Now to questions that are exercising my mind at present.
If animals and ecosystems go hand in hand, if animals can help us grow crops and manage the land, then how do we keep animals without causing suffering? If we can keep them, then is it also possible to keep animals for food such as milk and eggs without suffering?
I must profess to have no answers.
These questions just prompt further questions.
Is domestication itself a form of suffering?
What about sex? Animals have a drive to reproduce. It is that drive that both provides the production opportunity and often begs the management action.
Is it realistic to expect to eat anything without causing suffering? Cropping is well know to involve serious collateral animal suffering.
What about those uninvited animals - the scourge of any crop farmer?
What about those uninvited animals - the joy of any nature lover?
When does an animal cease to be an animal? When it is a mollusc, or an insect? Or is it all those things that science classifies Animalia? Where is the sentient line?
Don't plants have feelings too? And bacteria and fungi?
Perhaps I should be a Jain?
Where does the 'middle way' sit in all of this?
Too much to tackle in one go. Perhaps I will try dealing with them one at a time.
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