In my sixth year of elementary school, we had to do a
project on endangered animals. We had to say why the animal was important and
why we should protect them. I, just like all the other students, was a
blissfully unaware ten year old who thought saying that protecting the minks or
the narwhals or the black rhinos would do some sort of good. Stop killing the
endangered animals or there’ll be none left! But it was stupid of me to think
that. It was horrifically dumb to say that we should only be protecting the
animals that are endangered. Did anybody write about the common dairy cow? The
pig? The chicken? Goldfish? Dog? No. Because there are plenty of them.

It seems that it is human nature to only care about a
species if a) it is about to die out, b) if they are already dead (Oh what a
shame, that one species of bird died out! I genuinely care about this issue
*sarcasm induced heart attack*) or c) it is the species you are. If they are
rare and beautiful, they are seen as something of value. Something that should
be protected. But no one stops and thinks “someone should help the sheep”
because they are so easy to find. Fly to New Zealand and you’ll see that most
homeowners have at least nine sheep on their property. So it’s nothing to worry
about, I guess. Wrong. There are roughly 7 billion people in this world, and if
you were to kill and eat one, you’d be sent to jail for a very long time.
However, if you were to kill and eat a sheep, it would just be “Oh, cool, same.
Tonight we’re having chicken, though.” Because it is, apparently, socially
acceptable to do so. Why, though? Is it because we have done it for centuries?
Is it because they aren’t as intelligent as us and they can’t fight back? Or
does it just taste good? Every piece of meat you eat, red or white or seafood,
is a carcass of something that died
without being able to fight back. If it fought back, we certainly would
have less meat in grocery stores.

I have been told on multiple occasions that by just eating
vegetables I am killing an animal’s food supply. Not at all. Animals feel pain.
Animals take months to reproduce, only producing somewhere between 1 and 7
babies on average. Vegetables, surprisingly, do not feel pain and can drop
seeds wherever they damn well please. Not to mention the fact that most farm
animals actually eat grass.

Now, I’m not trying to make anybody feel bad, but I can’t be
the only one who gets this. I can’t be the only person who understands the
concept of “you can kill it all you want, but stop when it starts to die out”.
The moa, a tall, majestic bird, were everywhere in the country of New Zealand
when the Maori people first came, but they died out after the Maoris used them
as food. Don’t think that that couldn’t happen to any other species.

I’m done, I just needed to rant. I’m up for a friendly
debate if anyone would like to disagree with me, too. But I hope what I’ve said
makes some sort of sense.

Have an awesome day.