Animal rights is kinda touchy because there's a divide between meat eaters and non meat eaters. Joining either group will make the other day you aren't actually helping animals. For example, conservationists on the meat eater side supports legal hunting which helps fund conservation efforts. However this is completely against the non meat eater viewpoint of helping animals because an animal dies. It's complicated.
It’s going to remain complicated for the foreseeable future, I think. Boyfriend (vegetarian) and I (omnivore, eating primarily vegetarian at home because we share meals) were discussing the ethics of eating roadkill the other day. It’s an effect of human encroachment on nature, but it’s a ship that’s long sailed.
And that’s the crux of it; humans have fucked with nature enough, in ways that cannot be repaired in a hurry, that we need to compensate for the balances we upset in
some ways. We’ve cut down wild populations of apex predators in many areas to where their prey populations can exceed what the land can support. What do we owe nature to compensate for this? Do we cull the herds to a sustainable level? Do we allow animals to starve (and possibly harm their environment in desperation in the process) in the leaner months? Do we put out feed to get them through the winter, and then deal with the population ballooning even more the next year?
I don’t think it’s as easy as “do you eat meat y/n?” Eating
less meat, and opting for humanely produced meat, is better than eating 2-pound steaks from factory farms daily. Avoiding animal exploitation altogether, if you consider e.g. beekeeping to be exploitative, also means cutting out a number of crops dependent on pollinators (almonds and a number of fruits are the ones I happen to know of, but I’m sure there’s a lot more). Which can absolutely be done if you feel that that’s what you believe in, don’t get me wrong. It more goes to illustrate how wide the spectrum actually is.
