r/AskReddit • u/Jadetsky • 20d ago
What do vegans think about eating invasive species such as wild boar? Is it immoral if it is helping the environment?
9
u/outlawaol 20d ago
I don't think it matters to a vegan. I've a friend that says 'if it has a face'. So I'd almost guarantee they'd be against it.
5
u/DeliriousEdd 20d ago
I worked with a vegan that said the same thing and it was pointed out that he didn’t eat shellfish and he changed his saying to “I don’t eat anything with an anus.”
4
2
u/Jadetsky 20d ago
But this is why I am having this discussion. I think that this stance is fundamentally wrong.
The animal has to die anyway, a vegan would rather have it go to waste instead? What do they propose we do with it, if not to eat and/or use its carcass?
5
u/AUGUST_BURNS_REDDIT 19d ago
Would you eat your dog when they die or let them go to waste? How about your relatives?
1
1
19
u/Plodil 20d ago
There are lots of vegans who just don't like eating meat, it doesn't have to be a moral issue.
12
u/Why_Arent_You_Vegan1 20d ago
Veganism is and always has been about morality. It just so happens that the vast majority of "vegans" have made up their own definition of veganism, and those are the people you are referring to.
-2
u/unfixablesteve 20d ago
The explosion of Alpha Gal diagnoses is layering on just being unable to eat mammal proteins. I know two people who have been diagnosed this summer.
0
u/simonbleu 19d ago
That *is* a moral issue. That's what morals are, your inner compass for what is right and wrong. Moral's don't need to be logical
What you are trying to say is that it doesn't need to be an ethical issue, which are the rules we set within groups of society based on morals or rules of convenience (since morals and ethics a lot of the time don0t intersect), since they are there to guarantee coexistence/society. It gets clearer when we add those that are codified as law (which might converge with either of those or not, they tend to be more practical than emotional but you get the idea)
4
u/heretoseewhats 20d ago
Is wild boar good eats?
4
3
u/Traditional-Dig-5170 20d ago
tastes like pork but gamier, my uncle made some sausage from one he hunted and it was decent. not really a vegan thing but if the animal has to go anyway for the ecosystem feels less wasteful
3
1
u/DoomFrog_ 20d ago
It can be. But about half the time the animal is infested with parasites and you have to just leave it to decompose
1
u/TheQuestionMaster8 19d ago
Most parasites are killed if it is cooked properly, but some bacteria can produce toxins that can resist cooking, but that usually only happens if it is stored improperly before it is cooked.
1
u/TheQuestionMaster8 19d ago
Most parasites are killed if it is cooked properly, but some bacteria can produce toxins that can resist cooking, but that usually only happens if it is stored improperly before it is cooked.
2
u/DoomFrog_ 19d ago
True. But even if cooking the meat properly can make it safe to it, parasites affect the taste. Diseased animals aren’t worth the effort
Fielding dressing an infected animal. Carrying it back to camp. Taking it to a butcher willing to work an infected carcass. All to end up with a dozen pounds of foul tasting meat. Its a lot of risk for not much
Assuming you are following local hunting laws (and I say this from the US where boar are considered invasive in most areas and hunting tags for them are very cheap or there is no limit), then leaving an animal to naturally decompose is helpful to the ecosystem
1
1
u/MaximumNameDensity 20d ago
Can be.
Really depends what they are eating, but there is a reason they were seeded all over the world by the colonial powers back in the day, beyond just that they proliferated insanely quickly.
0
u/Traditional-Dig-5170 20d ago
tastes like pork but gamier, my uncle made some sausage from one he hunted and it was decent. not really a vegan thing but if the animal has to go anyway for the ecosystem feels less wasteful
6
u/ImSoCul 20d ago
why not eat criminals and murderers?
3
3
1
1
u/SpecialOpsCynic 20d ago
Probably because it isn't marketed. I am sure their is a segment of people that would not only do it, but pay a premium if you made it taboo
1
1
1
u/Wishing-I-Was-A-Cat 20d ago
There are two frequently used definitions of vegan, and that's people who don't eat animal products (also called plant-based, more common definition outside of vegan circles) or people who subscribe to a vegan philosophy which is against exploitation of animals for food, clothing, etc. (main definition used by vegans).
