Do vegetarians realize that they are condeming all animals to death.?

Question

Many vegetarians think that as they do not eat meat they are saving animals, do they realize that in the event of everybody turning veggie, there would be no animals. No cows,no sheep, no pigs.
Farmers are not philanthropists, they are not going to keep animals to feed the family moggy, therefore no cats, or dogs. I suppose of course you could grow your own and give the dog and cat a couple of mice a day.
Hang you on though, it would reduce global warming, no cow or dog farts...

Answer 1

ok the demand for animals would gradually lessen thus fewer animals would be bred for slaughter Eventually there would be no animals that were bred solely for human consumption, so no more animals would be slaughtered. I'm failing to see your problem?

Answer 2

I'm a vegan but don't blame my pals the vegetarians !!!
They are not the cause of this.It is the excessive demand for cheap meat that dictates the huge amout of cows sheep and pigs alive today and therefore omnivores are the biggest contributors to global warming! Vegetarians would still drink milk and eat dairy and wear wool = cows and sheep are safe. They would keep pigs as pets very intelligent, affectionate and clean animals (I have now saved all porcine animals too) Cats and dogs are great pets therefore I have saved them as well (what a hero!!) and there would be no cows breed for beef therefore a massive reduction in global warming.
Yes, omnivores have always existed but in the past, as recent as the 1970s people ate less meat in their diet as it was very expensive.

Answer 3

First off, just because we do not eat animals, no it's not our fault that the farmers do that. They will be cows because they need cows for milk. There are so many other uses for animals other than eating them. It would be impossible for everyone in the world to become a vegetarian because people love meat too much. If the animals are killed on the spot they are better off. They are not forced to live in bad conditions where they are sick, hungry, and forced to feed off each other. I'd rather them go peacefully than to have to be forced to live where they are beaten, starved and deprived of life. It's horrible. Why don't you think about that.

Answer 4

Many vegetarians object to the way that animals are kept. They would rather they didn't exist, than suffer a long hard life.

In addition, farmed animals are not the only animals in the world.

And I think there will be enough of a market in dog and cat food to keep some farmers going. It's a big market: a whole aisle in the supermarket.

Answer 5

Cows, sheep, pigs etc. were alive long before humans started farming them, they are not reliant on human farmers for their existence. Even if humans were to stop eating animals altogether (which will never happen, and this is a vegetarian speaking here) the animals would happily continue to live without human intervention the way nature designed them to.

Answer 6

Simply, they are not.
So far as that issue is concerned, the vegetarians I have met and heard about have more concern about they way animals are farmed rather than the fact that they are kept for meat.
They choose not to support the farming method, which is absolutely fine if that's their choice.
Your question is, I regret, so deeply misinformed and inaccurate that it almost defies answering, but vegetarians are not condemming any animals to death at all. Rather, they are simply not eating them, so have no effect on the animals life or death at all. It is the meat eaters, like myself, who have to have animals killed for us.
If everybody became vegetarian (a proposition so unlikely as to be preposterous) then it would happen gradually, with a corresponding gradual decline in the meat farming business. You would not see a sudden mass slaughter of animals for meat, and, in any case, many would be kept for purposes other than food.
One of your reponders gives the bible, a noble book, as her reason for being vegetarian. I see no justification for that view. Right through that book (collection of books) are references to meat eating, slaughtered oxen, lambs, goats. There are shepherds, goatherders, fishermen galore. Jesus called for 7 loaves and 7 fishes. No, you need to do better. The only animal I can recall as being off the menu, so far as the bible is concerned, is the poor pig, though I acknowledge there may be others that I can't recall because it's years since I read any of it.

Answer 7

There's a difference between dying and not being conceived in the first place. As people gradually stopped eating meat, it would be more economical for farmers to sterilize their animals rather than have to kill unwanted offspring.

However, you're also making a faulty assumption that all vegetarians refrain from eating meat because they want animals to stay alive. I've been a vegetarian for years because I hate eating meat. I still wear leather and fur products, because I'm not actually ingesting the animal. I don't care one way or the other if the animals are alive or dead, and I know other vegetarians like myself. Also, many people are vegetarians for health reasons, rather than moral reasons. Those vegetarians also wouldn't be extremely concerned about "condeming [sic] all animals to death".

Answer 8

Hmmmm, I had never thought of it like that befroe, then again I'm a meat eater so do my share for the animals of the world.

Of course, you do realise that people are going to point out the difference between animals not being born in the first palce, and being born and then killed...?

