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Taking as a given that we've eliminated 99% of natural predators, there's nothing inherently ecologically wrong with humans eating cattle instead of wolves eati
by justrealist 3y ago
Taking as a given that we've eliminated 99% of natural predators, there's nothing inherently ecologically wrong with humans eating cattle instead of wolves eating bison.
- jwells89 3y agoI believe the distinction here is scale. The rate at which natural predators killed bison is only a small fraction of the rate that cattle are killed for food. If human livestock consumption were closely matched to natural grazer consumption, essentially acting as a 1:1 replacement, this argument makes more sense. I don’t think that’s been true for at least a century at this point though.
- justrealist 3y agoI agree with this, I was disagreeing with the broad complaint in the OP > Killing them and eating them is not compatible with the environmental benefits of grazing which does not attempt to qualify the disagreement at all.
- e93849 3y agoCitation needed. A quick Google search says the US has about 90 million heads of cattle, while the peak population of wild bison was 60 million and of wild deer was 40 million. That seems pretty close.
- dqv 3y ago>That seems pretty close. You're wildly off in your calculations because you've failed to account for replacement rate. It's 90 million heads of cattle with 30 million killed each year. https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/rx913p88g https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/rx913p...
- e93849 3y agoHow many wild bison/deer/elk got killed each year? Right now it seems about 2/3 of fawns die, most of them eaten by predators: https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jwmg.21681 https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jwmg.21... I wonder if that number was higher before humans reduced the number of predators.