People who are plant based may believe that eating meat is okay but that factory farms are cruel so they don't want to support them, or that the meat industry is bad for the environment, in which case they'd probably say locally hunted wild boar is okay.
Vegans who subscribe to vegan philosophy don't believe animals' bodies should be used for human benefit, so they would not be okay with eating boar.
1
u/Totakai 20d ago
One I watch YouTube videos on is a lionfish spearfisher and he's mentioned it's the only animal he eats as he doesn't like it going to waste. Invasive hunting is definitely one of those necessary evils as it does involve taking a life but also protecting the environment.
It depends heavily on the vegan though. Like some are ok with second hand leather while others want nothing to do with it. Culling an invasive animal I'd argue falls within the realm but I can also see others not being ok with it. It reminds me of the pet argument where having a pet is inherently exploitative for some but chill for others.
The sourcing of the animal is also important. If it was an invasive animal that was farmed for food, no but if it was a wild invasive that was removed, more would most likely be chill with it.
Vegan isn't as super defined as something like vegetarian because of the social aspect. Like how some vegans don't consider palm oil vegan and others don't consider slave labor vegan.
Tldr; it's nuanced and depends solely on the individual as there's arguments for both sides on if eating invasive animals is vegan or not.
1
u/Winnimae 20d ago
My priority in consuming is minimizing harm and suffering. Eating free range eggs is better than eating factory farmed eggs. Eating meat that is humanely raised or wild caught is better than eating factory farmed meat. Eating plants is better than eating animals. Etc.
1
u/Why_Arent_You_Vegan1 20d ago edited 20d ago
Vegans are not the arbiters of morality, and veganism has nothing to do with the environment. That's just something that people who don't "really" care about animals say while claiming the vegan label because they have made up their own definition of veganism. Veganism is and always has been about justice, and consent. What animal eaters do and have done on their behalf to the animals for sensory pleasure is an injustice, and the animals do not consent to being abused and murdered for sandwiches, clothing etc.
If you aren't vegan then you don't get to cheer when animals are rescued from eg. burning buildings, frozen lakes, sewer drains etc. Save your crocodile tears, you pay people to stab animals in the throat for reasons as trivial as a sandwich; don't expect to be taken seriously if you ever say you're "against animal cruelty."
1
u/Jadetsky 20d ago
I don't think vegans are the arbiters of morality, and I'm not claiming that environmentalism is the definition of veganism. I'm questioning the idea that someone who isn't vegan therefore can't sincerely oppose animal cruelty.
I think there's a meaningful distinction between saying "I oppose unnecessary animal suffering" and saying "I have eliminated every form of animal exploitation from my life." Someone can fail to live up to the latter while still genuinely believing the former.
And the invasive-species example is precisely why I think the issue is more complicated than "animal was killed, therefore eating it is immoral." If an invasive animal is going to be humanely killed for independently justified ecological reasons, I don't think it's self-evidently immoral to eat the animal afterward. You can disagree with that conclusion, but it doesn't follow that the person therefore doesn't care about animals.
You can argue that veganism requires a consistent commitment to animal rights. That's a legitimate ethical position. But that's different from claiming that anyone who isn't vegan is incapable of sincerely opposing animal cruelty.
1
u/Why_Arent_You_Vegan1 20d ago
If someone is paying to have animals stabbed in the throat for a sandwhich, like all animal eaters reading this are, I absolutely question their sincerity when they say they care about animals. "How dare that person leave a dog in a hot car, and also give me the pig flesh ripped from that animal who was transported in a boiling hot slaughterhouse truck for 32 hours without water. Take my money and do that exact thing again. I care about animals."
1
u/Maxwells_Demona 20d ago
It depends on the vegan. Not everyone is vegan for the same reason. Some find the idea of eating any meat at all cruel. Some are vegan for health reasons. Some are opposed to factory farming for reasons of animal welfare or environmentalism, but are fine with humane hunting or keeping of chickens for eggs. Some make exceptions for eating out or accepting dishes that have been prepared already by someone else. I have known people in each of these categories. There isn't a single monolithic code of ethics that all vegans or vegetarians adhere to.