On a tangent, and possibly a question of my own some day, I knew a lot of vegetarians who were pro choice... surely the two are incompatitble?

Answer 9

You're right, it's not good for animals: if enough people went veggie to actually affect the industry at all, and the demand for meat decreased, it would mean animals which were surplus to requirement. They're kidding themselves if you think that would mean they'd live happily ever after, as they couldn't be sold no one would want to keep them, and they'd still be slaughtered.
Think about it, the second farmers couldn't sell their livestock, the second they couldn't make a profit, they wouldn't keep them any more. Keeping animals isn't cheap, and to keep them, without profit, would be hugely expensive to any farmer. How many do you reckon would be prepared to make that kind of loss?
Now, what'd happen then? Maybe a few wild pigs or goats would stay alive, but for the most part it would be impossible to release them into the wild. The vast majority would have to be slaughtered.

I quote "If no one were allowed to farm animals, farms would grow crops instead. The first thing to go would be all the animals. Once the rural landscape were rid of cattle, sheep, and the like, fields would get larger, for the convenience of the combine harvesters, and hedgerows would go. Wild animals like rabbits would now be a more major pest. No farmer would want animals eating the plants, and so the war on such animals would intensify. Grown in the fields would be domesticate species of food crops, and so the number of plant species would decline."

Vegetarianism doesn't save any animal's lives, it just dissociates oversensitive people from their deaths.

Domestication is one of the best things that can happen to animals. If the golden eagle tasted any good you can bet your life it wouldn't be nearly extinct.

I quote "In the wild, a sheep would have to look for food, compete for it, jockey for position in the herd, look out for predators, guard its offspring, and it one day would die because of some accident, perhaps a fall, some nasty illness, or it would become weak and have its throat ripped out by the local predators. By striking contrast, the life of a farmed sheep is rather different. A farmed sheep has complete protection from predators; all the food of exactly its favourite kind at its feet all day every day, for which it does not have to compete; no competition for mates; no need to guard offspring; free health care; free haircuts; it is very unlikely to die in childbirth, and unlikely to die a nasty death. True, half a ewe’s offspring are taken away and killed. However, in the wild, a ewe would lose most of its offspring anyway, and in nastier circumstances. By the standards of the natural wild, a sheep’s life is about as cushy as a life could possibly be."

This is true, animals in the wild invariably die violent deaths. the closest an animal will get to dying of old age is being picked by a predator because it it old and therefore an easier to target. Farmed animals invariably lead happier, healthier, less stressful lives than those in the wild.

@ Kate, if your argument were remotely true, there would still be wild herds of cows and pigs all over the place. In most places wild boars and cows died out (in fact wild cows, or Aurochs, died our everywhere) because of humans, and that there just isn't enough wild land anymore for them to live. There are a few reintroduced wild boars, and some groups of wild sheep and goats, etc, but that really is it. Not much compared to the millions in domestication, and trust me on that releasing them into the wild would not be a viable option anyway.

They do not live in the wild now, and neither would they if they were no longer kept in domestication.

@Andielep

"Vegetarians would still drink milk and eat dairy and wear wool = cows and sheep are safe."

If everyone turned to vegetarianism, which is unlikely anyway, most people would end up going vegan after a generation or two. People would begin to adopt Peta's philosphy of no animal-human contact.
That said, demand for wool would decrease anyway, as it is now, due to synthetic fibres, and so their nombers would still decrease.
Also the majority of cows are not dairy cows. Mostly they are kept for meat alone, so millions of cows would lose their lives too, even if demand for milk remained the same (big if mate).

"They would keep pigs as pets very intelligent, affectionate and clean animals (I have now saved all porcine animals too)"

People don't keep pigs as pets now and, while they can be pets, I don't see it happening that the number of people willing to keep pigs will increase just because they're no longer used for meat.

OK, so we can establish the species won't become extinct, but they will become a significant rarity.

Answer 10

I don't like meat! that is why I'm a vegetarian, don't start blaming me for the worlds destruction! and please, describe HOW us not eating animals is going to make them all die? Cows still give milk and sheep give wool for clothing, so why would we kill them because we can't eat them? You just don't make sense, come back when you have a better theory.

Answer 11

I agree. I love my meat, I can't think of a better relationship between humans and food. Humans breed, keep, look after, feed the animals so they don't have to struggle in life, and then in return, we eat the animals. Also, its a fact of life. Who's gonna stop a lion eating antelope? Or a fox eating a rabbit? And I've found something great: I love eating cows, but now I'm wearing them aswell! My brother bought me my first leather jacket for Christmas :D