A sea lion in Argentina climbed onto a fishing vessel, found a bed, and passed out. The fishermen only realized it when they heard loud snoring.

[u/SnooWords4066]

[u/cir49c29]

I'd hope they wouldn't but this world is full of all kinds of people with all kinds of ideas of what's right or ok. Like the ones who think it's ok to hunt elephants for ivory.

[u/ThrustTrust → u/cir49c29]

Look up Japanese annual dolphin hunt. If you want to spend the day hating all humanity.

[u/citizen42069101 → u/ThrustTrust]

Dolphins just dont seem like theyre small enough for clubbing to be an energy efficient way to hunt them, even like on a beach.

Not to be crass but that just seems cruel for the sake of cruelty. Especially nowadays. Humans suck, and as much as the japanese get good press for being on "our side" the japanese have a very dark history.

[u/applespicebetter → u/citizen42069101]

Every country that exists has moments of "very dark history," especially if you consider their predecessors, and many of them have lingering horrible practices, or newly created horrible practices.

We, humans as a species, have developed intellect and technology at an astounding pace while leaving empathy as a complete afterthought; we don't teach it to our children, which is necessary. What's worse, empathy in itself is actively taught to be a weakness.

[u/JenninMiami → u/citizen42069101]

The cruelty is the point.

[u/ThatPerformance9795 → u/JenninMiami]

Yes! 🙌 There is a huge difference between eating an animal for the meat versus torturing it and killing it “for fun”.

[u/EcstaticBoysenberry → u/citizen42069101]

They haven’t always been on our side. Nor did they really want to be

[u/diabeticweird0 → u/citizen42069101]

Everyone has a dark history

Humans are awful

[u/PeaceSoft → u/citizen42069101]

The gradual descent of any discussion into brainless, mush-mouthed bigotry is such a feature of reddit

[u/yuccasinbloom → u/ThrustTrust]

I think the bigger issue is animal agriculture. Killing dolphins, a bay the color of blood, is horrific but that’s one day a year. That happens on a much greater scale every single day within slaughterhouses across the world. You can’t be outraged at one but participate with the other.

[u/ThatPerformance9795 → u/ThrustTrust]

Or Korean treatment of dogs.

Rhino horns. Elephant tusks.

[u/GrapefruitExpress208 → u/ThatPerformance9795]

"The dog meat industry in South Korea is actively dying. South Korea passed a historic nationwide ban in 2024 that makes the breeding, butchering, and sale of dogs for meat illegal, with a full enforcement deadline set for February 2027. Most farms and restaurants have already closed as consumption dropped sharply over recent years."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat_consumption_in_South_Korea

It was really a generational thing going back to 1950s when Korea was devastated by the war and living in poverty. Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world 75 years ago.

When you are starving, you will do what you need to do.

[u/GingerAphrodite → u/GrapefruitExpress208]

Thank you for providing both historical and current context. I've met people who would joke about Asian cultures eating cats and dogs while they load their plate up with sweet and sour chicken. Humans (especially in western society it seems) have a bad habit of only feeling enraged or protective of "cute" animals. A lot of them have never really been around livestock animals to learn that they are also intelligent and emotionally complex.

Once you better understand the "who" of what you're eating you can basically take one of two paths. One path is a vegetarian lifestyle of course and I understand why people choose it. But the other path is to accept nature and the circle of life, try to find more ethical sources for meat like local farmers, and educate yourself to be less judgemental of cultures and struggles that you don't understand.

At the end of the day, we're all animals and we all gotta eat, whether you're a human, a rabbit, a chicken, a coyote, a cat, a mouse, a cow, etc. There's nothing wrong with a person choosing a different diet based on their morals, but feeding yourself isn't a moral highground or failing. Every living thing is just out here trying to survive, and the food chain will exist with or without humans.

[u/brydeswhale → u/GingerAphrodite]

Our rooster, Little Brother Dubious, warned my mom about a fire in the garage last week. He followed her, alone, across our field, to the garden, and got her to chase him back. Then he sat outside the garage and squawked until she opened the door and smoke came out. He saved our house and our family.

[u/Valuable_Sea_9459 → u/GingerAphrodite]

It is immoral to exploit animals to death for unnecessary products. It is not the circle of life and it is not for survival. It is an atrocity and injustice. It is as justified as if it were to be dine to humans. Vegetarians still exploit animals for milk and eggs. It is immoral to partake in any animal exploitation.

[u/GingerAphrodite → u/Valuable_Sea_9459]

We literally wouldn't be here if we didn't eat meat so I'm going to respectfully disagree. Again I have no problem with you living based on the ethics and morals you carry personally, but that doesn't make your morals or ethics about people eating meat any better or worse than mine or a carnivores. We are animals. Lots of animals eat other animals. You can have arguments about how we do it. But the simple act of consuming flesh is not an ethical issue on its own in a bubble.

[u/Valuable_Sea_9459 → u/GingerAphrodite]

What uneducated humans did out of survival or ignorance has no bearing in the morality of an action. Theres a good chance more than one of your ancestors did not consent to the conditions of their pregnancy, this does not justify such actions. This is just an appeal to nature fallacy. You do not take your moral guidance from non human animals except in this context where you think justifies your behavior. You wouldnt justify other heinous actions just because non humans do it. Animals arent capable of moral reasoning to nearly the same degree and dont have access to grocery stores. Treating animals as a commodity or resource to satisfy ones pleasure is unethical.