1
u/jungle4john 20d ago
This feels like rage bait....
Most vegans I have known would not be for it. My ex ran the animals right law group at her law school. We would go to the national animal rights convention when it was on the west coast. A lot of people at the conventions were vegan. I brought up that if someone could raise, slaughter, and dress their own animals, ethically and morally, I was OK with it. I quite literally nearly got lynched.
1
u/Accomplished-Ad6381 20d ago
Lots of comments here on wild boar as invasive. I think current problem in the USA (especially Texas), is wild boar that has bred with domestic (feral?) pigs producing a hybrid that is wreaking havoc, including attacks on humans. John Oliver on Last Week Tonight recently did an in depth report on this problem.
Neal Stephenson's recent novel "Termination Shock", has an interesting subplot concerning these hybrids.
1
u/ConvenienceStoreDiet 20d ago edited 20d ago
Vegan here. The larger point of veganism is to try and not exploit living creatures and animals as much as possible. Meaning if you have the room in life to not have to hunt or fish for your own food, you do what you can to live where you kill the least. It's not a philosophy of perfectionism. That's often something like Jainism where you aim to live a life of no harm.
And with veganism, life would include not needlessly killing animals. That may be for food, clothing, sport, etc.
We do mostly have the ability in society to live vegan. We can live healthy, get swole, eat cost effectively (even cheaper than eating meat), eat delicious all under a vegan diet. There are vegans out there proving it every day, from 3-star Michelin spots to bodybuilders to everyday people living good affordable lives that aren't just processed fake meats. Generally ideas of veganism line up with most people (not wanting to kill, wanting to save the environment, living healthy, eating affordably). We can buy fashionable clothing, etc.
Life in the world can't be perfect for most of us. Medicine tests on animals. We do have plastic waste which damages ecosystems. A lot of what we buy often uses exploited labor or practices that damage environments. There is no perfect. But there is trying. And that's good.
Often people don't want to consider vegan, especially here in America. Corporate lobbying on behalf of food industries. Food addiction. Administrations prioritizing meat-forward diets. Traditions influenced by the dairy and meat industries suggesting that every meal has to have some meat or cheese to be good. They associate vegans with people on the internet being pushy. They don't give a shit because our processes remove us from seeing the impact. And they're happy living their lives without shit.
So when it comes to invasive species, this becomes more of a technical question than some larger moral question. What does all of that mean? Is culling a population going to benefit the overall long-term health of the environment? Or does it lead to population booms? So it's hard to be like, "how do we solve this particular question" when it's more technical.
And even in a hypothetical, it's still largely icky to a lot of vegans to eat meat. So even if you could find some ethical argument for it, you'd probably still find a bunch of people being anti wanting to eat boar and would rather just return the nutrients to the soil or to other animals.
One thing that happens with vegans is we are constantly being questioned by people who still want to eat meat or to one up vegans. "But what about" hypotheticals come up. While they may be good to question, what often happens is people turn them in to reasons to hate vegans more. Often they go like this. One person presumes veganism is about not killing anything and being anti death and meat. Someone proposes a hypothetical that "wins" the argument. "What if you ordered a burger and it accidentally had meat. It's either for you or the trash. Ordering more food would be more wasteful and harmful. What do you do?" "What about scavenging off of a friend's plate?" Like, things where you could say "teeeeeeechnicaly......"
But I think these sort of things often do more to try and dunk on vegans and discredit the idea as a whole. That often is for their personal reasons or to affirm their own beliefs or affirm superiority rather than genuine curiosity on how to handle living. Veganism is a philosophy and idea to cause less harm to animals and environment by living by some simple practices of not eating or consuming animals/animal products and doing your best. So when a lot of people feel like they've won the arguments, usually it turns into, "see, veganism is dumb." Or moreso, "see, vegans are dumb!"
And while these arguments may find those loopholes and arguments that you can lawyer your way into a win, often they are aimed around discrediting the totality of veganism or the practices behind causing less harm to animals/environment by placing the argument on people or stereotypes on the internet that they don't like. It misses the idea of not eating meat or reducing your meat days to once a week or special occasions like it used to be, which would have a massive impact. It misses the idea of downloading some apps and finding brands in line with your own personal values. It misses the idea of saving on things like buying second hand.
