to animals in a factory farm, but animals raised the first way will never feed a population of 8 billion people. If we're talking about feeding the world, other solutions are needed.
And you're right that plastic-based replacements for leather and wool aren't sufficient replacements for animal products. The good news is that there's plenty of companies working to grow wool, spider silk, leather, milk, and other "animal products" in ways that don't involve animal suffering. They aren't at full industrial production yet, but they're getting there.
I'm very much a fan of the small local farm that includes animals in their faming process. I think that it's great for the animals and the farm both. But I think it's inherently unscalable if you want to feed the world.
In an industrial scaling way? Yes. It's impossible to feed the world with < 3% of the population as farmers.
What I'm describing is de-industrialization, where we head back to 20-30% of the population involved in farming at least part time. A half-acre of land can provide almost all the nutritional needs of 4 people. But you can't really mechanize it easily.
I want to pop in with a total non-sequitur and say how refreshing it is to jump on Tildes and tune into a respectful debate about food systems where I full agree with both sentiments. Things like agroecology, de-industrialization, and alt-animal products are very near and dear to by heart and yet so fringy I almost never run into them outside of topic specific arenas. Just wanted to appreciate you both.
I think you're on the money with this one. If we want sustainable farming, it necessarily involves de-industrialization and (therefore) a much larger percentage of people becoming involved in agriculture in some way.
From what I can tell, integrating animals into small farm systems actually makes it easier for the small-scale farm to reduce dependence on outside inputs. The post-industrial farmer trying to eat a vegan diet sourced mostly from their own farm will have a difficult time. Without animals converting grasses, insects, and kitchen wastes into manure, the farmer ends up having to plant a serious amount of green manure crops to return fertility to their soils. It also becomes much trickier to eat a nutritionally complete vegan diet without present-day vitamin fortifications, etc. I wouldn't say it's totally impossible, but for most folks and situations it would be prohibitively difficult.
IMO small-scale farms that humanely integrate livestock are the most resilient and ecologically sensible path forward.
I have a few other semi-tangental topics I'd love to dive into if you'd be up for it. I appreciate your perspective on this topic and would love to hear what you think on a few adjacent ones. Specifically reintegration of predators and the justification for eating other, lower impact, animals. I'm wrestling with a few of these questions myself and it would be interesting to hear your insights. They are also totally off topic so feel free to disregard if the questions aren't interesting to you.
The other main justifications I hear for culling deer, happening adjacent to the hunting for food, is the idea that deer are an out of control pest that impact other forms of agriculture and decrease driving safety. I'm always suspect of this argument, because these are usually the same folks that advocate for hunting deer and never support calls to re-store or reintroduce traditional predators, most cases being wolves. It drives me nuts. There are economic subsidies for shepards or ranchers who lose livestock to apex predators, and yet they still clamor for culling programs. Idaho is my favorite example where the state spent millions of dollars on wolf restoration and protection programs, saw amazing economic benefits (though largely in the tourism sector), and then did a 180 and reintroduced hunting and trapping programs. WTF. Ok, enough context. Do you think the same ethical consideration is warranted in developing predator reintroduction? (i.e. a purposeful human driven reintroduction program that impacts the deers in a similar manner)
Another parallel question of consumption looks at fisheries. However unlike terrestrial animal based food systems, there are more questions about sentience, pain, and life in general. The larger question you bring up makes me think of fish farming vs wild catch, though for high trophic species like salmon it doesn't feel like you could feasibly, ethically farm high trophic fish. But if we follow that line down the trophic scale, we hit shellfish. I always thought of shellfish as a perfect example of the sustainable, ecosystem positive animal based protein source. Think oysters, mussels, clams, scallops... They filter and clean waterways, they have almost no negative impact on the surrounding ecosystem, they don't bioaccumulate toxins or heavy metals, they are high value fisheries, and in many cases they are run as small, artisanal collectives. They check all my boxes - ecosystem health, plant health, livelihood diversity, decentralization of wealth, and even green/grey infrastructure! But then come the actual ethics of killing/eating them. I only recently found out (as stupid as this sounds) that oysters are still alive when you eat them. This means I'm giving them an acid bath in vinegar and citrus before semi masticating them and letting them finally perish in my stomach acid. If that isn't a miserable way to go, I'm not sure what is. When I brought this up with friends (Our local friend group is almost exclusively comprised of marine biologists) they always repeat the same thing: shellfish have a lower level of sentience and no concept of pain. But honestly, I'm not sure I buy that. They retract and recoil for a reason (always brushed off as 'instinct'). I'd be really interested to hear where you land on this debate.
I'm personally in favor of predator reintroduction as a way of balancing excessive herbivore populations, as the boom/bust cycle of unchecked herbivore populations isn't great for anyone, the animals included. I recognize that reintroducing predators does mean sudden deaths from being hunted for some herbivores, but as the population pressure from predators will lower the overall numbers of herbivores, I feel that the fewer overall deaths from starvation and disease makes up for the weaker ones dying to predators.
As far as fisheries go, there's been significant recent findings regarding fish sociability and intellect that, for me, put them in the same sort of mental category as chickens; they're not smart, but they do have an identifiable personality that makes me question eating them.
For shellfish, it really depends on the type. Octopus and squid are pretty clearly aware. The filter feeding bivalves definitely react to sensation, but so do plants. I'm allergic to shellfish now and hated the texture before, but for me I worry less about them, as without a central nervous system their experience of the world is far enough away from mine that I have less empathy for their situation. I can absolutely see why people would make the other choice, though.
