*Any Reason to Preserve Other Animals?*

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Is there any reason why we should preserve other animals apart from those which contribute directly to human survival/activities?

ie; Keep bees and most other insects for the plant pollination etc aspect. Keep birds to limit insect population, for eggs, etc. Sheep and some cows etc, fish and other seafood, as food, and some dogs and cats, etc, as pets.

But not bother to protect any others. After all, what use are they? We can keep their DNA, etc in labs, and a few individual specimens in spacious zoos, etc.

But stop taking up land and resources and charitable energy on "saving" the others.

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Last edited by ouinon on 21 Dec 2008, 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Other, please explain in thread."

Food.

Animals are meat.

Meat is food.

Feed the people.

Depends if you think that other animals have a right to their own existence irrespective of human activity. If you see humans at the top of the 'species tree', then no, probably, but I think many cultures have animals that they regard as sacred and also pets which are treated differently to 'food animals'. I'm sitting on the fence with this one - I do believe that animals have a right to exist in their own right and hate the thought that tigers and leopards might not be around in the wild in 20 years time and there are so many animals on the endangered species list. But I also eat meat. There is some hypocrisy there

I've put it in the poll. Thanks.

I thought that I had covered that option by referring to cows and sheep, etc, in the OP, but forgot to include it as a separate option for "other" animals in the poll. Thanks.

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food.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversi ... n_Benefits

Animals are needed to keep a balanced ecological system.

If humans never existed, it wouldn't matter. Life would be able to go on without us.

We are living in the information age and the largest resource of information on the planet is only just starting to be revealed to us from the DNA of the creatures that inhabit our planet. At the same time, these creatures are dieing off at the fastest rate ever.
That is a shame aand something that should be prevented.

Everybody who is saying food; you mean that we should only bother to keep animals if they are directly useful to us, in other words?

And so the animals that are very expensive to "keep", like lions and tigers, ( and apparently don't make good meat either ), we would allow to die out?

Keeping DNA in labs, and specimens in zoos, etc, as stated in OP, would pretty much cover that.

... So far no reasons to keep animals unless directly useful to us...

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Last edited by ouinon on 21 Dec 2008, 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Can't help noticing that human benefits from biodiversity are mostly in relation to plants or invertebrate animals. There is no real reason to keep mammals, for instance, except those that can survive on insect life and rubbish, or those which are good for food.
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Last edited by ouinon on 21 Dec 2008, 1:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If this is the kind of intelligence displayed by a supposedly bright aspie group I give up on the whole damned species. We won't last long.

NB. Just realised that adding "Food" to poll throws the options out a bit, because original question was whether there was any reason to keep animals which didn't contribute directly to human activity, and food obviously does.

But then ecological balance does too. So ...

To sum up so far; it looks as if there is no reason to keep animals that don't contribute to our existence either as food, biodiversity, ( whether in Lab stocks or zoos, or in the wild ), or as "entertainment".

Oddly enough even charitable animal-preservation projects, ( for lions and tigers and bears, aswell as elephants and pandas, etc, etc ), could be considered as contributing to human activity. The animals themselves are entertainment/mascots/totems and the charitable activity keeps a lot of people employed either in paid posts or voluntary work.

Perhaps most animals, ( over a certain size ), serve some human purpose already ; if they didn't they wouldn't be there anymore. They would have died out long ago if we had no use for them.

How long are people going to be able to make a living out of saving "endangered species"? For as long as there is a demand for it.

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Isn't that right then?

Do lions and tigers and bears and wolves and elephants and pandas and warthogs and hippopotamuses and giraffes and zebras and kangeroos and rhinos and jaguars and snow leopards and gorillas and similar species in the wild, ( as opposed to in test-tubes in labs, or in zoos ), really make such a big difference to biodiversity then?

I get the impression that most wild animals larger than rats/rodents, hedgehogs, and similar, are more like luxury goods for the rich on safari holidays or advertising mascots for different countries or totems for bleeding hearts.
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Last edited by ouinon on 21 Dec 2008, 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Last edited by claire-333 on 24 Dec 2008, 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

People are meat. Both people and animals need food. So what's your point?

( a few pages of reading later ) ... Okay, so lions and tigers and bears, and other large carnivore and herbivore mammals, have a significant effect on the ecosystem/landscape. But is an ecosystem without them one which humans need to worry about?

If it is ( something to worry about ), it looks even more as if there is no reason to preserve animals other than because it is good for humans. It isn't because animals have rights, not because animals are sweet/beautiful, nothing like that, but just pure human-species self-preservation.

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I wasn't sure how to answer the poll but I feel the only time it is ok to keep an animal in captivity is to help it re-breed if it is a threatened or endangered species. I eat meat but I think it is horribly barbaric how most animals are breed for meat in such terrible conditions. If had the money I would only buy meat from free range animals. The only times it is ok to kill an animal IMO is for food, self protection, or protection of someone or something else. For instance, if a bear attacks you, a friend, or a pet, it is ok to do whatever you can for the sake of protection.