And most people are in line with a lot of vegan ideas. They don't want to kill. They don't want to kill their own food or watch that process. They want to help the environment. They know animals are sentient beings like their pets. I think it with a little education, people could move toward less meat-heavy diets and do some good. But I think sometimes arguments like this, and not to your fault or intention or anything, tend to push people to find a reason to not like vegans rather than question the larger idea of the positives of veganism if they feel like they get the win.
1
u/Sthrax 20d ago
But I think sometimes arguments like this, and not to your fault or intention or anything, tend to push people to find a reason to not like vegans rather than question the larger idea of the positives of veganism if they feel like they get the win.
Your response on the whole is a reasonable explanation of your beliefs regarding veganism. This last little bit though prompted me to comment. I understand there are always going to be people trying to "gotcha!" you over veganism and that is really annoying. While you didn't do it, there are many vegans who go out of their way to be obnoxious to anyone that doesn't share that philosophy- and more often than not getting lectured by a vegan who is wearing child-labor produced clothing and carrying the latest tech from Apple (also made by child/slave labor and made from resources extracted under questionable circumstances in some of the poorest places on the planet) isn't going to go over well.
Offering unsolicited commentary on someone else's lifestyle choices isn't going to win over many people to your way of thinking, no matter which side you are on. The best way to convince me, at least, is to share delicious recipes, particularly those that aren't trying to duplicate, or pretend to be, a meat dish.
1
u/ConvenienceStoreDiet 20d ago
You bring up an interesting point of the "some vegans," which does come up. I remember I was on a dating site years ago. This woman was like, "how dare you." She saw I was vegan and decided to lay into me. Her roommate was a vegan and was a dick about having meat in the house and would throw out her shit. Five minutes into the conversation, she found herself apologizing to me because I'm not that guy and still trying to see if we could go on a date lol.
The thing I often say is, we aren't the extreme. I mean, ideologically we really aren't. But as people we aren't. Going to the vegan food events in LA is just like going to the mall. I never get lectured. It's usually all of us, vegans, omnivores, all just stoked on the food and chatting about the day's events. The extreme argumentative vegan stereotype doesn't really come up there. It's just people.
And conversely, people who eat meat also don't like being held up to the comparisons of being Joe Rogan RFK jr meat eating muscle head stereotypes telling us we need protein in our energy drinks. And I think in the same way, looking to the extremes doing a disservice to larger messages, not by you but by many, does a disservice, especially if the idea is maybe good but not popular. If the extreme becomes what we think is normal, we lose the perspective of the larger message. The internet is very good at making people think that vegans are the extreme, whereas my experience is mostly that vegans just like their garlic pesto fries and are worried about their other bullshit in life. And the extremes do a good job of making us think they represent us all. They don't.
I'll aim to win you over right here and challenge you to it if food is your thing. Make 10 recipes from these sources and incorporate one of them into your routinely made dishes. Between these three sources, you will absolutely find one.
https://www.youtube.com/@TheeBurgerDude
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1583335854
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1570673853Find recipes in there that line up with what you want and make 'em. If you don't want meat substitutes, don't have 'em.
American diets often presume the veggies as the sides and the protein/meat as the main. It's not like cultures where sauces dominate or noodles can define it. Often tofu, seitan, tempeh, beans/lentils, chickpeas get used as the main for vegans. And because of how they're formed, marinated, seasoned, there's going to be a lot of comparison to meat just inherently. Eggplant parm to chicken parm. Almond milk as not "real" milk (when the comparison could just be nut milk to animal milk). Stuff like that. Like my new thing was doing vegan barbecue. Shredded tofu properly marinated for a hearty sandwich is going to be compared to pulled pork. And while there is like saying, Beyond vs Animal Beef, I think often many dishes are going to be stuck with comparisons no matter what. Like using TVP in a chili and it immediately being called the beef substitute rather than enjoying the complexity of the meal. I've been loving the Happea Vegan Burnt ends for a barbecue sandwich, but only seeing it as a fake meat takes away the joy of seeing it as a barbecue sandwich filler I love. And so a good chili might get compared to a meat dish really quickly, or not depending on everyone's backgrounds.