Something's going to eat a deer either way. There's nothing inherently unethical about eating meat. It's how we treat the source of it. If a hunter doesn't eat that deer, then another predator will (barring that, a carrion eater will.) In fact, a kill from a well-trained hunter will be less traumatic than any non-human predator.
That implies that a human is an ethically neutral party, with no more agency than a wolf or a parasite or a falling rock. If a rock falls and kills a person, that's an accident. If a person intentionally shoots and kills another person, that's murder (or some other legal term for killing, don't @ me.) Is the same not true for a deer that is killed?
I don't believe so, no. We are not herbivores, biologically speaking. We can choose to be herbivorous, but my belief is that doing so is not automatically an ethically superior choice.
Now, if you're killing a deer just to kill it (and likely mount its head on your wall in the ultimate display of tackiness), that's unethical. But for the meat? That's how a decent portion of the animal kingdom rolls. And we are animals, after all, even if we're tool using, upright standing, agriculture inventing animals.
I'm a little more conflicted on killing an animal just for its hide (if the hide is a byproduct of hunting for meat, then have at it), but that's at least making use of it instead of doing it for sport.
But relying on our natural state as animals as a place of moral standing is pretty questionable. Even restricting the list of awful things that animals do to only look at apes includes many things that are pretty horrific. If we wanted to hold that as our ground for appropriate behavior, we'd consider various things appropriate including...
various horrific things apes do
bestiality, rape, gang rape, lynching of outgroup members, eating other creatures while they're still alive, torture, etc.Eating meat, much like other actions taken by apes, may be natural, but nature isn't a baseline for morality. And an increasing use of the corpse definitely makes killing something more socially defensible, but when you draw the line between taking the head and taking the meat, you're saying that there's a line where your benefit from killing exceeds the deer's right to live a full life. That a living creature is fundamentally a resource for you to harvest when you see fit. Your line is one of desire for meat and leather, and someone who just wants the head has a desire for social standing, but in both cases you're killing something because you can and because it'll make your life better. At that point, where is the line between a deer and a man except for social acceptability?
Everyone has a line that they draw. For me, it's that the meat is used to sustain life. And for me, that's enough. I will admit to being selfish, as well... the idea of humans being used for meat is disturbing not just because I am one, not just because I could feasibly have a conversation with one, but because one might be a doctor, or lawyer, or engineer, or someone else that might have a benefit to society as a whole. And there's further selfishness in that I could never eat an animal I am specifically emotionally attached to.
We are, generally speaking, complex creatures. Our logics may not always agree. But I feel mine are consistent, and even ethically and morally neutral, even if we disagree on that point.
That said, I respect you for making that choice for yourself, and wish you the longer life it most likely will bring you.
Fair enough. I'm glad that you feel good about your choices and make them with open eyes, even if they aren't the ones I choose.
The question worth discussing here, IMHO, is this: is hunting more ethical than farming animals?, to which the answer is clearly yes. However, debating is eating meat ethical as a whole? is not as productive because the answer is most certainly no and arguments to the contrary are incredibly weak.
I eat meat because it is delicious, practical, and, in my location, very affordable. Not because it is ethical. That's more of a personal note, but given my flavor and texture restrictions on the kind of food I cannot tolerate, and the fact that I basically don't have a kitchen right now, a radical change in habits would be specially troublesome. But I do plan to become a pescatarian in the future.
That's an interesting argument in its own right, and one that didn't fit into any of the other threads here, so thank you for prompting this question.
Personally, I'd argue that within some frameworks, hunting is less ethical than factory farming. Take two animals, one that has had a life of free roaming, breeding, doing whatever it wanted, honed by evolution to do its thing, whatever that may be. The other was raised in uncomfortable, limited conditions, cared for only to the degree that it could keep on putting on weight, and bred to grow meat with no consideration for quality of life. Each of them die near instantly from a spike of metal to the brain, one from a hunter's bullet and the other from a butcherer's captive bolt pistol.
If one of those animals had to die to feed you, which life would be better ended?
This of course sets aside all of the issues with factory farming as a whole, but within the system as it exists I'd argue that hunting culls more potential positive experience from the world than killing a farmed animal.
The video that I shared contains answers to some of those questions.
According to the researcher, a deer that was predated instead of hunted would endure a prolonged chase and would not die instantly, remaining more or less conscient while it was devoured. Also, a deer dies of natural causes because its teeth are not longer able to chew food, so that's a slow agonizing death as well.
A farmed animal will have a terrible life followed by death by pneumatic pistol, but you should know that such pistols are not nearly as efficient as you anticipate, and the animals often take a lot of time to actually die, and sometimes are still alive while being dismembered.
So yeah, happy life followed by a clean kill does seem like the better option here. At least if you assume that the hunter is a good shot and is using the correct gun and ammunition for the animal, which sadly is not always the case.
Except that predation will focus on the old and the weak, so it's mostly the ones that'd be dying of something else that are instead killed by predators. Not that being eaten is pleasant, but absent a brain shot, a deer that was shot will take 30-45 minutes to die, with times extending up to 8 hours or more if nothing vital was hit. I'd be comfortable saying that neither one is super pleasant or quick, though probably being eaten is worse than being shot and less bad than being dismembered by a butcher.
I'm not sure I trust these stats. A good shot to the correct part of the animal -- which is not the brain -- will kill a deer very fast.
Fair enough; I have no personal experience with it, but there's various sites that quote around the same average times. Some of that might be the hunters overestimating the time in order to keep from startling a deer that is taking a while to die, rather than the actual amount of time for the deer to bleed out?
I'm not a hunter, but I have read reports from both hunters and non-hunters on this matter, and watched many videos of kills as well.