Wayne Pacelle approaches the agricultural business in Ohio and says "surrender or we'll beat your ass." Anyone he recruits in a state, he uses against everyone else in the state. If none of them had surrendered to him or accepted bribes he would not have won any states. He wouldn't have had part of the dog breeding community to use against the rest of the dog breeding community, and the recent atrocity in Tennessee is just one example of this.
http://www.agritalk.com/
There is no reward for compromise with the HSUS. They have rewards only for criminal behavior like abusive busts of commercial breeders whose dogs are in good enough shape to turn around and sell within the week. The only threat that they pose is if anyone is damn fool enough to let them have anything that they want. They are a terrorist organization that certainly doesn't deserve anything. They were named in a Department of Homeland Security report and in other reports to Congress, so the United States Congress does know enough about the HSUS that anyone who takes just a minute to think would say "these people are terrorists and don't have an opinion to contribute." Terrorists are criminals. That report is at Rexano under Commentary and Editorials.
If people would think of themselves as deserving of the company of animals and deserving of the use of animals, swindlers like the HSUS would never be able to gain the power that they have. It makes a huge difference what we think of ourselves. Think well of ourselves and each other and no one is going to be looking for anything from the HSUS. We'll already have it. They offer us a bill of goods and we are the ones who own those goods.
Showing posts with label agriculture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label agriculture. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Support Your Local Puppy Mill
There are several good reasons to support puppy mills. Not the least is because "puppy mill" should be an innocent term. The idea of a business that mass-produces good dogs should be a blessed one, one that people sing the praises of. I haven't personally worked in one but I know a few things about industry. One of them is that most people who work in factories or "mills" are goodhearted people who work hard to produce a quality product. I was actually surprised to learn how good.
A real humane society would find owners who were in trouble and without threat of punishment, help them out of that trouble. "It's for the sake of the animals" becomes a pretty bleak statement when you know that puppy mill busts are hugely profitable for humane societies. They use the busts to extort money and puppies and then sell those puppies en masse to the public and beg for donations, right in the middle of articles condemning the people who bred them. For shame. Genuine criminal charges should not be able to be bought off this way, by giving money and dogs to a non-governmental agency. This is a conflict of interest and I don't know how prosecutors and police can stand being a part of it.
It is also an outrage when a so-called humane society re-inspects a kennel that has already been inspected by the state. It strips a compliant owner of their place of safety that should be provided for them by the state inspectors. Time and time again the "puppy mill" accusations have been thrown at people and their businesses have been raided right after a state inspection gave them a clean bill of health. There should be a law that if the state says it's clean, it's clean.
There is always something to pick on about someone's care of their animals. The fact is that there is almost always far more to praise than to pick on. Most puppy mill dogs and pups are found in good physical condition and that says a lot. Most likely it says that those dogs and pups were in a good place. It's real easy to say that someone's facility was covered in feces. Just exaggerate. It's also easy to exaggerate about the smell. Or we could decide that a place with a lot of animals is going to have an animal smell and those who have a clue know that's normal.
All people who own pets, who practice animal husbandry, or who hunt have a common interest and a common cause. We need the animals. Human needs and desires are legitimate. We have to remember that. Hunters need the animals for trophies, fur, and meat. Pet owners need the animals to satisfy the need to nurture and share affection. We all need the animals for food, and the farmer (animal husbandry) produces the animals. Treating an animal as an agricultural product is a good thing because farmers work as hard as anyone to treat their animals humanely regardless of species. The term "puppy mill" should be a badge of honor.
A real humane society would find owners who were in trouble and without threat of punishment, help them out of that trouble. "It's for the sake of the animals" becomes a pretty bleak statement when you know that puppy mill busts are hugely profitable for humane societies. They use the busts to extort money and puppies and then sell those puppies en masse to the public and beg for donations, right in the middle of articles condemning the people who bred them. For shame. Genuine criminal charges should not be able to be bought off this way, by giving money and dogs to a non-governmental agency. This is a conflict of interest and I don't know how prosecutors and police can stand being a part of it.
It is also an outrage when a so-called humane society re-inspects a kennel that has already been inspected by the state. It strips a compliant owner of their place of safety that should be provided for them by the state inspectors. Time and time again the "puppy mill" accusations have been thrown at people and their businesses have been raided right after a state inspection gave them a clean bill of health. There should be a law that if the state says it's clean, it's clean.
