Human Dominion

I no longer understand how man is superior to beasts.

I was recently spending time with some people that I have known for years, all very nice people with families and good intentions. They all live way out deep in the foothills, where beasts once roamed free and uninterrupted. There is a constant war in their neighborhood with the coyotes. The consequence for a coyote who wanders too close? A bullet between the eyes. Why not? They are threatening to the humans, and humans deserve to live more than coyotes do.

I don't agree with this, and I even find it offensive, but I was a guest in their home, and I'm not going to debate their way of life. Everyone's different, and it's not like I'm going to change their minds with my uppity live-and-let-live attitude. We just don't see things the same way. I guess somewhere in the Bible it says that humans are better. I don't believe in the Bible, but I'm not going to debate that either.

One of these folks, whom I had just met, was talking about one of her cats, who has a serious peeing problem. Pees on everything. Soaks through the carpet, the floorboards. It's unbearable, and disgusting. Having had a cat with this kind of behavior, I totally get how unpleasant it is to live with this kind of thing. Her solution, however, was that she wants to get the cat put to sleep so it can die peacefully in her loving arms. She is outraged because she couldn't find a vet to euthanize a cat without a medical reason, and a frisky bladder is not a medical reason. She didn't want to just give it away to PAWS to die in someone else's arms. I can see her love for her cat, and I respect that, but never in a million years would I come to that same solution. At least she isn't taking it out back to shoot it, and if she does, I don't want to ever hear that story.

I kind of tuned out the conversation after that, until my friend's husband said to me, "You're one of those 'no harm to animals' type of people aren't you? Are you still a Buddhist?".

Ok, so here we go. "Yes," I replied.

"But you eat chicken don't you?" he said.

"Yes, I just started eating meat for medical reasons, but I don't really want to."

"But you wouldn't kill a chicken?"

"Uh, no, why would I kill a chicken?" No, I wouldn't even kill a chicken to eat it. I know they have to die for me to eat them, but I don't really want to kill them myself. Hypocritical? Maybe, but, man, I didn't grow up on a farm and I just don't think that way.

"What if you had a chicken and it was eating its own eggs?" asked the cat woman. She was planning on just shooting it. That's one way to get it to stop.

I am being tested here, and I don't really know the moral answer to that. I live in the suburbs, where there are minimal wild beasts roaming around. I mean, the occasional raccoon comes by but nothing more menacing than that. I live where food comes from your grocery store, you don't kill it, skin it and fry it up yourself. It's a sheltered existence, and the brutality of meat is disguised in nice friendly packaging. I don't really have to think through the food chain much, and when I do, I get kind of uncomfortable.

Just because humans have better weapons, and we think we dominate over nature, does that make it right? I don't think it does.

I had a neighbor once who had seven dogs, all of them ran around in the yard all day barking and jumping around. To make them less of a nuisance, she had all of their voice boxes removed so instead of barking they just wheezed - still very audible, but less abrasive to the ear. Is that the right thing to do? Maybe a single person who is gone from home a lot should just have less dogs or spend more time at home or not live smack in the middle of a neighborhood. Seems like a more respectful way to live, anyway.

I'm not going to to judge the way other people live. They all have their own belief systems and reasons for hunting and fishing and shooting coyotes or removing dog's voice boxes. They have their own god to answer to at the end of the day.

But I don't really want to be complicit to it either. To me, it's wrong. Nor do I want to debate it or protest it or burn down any labs, but I do believe that all beasts have the right to live, just like we humans do. I don't agree that they should live or not live for the sake of our comfort.