Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
Criminy, people. What twisted sensibilities make you think this is OK?
The return of fur to the world's fashion catwalks has spelled death to thousands of endangered animals with a boom in demand for their skins, a top wildlife protection officer said Friday. John Sellar, senior enforcement officer for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), said there had been a surge in seizures of tiger and leopard skins as the fashion industry embraced fur once again.
Look, I enjoy hunting as much as the next redneck. But what I enjoy about it is knowing that I'm hunting sustainably, consuming VERY low on the food chain, and eating extremely healthfully. We are animals and animals kill to provide - not even always for food; get used to it. But like I posted below: be familiar with your relationship to the rest of the ecosystem and know the impact of your consumption.
Say what you will about the Chinese Government, I'm of very similar thinking when it comes to flagrant crimes against nature such as killing endangered big cats for the sake of a fashion. And that goes, even moreso, for the idiots who wear the skins.
But the threat of violence aside, in most cases enforcement officers were hugely overstretched just trying to catch the poachers, he said, let alone tracking down the merchandise. [...]
And even when caught, the penalties were in most cases too feeble to act as a deterrent — except in China, which had executed 28 wildlife smugglers in the past 14 years.
Haven't we moved beyond this as a species?
well, according to this statement--it is at least possible to hope we might "move beyond this as a species"...it is very uplifting to think that we may not be biologically wired for violence.
Plus, Bro Gary Rosche did his grad work at Seville, so it must have something going for it...
THE SEVILLE STATEMENT In 1986, inspired by Margaret Mead’s remark that ‘warfare is only an invention, it is not a biological necessity’, a group of twenty scientists, from academic institutions round the world, presented a statement at Seville University. The scientists, experts in a variety of sciences, essentially confirmed that peace is possible, by definitively showing that violence and war are not part of human nature. Evidence shows that human beings can change their cultures and can choose to behave non-violently; they also work best when co-operating; the idea of ‘an enemy’ is a construct, not a built-in concept.
and they want to teach it to school children! Imagine!
more here: http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/texts/doc_seville.html
Posted by: bert at December 1, 2003 03:32 PMThe use of violence (war, in its most sophisticated form) for the protection of kind or the procurement of necessities isn't so much my concern here. Although I think that that is more than human nature; nature nature, if you will. We can discuss that another time. I'll read your link with an opened mind so as to enhance the debate.
What disgusts me here is the hunting of rare, advanced, and ecologically important species for pleasure. Killing a bug for the sake of exploration is one thing, killing a deer for food is another, but killing big cats for the latest look is qualitatively different. And despicable.
Posted by: froz gobo at December 1, 2003 04:42 PM