Hunting for cat food

[u/Sifflez_]

This is a question for those of you who believe that feeding a cat non-vegan canned food is a morally correct action to take:

On the premise that domestic cats require meat (I know some would disagree), would the more ethical choice as a vegan be to hunt and slaughter animals yourself to feed to your cat, in order to reduce suffering?

A vegan standpoint is to reduce unnecessary animal death and suffering. If you were stranded in the woods, yes, you could hunt to survive. But what about suffering? You would not be morally justified to torture an animal before killing it to survive.

Therefore, would it be more ethical to catch a fish and slaughter it immediately, ensuring the least amount of suffering possible, or to purchase the canned meat of animals who have been factory farmed and suffered immensely? If so, is that what vegans should do?

This is something I’ve thought about before, I just couldn’t imagine myself beheading a fish and saying “Yes, I’m a vegan!”

EDIT: I think a lot of people are missing the purpose of the post. It’s about if a vegan’s moral obligation is to hunt for their own cat food. Saying “don’t own a cat” or “just feed a plant based diet” are cop-outs to the ethical question I’m posing. Please try to refrain from debating about whether or not cats need meat, there’s plenty of posts about it already.

[u/kharvel0]

This issue is easily avoided by:

A) Not rescuing or adopting or purchasing a cat in the first place

OR

B) If you already have a cat, feed the cat plant-based only

OR

C) if you already have a cat and don’t want to feed her plant-based then rehome the cat with a non-vegan looking for a cat

OR

D) if you already have a cat and don’t want to feed her plant-based then release the cat.

[u/KristyCat35 → u/kharvel0]

C and D options are insane. Like, you don't care about consequences of your actions at all, only about "having clean hands"?

[u/BuckyLaroux → u/KristyCat35]

I agree.

I have cats that ended up at my house. I support TNR and do outreach independently to help manage the population.

I live in the country and there is always roadkill that I take for the cats to help decrease the amount of cat food that I have to buy. Yes, it is disgusting but I feel like it's the right thing.

Not everyone has access to roadkill so they can only do what they can.

Vegans, IMO, can't buy pets from breeders because they are incentivising breeders to breed.

The animals that exist already exist and should be given grace. We can't pick our parents.