There is always something to pick on about someone's care of their animals. The fact is that there is almost always far more to praise than to pick on. Most puppy mill dogs and pups are found in good physical condition and that says a lot. Most likely it says that those dogs and pups were in a good place. It's real easy to say that someone's facility was covered in feces. Just exaggerate. It's also easy to exaggerate about the smell. Or we could decide that a place with a lot of animals is going to have an animal smell and those who have a clue know that's normal.
All people who own pets, who practice animal husbandry, or who hunt have a common interest and a common cause. We need the animals. Human needs and desires are legitimate. We have to remember that. Hunters need the animals for trophies, fur, and meat. Pet owners need the animals to satisfy the need to nurture and share affection. We all need the animals for food, and the farmer (animal husbandry) produces the animals. Treating an animal as an agricultural product is a good thing because farmers work as hard as anyone to treat their animals humanely regardless of species. The term "puppy mill" should be a badge of honor.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Captive Breeding
I just had to answer this article about captive breeding.
Breeding of animals is not rocket science. The only way to fail at it is to never attempt it. Usually the problem is how to deal with an embarrassment of riches. I personally would rather have a few too many dogs, cats, or tigers than none at all. Captive breeding is in no way an "extreme tactic", it's a perfectly ordinary thing that billions of people have done.
The World Wildlife Fund uses one simple technique to persuade people that it is wrong to breed animals in captivity. I sometimes call it the "You'll shoot your eye out!" technique. They tell the reader or the listener to think only of all the things that can go wrong if someone tries to breed a rare animal. They might even admit that thousands have successfully bred those animals, but it's still "think of all the things that can go wrong." Why would anyone even listen to these people? All that they want you to do is stop doing what you think is right and obey them.
Think of all the things that can go right. Where there were no tigers there can be hundreds or thousands depending on the resources a group has. You might have mixed breeds but all of the animals whose genes went into the mix have many descendants and the more the merrier for genetic variety. The more genetic variety the better. Can you believe that so-called conservationists actually argue for "subspecies purity"? That's a lot like saying that a dog that is half Great Dane and half Saint Bernard is no good. When they say that Siberian/Bengal tiger mixes are no good for a species survival program, that's so wrong. They are the same species and genes from both populations are preserved. What they mean is that they want their programs to go their way, like an obsessive-compulsive thing.
They argue that there are "many difficulties" associated with captive breeding. So? We do it not because it is easy but because it is hard. They try to paralyze our thinking by talking about the dangers, and now the difficulties. Think of the reward: Most humans love animals. We get to keep them with us and take them into the future with us. A truly "natural" lifestyle includes as many plants and animals as we can have around us.
A species does not become uniform when humans take charge of its breeding. Look at the differences between the poodle, the dachshund, the border collie, the great dane, the pariah dog, the dingo, and all other dog breeds. Their genetic variety has obviously increased. This goes for horses, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, and everything else. There are known and well-established methods for multiplying the number of "subspecies" of any animal, plant, or even bacteria. The only animals that have limited gene pools are the ones that people have been forcibly prevented from using in captive breeding programs, like the ocelot and the cheetah. Both of those species would number in the millions and they would be quite varied by now.
There are a lot of failures but that is the price of success. When they breed "naturally" in the wild every species loses a lot of its young. Fewer are lost in captive breeding. There is inbreeding in the wild, always. Lions are known for mating with their daughters. So are stallions. Those are just two species that live in family groups and the dominant males drive out their male progeny, or kill them, and mate with the females that stay. Outbreeding is actually alien to them.
The hopefully large number of tigers and lions in captivity in the United States reflect the success of an informal grassroots breeding program. Some say that there are as many as 25,000 tigers in the U.S. and I could only wish. No one ever seems to estimate the number of lions but it would seem that there would be more because even fewer of them kill their owners than tigers do and they like to live in family groups. Any true conservationist would congratulate the private owner on the success of breeding thousands of species individuals of endangered and threatened animals. A really good conservationist finds ways to help them and make it legal to breed the really endangered animals.
Were I to be in charge of a conservation program I would do this: Live-capture orphaned cubs from the wild and hand-raise them as pets. Take advantage of the large body of knowledge from successful private owners, and their enthusiasm, and their money and time and energy, and use them to raise the next generation of that endangered animal. Let's not kid ourselves. The wild is disappearing. People are living there. A war to move those people would destroy the habitat and kill a lot of humans. So let's put the animals on the dole and do it right. They'll be living better than they do in the wild. Humans will be a happier and calmer species. Everyone benefits.
