I don't know if this merits a thread of its own, but I was pondering this the other day. Fairly randomly.
So anyway I saw one of those "Slow down for wildlife" signs with a cute picture of a wallaby or something on it, which is fine, but this one also had the words "My life is just as important as yours."
Now I call bullshit on that one, no wallaby's life is as important as a human's - but then I thought, can I justify that? It's all very well having an opinion but I should be able to back it up.
This of course led to the thought that what IS the relative importance of various animal's lives? I think we can all agree that all animal life is not equally valuable. We will swat a mosquito or fly without thinking twice but we certainly wouldn't kill an elephant so casually. And viruses - we not only kill them but consider it good and right to develop a bioweapon against them to kill them in their trillions.
And then there's the "what animal would you eat" scenario. Some vegans hold the view that we shouldn't eat any animal, to which I say, well if chooks and pigs didn't want to be eaten, they shouldn't have evolved to taste so delicious.
But anyway, after considering my little flock of chickens for a while, and seeing that they truly are the stupidest creatures, I think the hierarchy has kind of crystallized in my mind a bit.
My personal set of values for what animals I would kill and eat (even if you're just buying them from the supermarket, you're just outsourcing the killing) - is impacted by the following.
Does the animal have a developed set of emotions? Ie does it display happiness, shame, loyalty, mournfulness, etc? (Without trying to anthromorphise!)
This lets things like elephants, dogs and whales off my menu.
Does the animal develop stable relationships and raise a small number of young with care?
So most things which either mate for life or have fairly stable relationships. Eg penguins would not make it on my list.
You could argue that sheep and cows also have a small number of young and raise them with care, but I don't think they develop stable relationships, if you've ever seen a bull or ram in action.
Does the animal have a high level of intelligence?
So again, whales, elephants, cockatoos and dogs are off the menu for me.
It can be argued that pigs are as intelligent as dogs, I never said this method was foolproof, but they evolved as yummy bacon instead of man's best friend. Sucks for them.
Does the animal resemble us? (some more than others!)
I would not eat a gorilla, chimp or orangutan (and not just because of Planet of the Apes). And I'd find it hard to eat a smaller monkey as well. Even that little prick in Pirates of the Caribbean.
So that's it really. Anything not on those list of features is pretty much fair game. Of course it has to taste nice and not be illegal as well.
All this is subject to the caveat that my ethics are malleable when it comes to hunger. So if I'm literally in danger of starving, and Lassie has proved unreliable in getting help, she's in the pot.
In terms of the sign, as far as I know wallabies don't make the cut on that list above, but even if they did, in my mind they're still not as important as a human. Even the animals that are high on the list are not as important as a human - we see that when a dog attacks people and is put down. So I will try really hard NOT to hit a wallaby on the road, but if it's unavoidable, I will not lose sleep over it.
Now some biologist is going to tell me that scallops have a vibrant social life, and that chickens are the Einsteins of the bird world but just hide it REALLY well.
