I had the same argument with a friend a few days ago, only it was centered around the brutal and senseless (IMHO) slaughter of pilot whales in Faroe Islands. Th

I had the same argument with a friend a few days ago, only it was centered around the brutal and senseless (IMHO) slaughter of pilot whales in Faroe Islands. There is a simple answer why it is much worse from an ethical standpoint to murder an intelligent sea mammal versus killing a cow and it is based on how that organism came to be in the first place. Cow was there as a result of intentional breeding. It was created in the first place by humans/industry to be eaten (we can argue on how brutal that is in itself but let's not be sidetracked by it for now). Sea mammals were there independently of human actions - and if anything we destroy and downgrade their environment and standard of living implicitly with a myriad of ways. So - there you go. It is much more wrong to kill whales than killing cows. And it is extra wrong to do it while nobody really needs to for survival.