Breeding of animals is not rocket science. The only way to fail at it is to never attempt it. Usually the problem is how to deal with an embarrassment of riches. I personally would rather have a few too many dogs, cats, or tigers than none at all. Captive breeding is in no way an "extreme tactic", it's a perfectly ordinary thing that billions of people have done.
The World Wildlife Fund uses one simple technique to persuade people that it is wrong to breed animals in captivity. I sometimes call it the "You'll shoot your eye out!" technique. They tell the reader or the listener to think only of all the things that can go wrong if someone tries to breed a rare animal. They might even admit that thousands have successfully bred those animals, but it's still "think of all the things that can go wrong." Why would anyone even listen to these people? All that they want you to do is stop doing what you think is right and obey them.
Think of all the things that can go right. Where there were no tigers there can be hundreds or thousands depending on the resources a group has. You might have mixed breeds but all of the animals whose genes went into the mix have many descendants and the more the merrier for genetic variety. The more genetic variety the better. Can you believe that so-called conservationists actually argue for "subspecies purity"? That's a lot like saying that a dog that is half Great Dane and half Saint Bernard is no good. When they say that Siberian/Bengal tiger mixes are no good for a species survival program, that's so wrong. They are the same species and genes from both populations are preserved. What they mean is that they want their programs to go their way, like an obsessive-compulsive thing.
They argue that there are "many difficulties" associated with captive breeding. So? We do it not because it is easy but because it is hard. They try to paralyze our thinking by talking about the dangers, and now the difficulties. Think of the reward: Most humans love animals. We get to keep them with us and take them into the future with us. A truly "natural" lifestyle includes as many plants and animals as we can have around us.
A species does not become uniform when humans take charge of its breeding. Look at the differences between the poodle, the dachshund, the border collie, the great dane, the pariah dog, the dingo, and all other dog breeds. Their genetic variety has obviously increased. This goes for horses, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, and everything else. There are known and well-established methods for multiplying the number of "subspecies" of any animal, plant, or even bacteria. The only animals that have limited gene pools are the ones that people have been forcibly prevented from using in captive breeding programs, like the ocelot and the cheetah. Both of those species would number in the millions and they would be quite varied by now.
There are a lot of failures but that is the price of success. When they breed "naturally" in the wild every species loses a lot of its young. Fewer are lost in captive breeding. There is inbreeding in the wild, always. Lions are known for mating with their daughters. So are stallions. Those are just two species that live in family groups and the dominant males drive out their male progeny, or kill them, and mate with the females that stay. Outbreeding is actually alien to them.
The hopefully large number of tigers and lions in captivity in the United States reflect the success of an informal grassroots breeding program. Some say that there are as many as 25,000 tigers in the U.S. and I could only wish. No one ever seems to estimate the number of lions but it would seem that there would be more because even fewer of them kill their owners than tigers do and they like to live in family groups. Any true conservationist would congratulate the private owner on the success of breeding thousands of species individuals of endangered and threatened animals. A really good conservationist finds ways to help them and make it legal to breed the really endangered animals.
Were I to be in charge of a conservation program I would do this: Live-capture orphaned cubs from the wild and hand-raise them as pets. Take advantage of the large body of knowledge from successful private owners, and their enthusiasm, and their money and time and energy, and use them to raise the next generation of that endangered animal. Let's not kid ourselves. The wild is disappearing. People are living there. A war to move those people would destroy the habitat and kill a lot of humans. So let's put the animals on the dole and do it right. They'll be living better than they do in the wild. Humans will be a happier and calmer species. Everyone benefits.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Danger of the Animal Rights Movement
Yes, they actually intend to kill off at least a substantial fraction of humanity. Yes, they intend to do it by fair means and by foul. Yes, they want everyone who doesn't like them dead, preferably painfully. The first principles of animal rights activism include the idea that humans should voluntarily choose extinction to protect the lives of other animals.
If you watch their statements on Internet forums and in print, they actually say it. In conversations face to face or avatar to avatar they actually lie about it even when they know that you're read what they wrote. Some of the lies are like "I didn't actually mean it that way." How did they mean it when they said nine tenths of humanity should die, or that the owner of a dog should die horribly?
What is the meaning of a message like this?
"Rest in peace my Angel.
Schuler you ****ing bastard I pray to god that your time is soon and that you burn in hell! " Pretty clear, isn't it? This one was about a dog who the vet and the humane society checked and was doing just fine.
Here's another good one:
"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels."
-- Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, leader of the World Wildlife Fund
Proud sponsor of Jane Goodall, by the way.
