Quote Originally Posted by Shasta View Post
Killing an animal for their skin is murder.....

But thanks for the back up!!!
That is actually a tough one for me. What's worse overall, killing an animal for its fur? Or dressing ourselves in warm plastic derivatives, which seems to be slowly killing the planet, including the animals? I truly don't know. So far I've chosen the latter--that is, I have never purchased anything made from the pelt of an animal killed only for that reason--but I'm not 100% sure I've made the best choice, only that I've made the choice that bothers my conscience the least. (I have to be honest, though; if an animal skin is the only thing standing between me and frozen death, I will be as humane as possible and waste as little as possible, but I'm going to choose my life over the animal's. I would feel bad about it ... but I would do it.)

I don't think animals are the equals of people. If they were, then we wouldn't really be any more responsible for them than they are for us. However anyone thinks we got here, to me it seems pretty clear that humans are, for better or worse, by default charged with the keeping of all the other animals while at the same time taking care of ourselves as a species. It's not always as cut-and-dry as it seems. For example, around here, lots of people go deer hunting every year. (You have to buy a tag for each deer you want to kill.) As a kid that seemed mean to me. As an adult I see what happens to deer when they are driven closer to human civilization and stressed by lack of food. Around here, other than perhaps the occasional fawn killed by a coyote, deer mostly don't have predators other than human. If their numbers are not kept in check, they will start dying from lack of food and diseases that attack stressed animals. (It's not hypothetical; it really does happen. The drought this year and the snows the few years prior were pretty tough on the area's deer population.) That seems much worse to me than a quick shot to the heart (where most hunters aim).

Humans are the only apex predators with an apparent conscience. This complicates things. Sigh.