This post will either make me friends - or get me some nasty hate mail. Either way I could use some attention.
When I play World of Warcraft it fills me with no amount of joy to kill the snakes, sheep, and cows in the game. I get a giggle everytime. I even feel slighly sad when thwapping a bunny on the head it sqeaks and expires. I am an animal lover after all. But I still giggle.
I've always had animals. Ever since I was a youngin' there have been any number of cats, dogs, fish, chickens, goats, bunnies, horses, even pigs that have taken up residence with me and my family.
I come from a long line of farm kids. Farm kids and country folk have a different view of animals I have found. While I have always loved my pets - I've always been able to know when it was time to say goodbye - i.e. taking them to the vet for the long kitty or puppy nap when they were hurt, too sick to even treat, or when too old to walk anymore.
It dawned on me recently people who don't have the "Animals are just animals" have a different outlook than myself.
As a kid my mom got the idea to raise 100 chickens with our neighbors. I was about 7 at the time. We kept them for the summer - and in the fall there was mass chicken murder. I tell this to people and they can't believe it. You ate them? Hells yes I did.
When I was about 11 my aunt brought us a pig because he was a runt and his mother wouldn't take care of him. So we did. We named him Wilbur. He was cute as hell. When he was tiny I used to visit him in the barn and play with him. Then he got bigger - and stinky - and when he was market weight at all of 5 months old we ate his stank ass. It was pretty good.
Now granted - I couldn't watch them kill him - that was too much. But I've never been much of a blood and gore fan. I still don't like watching my dad clean fish - doesn't mean I won't eat them. I won't go out and hunt Bambi because that's not my idea of fun. I'd much rather pick up my meat at Cub. However - I don't dislike hunters or what they do - when done in an ethical and responsible way.
This brings me to my point in writing this. People who don't have this understanding of animals being raised for food, for clothing, for food for other animals kind of irk me and in some cases creep me out.
I finally saw the movie "Grizzly Man" about Timothy Treadwell. Essentially he was a suburban kid who got into his head to become an activist for the Grizzly bear. He counted himself an expert on bear behavior because he went to live with them every summer. No sir - that makes you a tourist.
I think the part of this movie that infuriated me the most was him crying over a dead fox. How he wished he could have done something to save it - how it's just not fair - such a beautiful animal had to die.
I hate to break it you animal lovers out there but that's what animals do. They die. So do people, plants, fish, and hopes and dreams. They all die. It sucks - but you can't save everything. We're not supposed to. Other animals need to eat - populations need to be kept in check. That's how nature and the cyles of life work.
You can appreciate animals, you can preserve their habitat, but at the end of the day you have to let them do their thing...and their thing is to live a short time, eat each other, or survive, and then eventually die.
I love animals. I respect them. I want to see animal habitats preserved, but I also know you can't stop them from their animal nature. You can't impose human characterstics on animals - they are not humans. We like to personify them - but at the end of the day a wild Grizzly will eat you if it's hungry, a stingray will be frightened and stab you in the heart, a shark will mistake you for a seal and eat your legs, Bambi reproduces a lot and his herd needs to be thinned, pork tastes good, steak tastes good, leather jackets are warm, and when my pets die I feel sad - but realize they aren't meant to live forever and their suffering is at an end, and there will be another stray that needs to be looked after.
It's all about balance. Balance in nature and your view of animals. Care for them, but understand what they are - which is an animal. That's all I ask.
It is what it is. Get over it hippy, want some jerky?
No comments:
Post a Comment