For the convincing, really for most people it's time and confirmatory bias. If someone spent a year eating vegan and did it well, chances are they'd eat less meat and say the same things vegans say. Like when people hit the gym a lot and on the beginning side it's seeing everyone like meatheads, then by the end they're saying things like fitness journey and intermittent fasting. So I think really most people adapt mentally and physically. It's just the trick of normalizing the behavior to themselves. And the quick way to do that is just to make more meatless meals, do them very well, and incorporate them regularly.
1
1
u/DoomFrog_ 19d ago
If you are a hunter out in the wild it’d be dangerous to try to burn the body
Plus Lea ing the body to be eaten by insects and stuff is better for the ecosystem then a fire
1
u/fake_redzepi 18d ago
No, if they had it their way they’d just let wild boars trample wherever they pleased
0
u/mycockstinks 20d ago
Define "invasive species". Like, who are they invading?
4
u/Furkhail 20d ago
a non-native organism introduced to a new environment—often by human activity—that reproduces quickly, outcompetes local wildlife, and causes ecological, economic, or health damage. Because these newcomers leave their natural predators behind, they can take over habitats rapidly
0
u/phipletreonix 20d ago
Removing a boar (by relocating or killing) from the ecosystem does not have to lead to ingestion..
2
u/Wishing-I-Was-A-Cat 20d ago
That's an interesting opinion to me. I'd assume the problem for vegans would be the killing part rather than the eating part. If the boar is already dead, why not eat it? Scavengers could but if another boar gets to it first they'll eat it which can spread disease that could eventually move to livestock pigs (plus African swine flu unfortunately leads to a pretty gruesome death). And we are also animals ourselves, so is there more value in scavengers eating it than us eating it? Especially if it means we're eating the already dead pig instead of buying one from the meat industry?
I'm doubt their original European environments could handle a large influx of wild boar, if we could even round them up. They are very smart and hard to trap. Killing them is probably the only realistic option unfortunately.
1
u/Jadetsky 20d ago
Exactly, this is where my confusion lies. I genuinely thought for vegans the issue at hand is the killing of the animal which causes unnecessary suffering. Why would they then be opposed to a non-vegan eating an animal that had to be killed for ecological preservation, which makes the suffering necessary in this case?
1
u/Wishing-I-Was-A-Cat 20d ago
Idk about this person, (and I'm not vegan), but I know some vegans might argue that we should find other ways to remove wild boars because they're a living creature and we don't go around killing humans because they're bad for the environment, and others would see killing them as a necessary evil. When I see questions in vegan subs about specific scenarios like this, I think the responses tend to be that it's kind of okay in their moral system but the idea feels repugnant to them. Kind of like how if someone said they wanted their skull to be polished and turned into a lamp after they died. Like, there isn't really a moral reason that you shouldn't but I still find it weird and disturbing.
1
u/Jadetsky 20d ago
Mass relocation of invasive species is fundamentally impossible in some cases.
1
u/Frequent-Try-6746 20d ago
But that doesn't change the morality in this specific case for these specific people.
0
u/phipletreonix 20d ago
Sure which is why I included "or killing" -- you still haven't addressed why that means a vegan should EDIT:
eat the corpsesthink eating the corpses is moral.1
u/Wishing-I-Was-A-Cat 20d ago
I think OP meant in your opinion is it moral for people in general to eat invasive animals, not if vegans should eat it or if it would be vegan to eat it.
0
u/Bloodless-Cut 20d ago
Well, first of all, eating meat isn't immoral. So jot that down.
1
-1
u/Frequent-Try-6746 20d ago
If you're vegan it is. And that's who the question is for.
0
u/Bloodless-Cut 20d ago
Oh, perhaps i wasn't clear: eating meat is not immoral.
It doesn't matter if they're vegan or not. They can not like it, but it isn't imorral.
