For this blog post I looked at an article by Melissa Kap and took out certain passages I thought stood out, or were written nicely. Those passages I have in bold, I then analyzed them based on what I learned or what I interpreted from her writing.
When humans destroy wild land to build homes, factories, shopping malls, amusement parks, garbage dumps, even to build a visitor center, store and restaurant in a park, the land is changed. The animals that once lived there, from the bugs that lived in the ground to the birds that ate them, all may disappear. Some can move to new home areas, but there are already other animals living there. There is not enough food, water or shelter for all of them. Many of the animals will die.
When humans destroy wild land to build homes, factories, shopping malls, amusement parks, garbage dumps, even to build a visitor center, store and restaurant in a park, the land is changed. The animals that once lived there, from the bugs that lived in the ground to the birds that ate them, all may disappear. Some can move to new home areas, but there are already other animals living there. There is not enough food, water or shelter for all of them. Many of the animals will die.
When farmers spray chemicals on their crops to save them from pests (bugs and molds and things that eat the plants), the chemicals get into the water and into the soil. Bugs that do not hurt the crops die. The birds and mammals who eat these poisoned bugs may also die, or they cannot reproduce, or their offspring die young.
Factories, automobiles, trucks and planes put chemicals into the air. The exhaust from their engines contains tiny specks of toxic chemicals that fall on plants, on the ground, and into the water. There, they get into the animals when the animals eat the plants, drink the water, or nest in the ground. These animals, too, can die or not reproduce.
I found this article very interesting because of the way she shows us examples. I always knew that the pesticides we spray to protect ourselves can kill bugs that weren't necessarily being targeted and, therefore, causing meaningless death but I never thought about how that could effect the animals that eat those bugs. It never struck me until I read this that birds or mammals that eat the bugs may die or become unable to reproduce. It also never occurred to me that our exhaust from cars, factories, etc. can poison animals. I just thought that those emissions threatened our atmosphere, but they can do much more. Besides than the fact that she is an animal lover I can sense no bias coming from Melissa, most of her writing are just solid facts. I think this passage especially illustrates specific things that we do to harm animals.
There are many people who do not eat animals or wear animal skins (leather). They are called “vegetarians.” There are others who will eat animals, but only when those animals are raised humanely (in clean places with enough room to move around in, with plenty of good food, and few, if any drugs given to them) and slaughtered (killed) without pain, and only when the whole animal is used. When we slaughter a cow, sheep, or pig, we use the whole animal: the slaughtered animal provides food for people and other animals, skin for leather clothes and other goods, even the hooves and bones are made into other things and used for people and other animals.
There are many types of farms and factories that raise animals for slaughter. Many of these animals are kept very close together, so close that they can hurt each other just by moving around. Many are fed foods and drugs to make them grow but that do not make them healthy.
Some animals are raised or hunted just for their skins, bones, shells or internal organs. Some are hunted for meat, but only part of the animal is actually eaten. For example, certain fishermen kill sharks, but just cut off and keep the fin. People kill large snakes and lizards just to get their skin; they don’t eat all that meat. Bears are killed just for their paws and gall bladders.
In the same article previously mentioned, Melissa Kap shows us how people kill animals for resources. She explains the positives and negatives very clearly. Some animals are raised in nice, large fields with lots of room to move and are only fed what they'd naturally eat. Other animals are raised with more industrial tactics, meaning they are kept very close together with little room and are fed supplements to help them grow but doesn't necessarily benefit their health.She explains to us how if an animal is used properly, they can actually end up using the whole animal and leaving none for waste. That, of course, would be the better way to do it but not all people kill with intent to use every part of the animal. Many hunters will just take the best meat and dispose of the rest. Melissa did a very well job of clearly explaining how animals can be used in a good way and how they can be used wrongly or in a bad way.
In my future research I'd like to learn some actual statistics about animals that humans use at an industrial scale.
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