‘Cattle Will Go Extinct If We Don’t Eat Them’ Absurdity
Tom* asks,
“If we stop eating meat what do we do with all the cattle on our ranch? We can’t spend the money to feed them, they can’t find food themselves, if we turn them out in the forest they might make track’s or poop on the ground, then when it snows they will want back on the ranch to be cared for. i’m looking to get rid of about 400 head of organic beef any ideas? Won’t cattle become extinct if we stop eating them?”
This is a very common question. I’d say it’s one of the most common questions that vegetarians and vegans are asked. It’s certainly one of the most common questions I’ve been asked.
Some people ask it jokingly. They are not serious and just want to push buttons. But some people are serious. For example, a recent NY Times editorial used this same line of reasoning and concluded:
“Historically speaking, they exist only because of the uses we have found for them, and preserving their existence means, in most cases, preserving the uses we have made for them.”
For the serious questioners, I’ll answer here:
No, cattle won’t necessarily become extinct if we stop eating them. If they have a safe habitat and are not sterilized, they won’t go extinct. Simple as that. We don’t have to eat something in order to make sure it doesn’t go extinct. It’s more than a little ridiculous to think we’d have to eat animals to keep the species from going extinct. There are other things we can do.
That said, I do not suggest that current cattle be allowed to mate. I think they should be kept on farm sanctuaries and they should be divided by sex or sterilized. Moreover, I don’t think they should be set free to roam in nature. They deserve human protect and the natural wildlife deserves protection from them. My point above is simply that we don’t need to eat animals in order to keep them from going extinct.
But most importantly, would it be such a terrible thing if cattle did become extinct? If they have no natural habitat and are not currently serving the ecosystem in anyway, what’s the problem? The ethical response is that we just make sure the ones alive now live happy, healthy lives and when they die of natural causes, then they’re gone. It’s really not a huge, horrific loss if a genetically modified species** created by and for humans goes extinct. Really, it’s not.
Just think about it for minute. Really think about it.
OK, have you thought about it? Good. Now what did you come up with?
Maybe you thought of some of these ideas for how to handle currently alive cattle:
1. Create a farm animal sanctuary where the cattle can live out the rest of their lives in peace. The sanctuary can serve as an educational tool for children and adults who want to learn about veganism. Part of the sanctuary could be a bed & breakfast where people could spend a night or two in a peaceful, vegan setting. You could pay for caring for the animals through donations, grants, and the B&B.
2. Contact farm animal sanctuaries and ask if they can help. If you’re a rancher looking to get out of animal agriculture, I’m sure many animal rescue organizations are willing to help. they can likely take the animals off your hands and suggest alternative, peaceful businesses you can convert your farm into. You can find some sanctuaries listed at the MORE page here. You can also find santuaries listed here: http://www.farmanimalshelters.org/links.htm
3. Adopt them out to vegans who have enough property to sustain cattle. The animals can live their lives in peace while being cared for by loving vegans.
See? It’s a pretty silly question, after all, isn’t it?
*Name has been changed to protect the privacy of the individual.
**By “genetically modified species” I mean animals that have been bred to suit human needs and wants rather than animals that would naturally be produced by natural selection.
The amount of animals and habitat lost in order to create the space for a billion greenhouse belching cows really makes this question silly. So much amazon rainforest in brazil has been burned and leveled for cows and their feed. Rivers of fish become rivers of shit. Natural ecosystems are lost and damaged for miles around any factory farm.
When that joyous time should come that people should wisen up to see that their diet is causing so much unnecessary pain and damage to the world, the change will come gradually, with demand going down so will prices and so will the benefit to the farmers to continue breeding them. The farms will transition to better purposes, such as food and biofuels, which will also go down in price as the huge drain on supply which is animal feed tapers off.
The small percentage of cows which don’t live on factory farms can be left to live their lives out and reproduce as they are want to do, without the hormones and antibiotics and fences they can become part of the ecosystem or perhaps the buffalo will return and replace the cows to rejuvenate the midwest landscape as they once did. They can be managed to the benefit of the overall ecosystem as other wild animals are.
Health and environmental deterioration will also go down with the improvement to diet and food production, freeing economy from damage control, thus allowing more resources to be used for humanitarian and scientific progress.
Hi Bryan,
You’re absolutely right when you wrote:
“The amount of animals and habitat lost in order to create the space for a billion greenhouse belching cows really makes this question silly.”