"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"
-- Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and Executive Officer for Reform in the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations
"Among environmentalists sharing two or three beers, the notion is quite common that if only some calamity could wipe out the entire human race, other species might once again have a chance."
-- Richard Conniff, Audubon Magazine
More environmentalists, but the movements are not separate now if they ever were. There are a lot of quotes at the "Target of Opportunity" website.
These people warn us of the danger of "exotic" pets and some domesticated pets. They use the warnings as leverage, the danger as a trump card, to pry our animals, our property, away from us, for public disuse without compensation. This also is part of a plan to eliminate humanity from the picture.
It's a form of suicide. It's common knowledge that they're angry with humanity for messing up the world, and for doing what other animals do: exist, use our brains, eat what we need to eat, and change the environment to be more useful to us. Ironically humans are animals so you can't hate humans without somehow hating animals and life. All the warnings that we've tainted them, that we shouldn't have them living with us, they are aimed at killing the bond between humans and animals, denying the animals the benefits of relationships with humans, and denying humans the life that we share with the animals.
When they are banning particular animals as pets, they deny homes to those animals. This matters because in doing this they prevent people from repairing or mitigating the damage that they are so upset about. It would cut into their charitable donations if it came out that owners of pets and livestock had created a larger, more stable population of non-human animals than would have existed without them, with greater safety, using fewer government hand-outs and bail-outs. The conservationists risk the extinction of a lot of species by attempting to end private ownership, and the best thing for increasing the number of a species is to make it a commodity that people will buy. This is at least as good a deal as unassisted nature provides.
The bottom line is that it seems like we could come pretty close to saying that the average environmentalist/animal rights activist is more dangerous to more humans, individually, than all of the exotic and domesticated pets on the entire planet. You might be able to count the livestock too. This is if you count animals as a danger, just for the sake of the argument. The truth is that animals are by far of net benefit to humanity, and humanity is of net benefit to the animals. Thus it is beyond doubt that every single animal rights activist is more dangerous to humanity than all pets and livestock. They don't want humanity to save the planet. They want humanity to die out and save the planet by not being here.
If you watch their statements on Internet forums and in print, they actually say it. In conversations face to face or avatar to avatar they actually lie about it even when they know that you're read what they wrote. Some of the lies are like "I didn't actually mean it that way." How did they mean it when they said nine tenths of humanity should die, or that the owner of a dog should die horribly?
What is the meaning of a message like this?
"Rest in peace my Angel.
Schuler you ****ing bastard I pray to god that your time is soon and that you burn in hell! " Pretty clear, isn't it? This one was about a dog who the vet and the humane society checked and was doing just fine.
Here's another good one:
"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels."
-- Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, leader of the World Wildlife Fund
Proud sponsor of Jane Goodall, by the way.
"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"
-- Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and Executive Officer for Reform in the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations
"Among environmentalists sharing two or three beers, the notion is quite common that if only some calamity could wipe out the entire human race, other species might once again have a chance."
-- Richard Conniff, Audubon Magazine
More environmentalists, but the movements are not separate now if they ever were. There are a lot of quotes at the "Target of Opportunity" website.
These people warn us of the danger of "exotic" pets and some domesticated pets. They use the warnings as leverage, the danger as a trump card, to pry our animals, our property, away from us, for public disuse without compensation. This also is part of a plan to eliminate humanity from the picture.
It's a form of suicide. It's common knowledge that they're angry with humanity for messing up the world, and for doing what other animals do: exist, use our brains, eat what we need to eat, and change the environment to be more useful to us. Ironically humans are animals so you can't hate humans without somehow hating animals and life. All the warnings that we've tainted them, that we shouldn't have them living with us, they are aimed at killing the bond between humans and animals, denying the animals the benefits of relationships with humans, and denying humans the life that we share with the animals.
When they are banning particular animals as pets, they deny homes to those animals. This matters because in doing this they prevent people from repairing or mitigating the damage that they are so upset about. It would cut into their charitable donations if it came out that owners of pets and livestock had created a larger, more stable population of non-human animals than would have existed without them, with greater safety, using fewer government hand-outs and bail-outs. The conservationists risk the extinction of a lot of species by attempting to end private ownership, and the best thing for increasing the number of a species is to make it a commodity that people will buy. This is at least as good a deal as unassisted nature provides.
