Where I stand

Lest someone actually read this and accuse me of preaching, let me say that I am far from perfect in my relationship to the natural world. I was raised pretty much as homocentric as anyone else in the western world. I struggle with this daily.

Brian May, Queen guitarist, has made his stand against the restoration of fox hunting in the UK, and culling badgers over the spread of bovine TB, eradicating hedgehogs in areas and so on. He is a vegetarian and against all kinds of animal exploitation and hunting.

I have been a vegetarian for 2-3 years back in the 90's, after Tinker came to live with me, and I still can't deal with chicken in anything but anonymous pieces. But having the animist belief that all living beings are sentient to some degree means that I accept that life feeds on life, and this has to be approached with a sense of respect for the taking of life for food, be it animal or plant life.

We have factory farming here, which to me is like animal and bird concentration camps. I find that to be one of the saddest commentaries on our culture that these are not even seen to be living, feeling creatures. Male baby chicks, unwanted by egg producers, are sorted out at commercial hatcheries and ground up alive to be sold to pet food producers. Grinding up babies alive - are we monsters? When I protest I am told by producers, "These are food animals, not pets." So these food animals don't have feelings then, like pets?

But also I live in the woods and this puts me in an adversarial position with other beings at times. It is not black and white. There are animals like raccoons who are very good at exploitation of human premises and who have no predators who keep their numbers in check. They are quite intelligent and very capable of climbing and manipulating. There are times when I have exhausted every other means I can think of for living with coons and finally just have to start taking them out.

I do try to practice what I preach, and I work toward being better at it, but it can be very complicated.