"Jim Brown" wrote in message
.. .

Then how do you feel about cattle being yanked from a pasture, jammed onto
trains or trucks, then crammed in stockyards at the slaughterhouse?


Well- any cattle that spent time in a pasture are much better off than the
pigs stacked in crates and shat upon by all the pigs above it for all its
life. Or the chickens penned so closely that their feet grow around the
grates. For some ridiculous reason I was taken on a tour of a slaughter
house as a small child- fear in an animals face is not something you forget.

I'm a hypocrit I guess, as a failed vegan of several years. I'm a product
of my society as much as anyone else. I do buy free range poultry and
Coleman beef, but that is more to avoid hormones as it is taking an ethical
stand.


Zoos are no longer just a prison for captive animals. They are
repositories
for animals that are almost lost in the wild. They maintain an
international registry of captive animals to allow breeding programs to
share the gene pool. Many even breed animals that are extremely rare, and
establish release programmes for the successes of their efforts.


None of these extraordinary efforts would be necessary had man not fouled
the equation to begin with.

I would imagine that there are less animals being treated inhumanely now
than in the past. Any animal at risk can look to man as the reason.

And that's my point.


Not an easy problem to resolve, but at least the efforts are being made.


The problem will never be resolved as long as man sees this planet as his
own personal playground, and the flora and fauna as fun to play with *and*
expendable. It will be what gets us in the end.


--
Toni
http://www.cearbhaill.com/aquarium.htm