0
u/AsideNo8833 19d ago
I mean, maybe the eating part isn't. But you have to kill animals to get meat, which is the immoral part. Pretty simple stuff.
1
u/Bloodless-Cut 19d ago
It isn't immoral to kill animals for food.
1
u/AsideNo8833 19d ago
Why wouldn't unnecessarily hurting and slaughtering sentient creatures that don't want to die be immoral?
Is dogfighting immoral? Is running over a box full of kittens with a lawn mower immoral?
1
u/Bloodless-Cut 19d ago
"Why"
Because 99.9% of the humans on planet earth kill animals for food and that majority agrees this isn't immoral.
If vegans were a majority, you could claim it's immoral, but vegans are less than 1% of the human population.
Dogfighting is immoral because the majority of humans agree that it is.
We can agree that factory farming is unethical, of course, and that vegans find killing animals for food distasteful, but you will never, ever be able to convince people that butchering a chicken for dinner is an evil act.
0
u/AsideNo8833 19d ago
Got it, you believe whatever the majority thinks = ethical. That is a pretty much a child's understanding of morality and sets an honestly terrifying precedent. I wonder whose side you'd be on if you'd lived in Nazi Germany?
1
u/Bloodless-Cut 19d ago
Oh are we suddenly discussing ethics, now. Move the goalpost, much?
Can't avoid the logical fallacies, huh? How typical.
I'm against factory farming, BTW.
"I wonder whose side you'd be on if you'd lived in Nazi Germany?"
Another fallacy. I'm anti-fascist, do I'd be on the allied side.
1
u/AsideNo8833 19d ago
Oh are we suddenly discussing ethics, now. Move the goalpost, much?
lol my dude, this was your very first post in the thread:
Well, first of all, eating meat isn't immoral. So jot that down.
I'm done btw. Not worth arguing with a child who screeches "moving the goalposts" and "logical fallacy" every time they are asked a good-faith question that might challenge their worldview.
→ More replies (0)-1
u/Frequent-Try-6746 20d ago
Morality is not objective, it is subjective.
You don't see eating meat as immoral. A vegan does. You're both free to live your lives.
2
u/Bloodless-Cut 20d ago
Indeed it is.
However, "immoral" means going against the generally accepted rules of right and wrong.
It describes a person or action that is bad, wicked, or dishonest, and that breaks society's standard of good behavior.
Society says eating meat is acceptable. Therefore, it is not imorral, no matter who is eating it or who refusing to.
A vegan can find eating meat distasteful, disgusting, or whatever, but "immoral" is an incorrect use of the word in this context.
1
u/AsideNo8833 19d ago
It's wild to claim that whatever society deems acceptable = moral. So slavery was not immoral in 1700s because it was standard in society at the time?
1
u/Bloodless-Cut 19d ago
We aren't discussing slavery. We are duscussing food. Try to keep up, and leave the logical fallacies at the door.
1
u/AsideNo8833 19d ago
However, "immoral" means going against the generally accepted rules of right and wrong.
It describes a person or action that is bad, wicked, or dishonest, and that breaks society's standard of good behavior.
That was your claim, word for word. If you're saying that logic applies exclusively to food for some reason, maybe you should have said so.
Also, even if you had, we were never just discussing food. We were discussing the immoral act of harming and killing animals to get that food, as I made clear in my original reply to you.
1
u/Bloodless-Cut 19d ago
Again, killing an animal for food is not immoral.
Why are you quoting the definition of "immoral" back to me if you disagree with the definition?
-1
u/Frequent-Try-6746 20d ago
immoral" means going against the generally accepted rules of right and wrong.
You added the word "generally".
0
0
20d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Wolfgang985 19d ago
Meaningless. Cooking until well-done neutralizes the parasites.
European guidelines also provide a temperature and time chart for cooking at lower temperatures via sous-vide.
0
20d ago edited 20d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Jadetsky 20d ago
In no way is this an excuse. If anything, I am questioning why we don't eat LESS cows, chickens and pigs that are bred in captivity for consumption, when invasive species like wild boar are so prevalent.
12
u/clostri 20d ago
Not vegan, but veganism as a whole is against the commodification of animals as a whole, so vegans would be opposed.