The bottom line is that it seems like we could come pretty close to saying that the average environmentalist/animal rights activist is more dangerous to more humans, individually, than all of the exotic and domesticated pets on the entire planet. You might be able to count the livestock too. This is if you count animals as a danger, just for the sake of the argument. The truth is that animals are by far of net benefit to humanity, and humanity is of net benefit to the animals. Thus it is beyond doubt that every single animal rights activist is more dangerous to humanity than all pets and livestock. They don't want humanity to save the planet. They want humanity to die out and save the planet by not being here.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
In Praise of Farms
Farms in general are good for conservation and good for animals. The average American farmer feeds about 130 people. If we were still stuck with 17th century farming methods it would take a lot more land, we would all be starving, and that land would become exhausted. Modern farming methods actually do build soil, which is easy to see if you've ever lived in a cornfield. All that organic matter that corn harvest leaves behind builds soil, as does waste from wheat and soy. Soybeans are legumes that put nitrogen in the soil, as are peanuts. Cattle are grazed after corn harvest, which salvages corn, helps restore soil bacteria and makes the organic leavings easier for the plants to use.
It is absolutely necessary for industry to increase the viability of any food animals that it uses and of the plants that it uses. "Maize" is practically a weed in its natural state and the corn that was developed from maize produces a lot more usable biomass per acre, thus more organic material for soil, and more food from an acre. These days we do also have the means to produce fuel from that corn, although that technology would be better used to produce fuel from landfills. Biomass isn't a good solution when it takes the equivalent of a gallon of gas in petroleum to produce a gallon of ethanol, and ethanol contains about two thirds of the energy per gallon. The best way to produce liquid fuel for cars is probably going to be biomass conversion plants that can process garbage with water at high temperatures, powered by small nuclear plants that are just now going into production. These mini-nukes produce about 70 megawatts of heat, are proof against meltdowns, produce little radioactive waste, are self-regulating, and are already tested and proven by the laboratories at Los Alamos.
Progress has always been like that. It takes energy to move nutrients from one place to another, and the next time that the soil will be really naturally refreshed in the United States is when Yellowstone's volcanic caldera blows its top and covers most of the continent with volcanic ash. Mining this caldera may eventually be a practical solution when someone develops the machinery for it and invests the money, but there are many easily available deposits of volcanic ash and other sources of suitable nutrients including silt from the ocean floor. Farming practices have already brought soil nutrients to depleted regions in the form of fertilizer. Kansas was pretty close to being scrub desert until the settlers brought in cedar, elm, and walnut trees, which did so well that they threatened to overwhelm the prairie completely, but which also performed the vital service of bringing nutrients and water to the surface, and the service of conserving water. Hot soil can literally burn away organic matter and leave only sand. Tree cover lowers soil temperatures and allows the soil to hold more moisture and support more life like earthworms and bacteria. It's working in Israel. It worked in Kansas and we weren't even aiming for that effect.
More animals can live on an acreage, with less infant mortality, less disease, and fewer population crashes due to modern technology. Building shelters, fences, and providing clean water is cheap and a lot of us don't even know how much more advanced that is over medieval methods and technology. Humans can and do selectively breed for animals that can survive in the wild because we still have to in order to have a productive farm. We can maintain a larger population overall than nature does because of advances in medicine, food production, and methods of keeping animals. It's ironic to see animal rights activists complain about the way that farmers use modern medical methods to keep animals alive at the same time that they use advanced medicine to keep animals going that have lost body parts and mobility, to use in their sideshows.
In the wild large bison-type animals, buffalo and the common cow and bull, have a really rough time and they become really aggressive as a result. Five or six people are killed each year by buffalo in national parks in the USA. They're not much tamer when socialized to humans and used as food, which is all to the good because they can defend themselves from wolves and coyotes. Most production cattle are kept on open fields with barbed-wire to keep them in. It's as natural an environment as it gets, and when managed well, it's better than the wild because trees are not allowed to overgrow the pastures, which would happen without human intervention, and they would choke out most of the graze that cattle depend on.
Deer also benefit because the plants that do them the most good grow best at the edges of cleared areas and in areas of new growth of trees. Deciduous forests choke out most other plants and decrease available vegetation for herbivores. Fire and logging make room for new vegetation. Fire control is an added benefit. Too many humans have died in wildfires lately. Environmentalists want us not to manage the underbrush and don't seem to care how many homes, jobs, and human lives are lost, which is pretty sick. Australia just lost Marysville in Victoria to a wildfire. About one hundred out of the original five hundred residents died. Almost every building in town was destroyed. Think of them when an environmentalists wants to save dead underbrush over human beings. Wildfires are managed in advance by clearing flammable materials and making fire roads. I am crying right now because I read about a man and his dog who were burned to death in Marysville. This was preventable. Fire management techniques have been used effectively for over a century.