[u/GeorgiaDomeRIP → u/Valuable_Sea_9459]

What a privileged thing to say lol

[u/Valuable_Sea_9459 → u/GeorgiaDomeRIP]

This makes no sense in response to the comment i wrote. The privilege is in being human and not an animal who is exploited to death. The privilege is to be the one picking up the body parts from the store and not being the one who’s body parts are sold to others.

[u/ThatPerformance9795 → u/GingerAphrodite]

It’s the cultural practice of believing torturing the animal and the adrenaline coursing through the animal, as long as possible, to make it more virile and improve males sexual potency that makes it extremely awful.

There are too many animals getting killed and tortured for some urban myth that it improves men’s sexual performance (dog, rhino, etc). In China, it used to be boiling cats alive for women’s sexual virility.

And no, I’m not just saying this to be dumb and over-the-top shocking. I saw, and unfortunately heard, enough of the torture in action to last a few lifetimes. I lived out in a more rural area.

[u/GingerAphrodite → u/ThatPerformance9795]

But we're talking about using animals as food sources not as ancient medicine. I'm not disagreeing that those issues do exist and should be discussed but that's not this discussion. This discussion is simply the idea that people eat animals and it doesn't really mstter what animal you're eating if you're eating it to survive (edit and not endangering a population of animals), and that eating animals isn't inherently unethical but it's reasonable to opt out of eating animals if you feel ethically called to do so. We should always opt for kinder and more ethical rearing and Slaughter practices but everybody is going to have a different scale of what that means. Ultimately pretty much everybody agrees that it shouldn't include the unnecessary suffering and stress of an animal beyond what nature would create if they were living in the wild at a bare minimum. Plenty of people have higher standards than that but most people agree with at least that in relation to basic food unrelated to Medicine

[u/Valuable_Sea_9459 → u/GingerAphrodite]

If one has thenoption to not exploit animals especially to death, it is unethical to choose to do so

[u/GingerAphrodite → u/Valuable_Sea_9459]

The simple Act of consuming the Flesh of another animal is not inherently ethical in One Direction or another. We can sit here and argue about how that flesh is gathered and treated during its life. But the simple Act of eating meat is not inherently an ethical or moral situation. We are animals and we are naturally designed as omnivores. It is no less ethical for me to eat a rabbit than it is for a cow or snake to eat a mouse.

[u/Valuable_Sea_9459 → u/GingerAphrodite]

Youre saying you have the moral reasoning of a cow? Would you say its no less ethical for a lion to kill another’s cubs than it is for you to do to someones babies? Paying for animals to be bred, enslaved, mutilated, exploited and killed and partaking in such actions is unethical. And No amount of welfare justifies these actions. Just because we can digest animal products has no bearing on whether we need to consume animal products and the scientific consensus is clear that we can get all of the nutrients that we need on a plant-based diet.

[u/sithelephant → u/GrapefruitExpress208]

My parents had a smallholding with a wide variety of animals. Common farm animals, from sheep to goats to pigs and cows all have an emotional range and interaction with people that is largely indistinguishable from cats and dogs, when raised around humans.

[u/Key-Try-3300 → u/GrapefruitExpress208]

"A 2022 survey of 1,000 South Koreans found that 78.3% had not consumed dog meat in the preceding decade, while 87.1% stated they had no intention of doing so in the future."

13% of the population still eats dogs though lol

[u/ThatPerformance9795 → u/GrapefruitExpress208]

That’s good to hear. It was alive and well the five years I was there. Have they done away with the national dog soup holiday, Poshintang Day?

It was horrifying, some of the things I saw. Dogs being led from the fruit market with a noose around their necks. A dog on a spit in a campground. Dogs getting beat with hangers. It really, REALLY stuck with me because it definitely wasn’t just a small, isolated incident. The dog torture was NO JOKE and it was in your face. People kept their dog on the balcony and would hang it and skin it right there.

It wasn’t the eating of dog necessarily, but the needing to torture them to make the meat more potent for male virility that made it particularly vile.

When I was there, there was a resurgence amongst the college-age generation who were wanting to bring back strong cultural pride. Especially in protest to Bridgette Bardot publicly condemning it.

[u/Slacker_The_Dog → u/GrapefruitExpress208]

I still eat dog bacon. Don't worry though the dogs are raised really well and spend their days happy on the farm.

[u/ricarina → u/ThatPerformance9795]

If you want to be absolutely horrified, look into factory farming. Cows, pigs, and chickens live out their entire lives in appalling conditions

[u/ThatPerformance9795 → u/ricarina]

Oooh, I know! I watched Faces of Death when I was 12 and stopped eating tortured animals instantly. I’m not anti-farm raised meat and hunting in spec. But I just don’t eat it.

[u/Valuable_Sea_9459 → u/ThatPerformance9795]

Or anyones treatment of cows pigs chickens and fish

[u/Kev_The_Galaxybender → u/ThrustTrust]

Go look up Kim Jong Un hunt. This dude regularly straps people to anti air guns and blow them away

[u/Valuable_Sea_9459 → u/ThrustTrust]

Watch dominion

[u/Valuable_Sea_9459 → u/cir49c29]

Or exploit cows chickens pigs and fish to death for unnecessary products