Who Has It Better, Farm Animals or Wildlife?

At the headquarters of Denali National Park, there is an exhibit on caribou. They do not have an easy life. Four-fifths of the calves never make it to adulthood, mostly falling to predators who rip them apart and eat them alive. The survivors are plagued by swarms of biting flies and parasites that burrow tunnels in the haunches before they are weakened by age or disease, and ripped apart by a predator.

This contrasts with responsibly-raised farm animals, who have room, board, and medical care, live much longer than their cousins in the wild. They certainly die more humanely than being eaten alive, in fact they die more humanely than most of us do hooked up to machines.

I grew up in the country and saw how wild animals lived. I suspect that most animal rights peoples’ experience with animals is limited to dog, cats, and zoos. While on a bus at Denali, we saw a fox walk by with a bloody squirrel dripping from his jaws. This was a revelation to my wife who was raised in a genteel suburb. From the oohs and aahs it caused it seemed to be a revelation to most of the passengers.

While I certainly back humane treatment of captive animals, I think at the further end, animal rights people, isolated from nature, are projecting their human selves on animals.