Why is it ethical to kill deer but let the badgers live?

"To philosophers of animal rights, "conservation culling" is an Orwellian atrocity – "speciesism" in action. And conservationists – and I include myself in this group – sometimes flounder in the face of such clear and principled thinking."
 
"To philosophers of animal rights, "conservation culling" is an Orwellian atrocity – "speciesism" in action. And conservationists – and I include myself in this group – sometimes flounder in the face of such clear and principled thinking."

"Conservation" from the verb "to conserve" .... It is an action, it is done, an intervention if you will. Nothing more to explain than that really.
 
He seems to have adopted the rhetoric and selective science of the anthropomorphists while conceding some of the logic of the wildlife managers and doing his inadequate best to appear impartial...

As for the final statement:

"we are custodians of the natural world and must make difficult decisions when a deer's right to life comes into conflict with the right to life of an aspen sapling or a capercaillie".

Who are "we"? Our government? The wildlife trusts? The animal rights extremists? The fluffy bunny brigade? or the people with an immediate and practical -and not merely emotional- concern for the matter: i.e. landowners, farmers, and sportsmen?

Also, since when did an animal have a "right to life"?

More anthropomorphism. And his distaste for farming and profit is palpable - though presumably he took a fee for the article and pours milk on his muesli in the morning.

Can you hear the sound of my teeth grinding?
 
Reading it, he's not actually that bad - just a bit confused. It reads like a rushed undergraduate essay that lazily borrows common concepts and rhetorical tropes without bothering to fully understand things or develop a robust argument.

At least, on balance, he is not flat out opposed to all culling.
 
I spotted that a couple of weeks ago but didn't post it here because I didn't think anyone here would like it much, and also mainly because I had other things on. Anyway, the point is that it's an external perspective to our own, actually quite a balanced one, and we have to live with other users of the natural world, and even people who just like to know that it exists without really ever having much to do with it directly. We all share the same space, and once you remove the ethical and emotional arguments, what we're talking about here is how we choose to explot and develop competing renewable natural ressources. We're used to the competing needs of forestry ("no deer!"), sporting interests ("Better deer!"), animal rights types ("More deer!"), highland agriculture ("More sheep!"), etc. Well on top of that, it's legitimate for some to want to swap some deer for some capercaillie, some badgers for some cows, some "deer forests" for some actual forests, and even some green belt for some houses. There's only so much space and there are competing demands for it. It comes down to balance, compromise, openness and collaboration. We may have to compromise. So will everyone else. Mountain bikers and ramblers too. It's either that, or the strongest party wins, and that's probably not us in the long run.
 
I refuse to read that anti hunting rag.
It has a number of posts by well known ant activists.
One notable article made by the head of PETA. You just try and comment to correct the lies and your comment just gets removed.
Obviously questioning their "journalists" with all their "knowledge and research" is not the done thing.
 
I spotted that a couple of weeks ago but didn't post it here because I didn't think anyone here would like it much, and also mainly because I had other things on. Anyway, the point is that it's an external perspective to our own, actually quite a balanced one, and we have to live with other users of the natural world, and even people who just like to know that it exists without really ever having much to do with it directly. We all share the same space, and once you remove the ethical and emotional arguments, what we're talking about here is how we choose to explot and develop competing renewable natural resources. We're used to the competing needs of forestry ("no deer!"), sporting interests ("Better deer!"), animal rights types ("More deer!"), highland agriculture ("More sheep!"), etc. Well on top of that, it's legitimate for some to want to swap some deer for some capercaillie, some badgers for some cows, some "deer forests" for some actual forests, and even some green belt for some houses. There's only so much space and there are competing demands for it. It comes down to balance, compromise, openness and collaboration. We may have to compromise. So will everyone else. Mountain bikers and ramblers too. It's either that, or the strongest party wins, and that's probably not us in the long run.

A much cooler -and thus better- analysis than mine, but I'm really not sure it -the original article- is as balanced as you give it credit for.

It reads like a rushed undergraduate essay that lazily borrows common concepts and rhetorical tropes without bothering to fully understand things or develop a robust argument.

100%
 
I refuse to read that anti hunting rag.
It has a number of posts by well known ant activists.
One notable article made by the head of PETA. You just try and comment to correct the lies and your comment just gets removed.
Obviously questioning their "journalists" with all their "knowledge and research" is not the done thing.

That's called balance you know. I read the print edition of the Guardian, rather than take refuge in the pages of the Telegraph, because I think the paper has a more liberal approach.

To answer to your complaint of suppression, posted comments are only removed if they're offensive or abusive. Obviously the reader doesn't see these, but reasonable contributions are left on the site. I generally find the comments more useful than the source article so try to follow both.
 
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