The economics of meat

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Some few years ago, an Animal Rights activist was after me about my hunting. No 'sprise there. As my brain was on high functionality then, I hurled this one at him.

"I pick up road kill animals and eat them. Is there something wrong with this?"

He said no, but added eating meat was cannibalism and disgusting and so forth and so on. And so his true colors came out.

With more than 7 billion people in the world, eating meat is critical to survival.

• Humans do not digest vegetation as efficiently as pure herbivores.

• Land that can support meat-providing critters can't always support the crops humans can eat well enough to survive.

Don't take my word for it. Maureen Ogle spent several years researching the meat industry in this nation. Her conclusion?

"As long as the demand is there, we're going to continue to have these very large industrial systems, because that's the only way to satisfy demand."

You may, of course, argue this. But then you have no idea what it takes to produce billions of pounds of meat a year. You also have no idea what it's like to live in a protein poor society.

Recently Melissa Bachman was attacked from around the world for a lion hunt. Still ain't figured that one out. Elephant hunts are also criticized. For those of you who point to the elephant and lion being endangered, I have a number of things to tell you, in addition to ending the life of starving animal quickly and humanely.

"If you want to save a species, simply decide to eat it. Then it will be managed - like chickens, like turkeys, like deer, like Canadian geese." Ted Nugent

This is truth. In the United States hunters are directly responsible for the booming population of a number of hunted animals and by extension far more non hunted animals. Not all, but a lot. Furthermore, these hunters contribute more to habitat maintenance and preservation than any other group of people, especially bunnyhuggers, and this directly benefits far more non-game species than game species. This, fortunately, is changing as states are now requiring non hunters and non fishermen to buy passes to use state wildlife areas.
 
In Africa, an elephant or mature male lion hunt is gonna set a hunter back $40,000 to $75,000 plus depending on where the hunt takes place. Further, these hunts are most often done in the bush, deep cover and places where eco tourists don't go. Photo safaris, in other words, generally never see the elephants which are hunted.

These license fees go directly to the government. The government in turn uses this money for whatever it spends money on. That includes hiring the US equivalent of game wardens.

Which brings me to my next point, and a very graphic image. Poaching.

Make NO mistake. Poaching is about economics. The rhino was killed for its horn. The meat, in this case, was left to rot. On paid hunts the meat is used to feed people.

For that matter, African safaris with gun or camera are also about economics. The question must then be asked: Where is the greatest economic impact?

Poaching?

Hunting?

Photography?

I leave researching this question to you.

In closing, I point out that game preserves set up for hunting do more to preserves species than non-hunting preserves. There are more hunting preserves than non hunting ones. The hunting areas generate far, far, far more money than the non-hunting areas.