Humans actually assist in the maintenance of life already. We protect animals, sometimes as livestock, sometimes as pets and service animals, and sometimes as exhibits in menageries. We deserve a lot of credit for this and we should give ourselves that credit. The "chilling effect" that animal terrorists try to create should just be more incentive, even a challenge.
It is absolutely necessary for industry to increase the viability of any food animals that it uses and of the plants that it uses. "Maize" is practically a weed in its natural state and the corn that was developed from maize produces a lot more usable biomass per acre, thus more organic material for soil, and more food from an acre. These days we do also have the means to produce fuel from that corn, although that technology would be better used to produce fuel from landfills. Biomass isn't a good solution when it takes the equivalent of a gallon of gas in petroleum to produce a gallon of ethanol, and ethanol contains about two thirds of the energy per gallon. The best way to produce liquid fuel for cars is probably going to be biomass conversion plants that can process garbage with water at high temperatures, powered by small nuclear plants that are just now going into production. These mini-nukes produce about 70 megawatts of heat, are proof against meltdowns, produce little radioactive waste, are self-regulating, and are already tested and proven by the laboratories at Los Alamos.
Progress has always been like that. It takes energy to move nutrients from one place to another, and the next time that the soil will be really naturally refreshed in the United States is when Yellowstone's volcanic caldera blows its top and covers most of the continent with volcanic ash. Mining this caldera may eventually be a practical solution when someone develops the machinery for it and invests the money, but there are many easily available deposits of volcanic ash and other sources of suitable nutrients including silt from the ocean floor. Farming practices have already brought soil nutrients to depleted regions in the form of fertilizer. Kansas was pretty close to being scrub desert until the settlers brought in cedar, elm, and walnut trees, which did so well that they threatened to overwhelm the prairie completely, but which also performed the vital service of bringing nutrients and water to the surface, and the service of conserving water. Hot soil can literally burn away organic matter and leave only sand. Tree cover lowers soil temperatures and allows the soil to hold more moisture and support more life like earthworms and bacteria. It's working in Israel. It worked in Kansas and we weren't even aiming for that effect.
More animals can live on an acreage, with less infant mortality, less disease, and fewer population crashes due to modern technology. Building shelters, fences, and providing clean water is cheap and a lot of us don't even know how much more advanced that is over medieval methods and technology. Humans can and do selectively breed for animals that can survive in the wild because we still have to in order to have a productive farm. We can maintain a larger population overall than nature does because of advances in medicine, food production, and methods of keeping animals. It's ironic to see animal rights activists complain about the way that farmers use modern medical methods to keep animals alive at the same time that they use advanced medicine to keep animals going that have lost body parts and mobility, to use in their sideshows.
In the wild large bison-type animals, buffalo and the common cow and bull, have a really rough time and they become really aggressive as a result. Five or six people are killed each year by buffalo in national parks in the USA. They're not much tamer when socialized to humans and used as food, which is all to the good because they can defend themselves from wolves and coyotes. Most production cattle are kept on open fields with barbed-wire to keep them in. It's as natural an environment as it gets, and when managed well, it's better than the wild because trees are not allowed to overgrow the pastures, which would happen without human intervention, and they would choke out most of the graze that cattle depend on.
Deer also benefit because the plants that do them the most good grow best at the edges of cleared areas and in areas of new growth of trees. Deciduous forests choke out most other plants and decrease available vegetation for herbivores. Fire and logging make room for new vegetation. Fire control is an added benefit. Too many humans have died in wildfires lately. Environmentalists want us not to manage the underbrush and don't seem to care how many homes, jobs, and human lives are lost, which is pretty sick. Australia just lost Marysville in Victoria to a wildfire. About one hundred out of the original five hundred residents died. Almost every building in town was destroyed. Think of them when an environmentalists wants to save dead underbrush over human beings. Wildfires are managed in advance by clearing flammable materials and making fire roads. I am crying right now because I read about a man and his dog who were burned to death in Marysville. This was preventable. Fire management techniques have been used effectively for over a century.
Humans actually assist in the maintenance of life already. We protect animals, sometimes as livestock, sometimes as pets and service animals, and sometimes as exhibits in menageries. We deserve a lot of credit for this and we should give ourselves that credit. The "chilling effect" that animal terrorists try to create should just be more incentive, even a challenge.
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