People Eating Animals Isn’t Actually Like Lions Eating Animals
By: Phoenix Huber
Tags: Lifestyle, Vegan, Outdoors, Equality, Environment

People Eating Animals Isn’t Actually Like Lions Eating Animals

What this vegan thinks of lions

Many people feel an uneasiness around the death of animals for meat — it’s not just vegans and vegetarians. I recently read this eloquent story by a proud Greek-Italian meat lover, who still had difficulty watching slaughterhouse footage.

Still, in our culture it’s easy to feel absurd for caring about the death of animals. Eating meat is so normalized, and has been for so long, that most people simply view it as the natural way of the world.

A common argument vegetarians and vegans hear is the ideas that avoiding meat goes against nature. After all, animals eat other animals. Why shouldn’t we? For some reason, when people discuss this, they almost always mention lions. There must be some kind of rule

What do I make of this, as a longtime vegan? Why do I continue to avoid eating animals — despite how ingrained it is not only in human traditions, but in the wide web of wildlife as well?

Whether you’re just trying to understand those who won’t eat meat, or whether you’re seeking reassurance that your feelings of compassion are rational, I hope this article is useful.

Unlike lions, we can choose to eat plant-based

Poor lions. They are constantly getting dragged into our human ethics debates. They just want to stroll the African savanna in peace.

“But what about apes?” might make more sense. Our closest DNA relatives make a slightly closer comparison to human habits. Bonobos and chimpanzees eat mostly plants, but they do also use tools to kill other animals.

Opinions conflict whether all humans can eat completely plant-based, but generally modern society affords incredible advantages to those of us who want to. There’s readily available information on the internet about what to eat and how to stay healthy, and many of us have access to abundant quantities of all kinds of healthy plant foods year round.

I’m grateful that both my biology and privileges let me thrive while harming fewer animals than I might otherwise.

Killing is a part of our nature, but so is compassion

A vegan lifestyle doesn’t necessarily deny that there are violent parts of human nature. It does, however, reflect a preference for the merciful aspects of our nature.

Human empathy is a well-developed aspect of our society and relationships. It’s that empathy which dissuades some people from eating animal products.

Lions on the hunt for antelope, or bigger fishes eating smaller fishes, can make us feel at peace about our human consumption of animals. Yet, nature also offers inspiration for not consuming animals: rabbits, nibbling their grasses and nimbly escaping from predators. The intelligence and strength of a grazing elephant. The way humpback whales protect other animals from orca attacks. Or when a hunting lion displayed a maternal instinct towards a baby wildebeest.

Animals looking out for each other, interspecies friendships, plant-eating… those things are all parts of the circle of life too.

We interfere with the lives of the animals we eat

Wild zebras live free in a healthy environment, doing what zebras do best Some are killed by lions, but not before living a natural life in their habitat, and often starting families of their own.

The vast majority of the land-dwelling animals that we humans eat come from overcrowded, unhealthy conditions. Based on United States Department of Agriculture data, it is estimated that 70% of cows, 98% of pigs and egg chickens, and 99.9% of meat chickens here come from factory farms.

Animals are not just our wild prey anymore. They’re regarded as property. They are bred by the billions, and their entire lives (and even their biological functions) have been redesigned to be efficient for our purposes. And because of this, they suffer — from stress and anxiety, as well as painful physical ailments that result from the unhealthy and unsanitary conditions they are kept in.

Nature isn’t always kind or fair — that’s what civilization is for

I do sometimes feel sad for the prey that are killed by predators, even though those predators must kill to survive. I also feel sad about diseases, accidents, infanticide, starvation, nonconsensual sex, bullying, and other perils of a wild world.

Many animals exhibit behavior that we call altruism, and social reciprocity. There is plenty of joy, friendship, safety, and thriving health that happen in nature too, for which I can feel grateful. But there are no ambulances or medical care, no foster care, no hunger relief efforts, and no legal protection against abuse. Nature is a harsh place compared with the safety and care that we’ve created in modern society.

While being inspired and informed by nature’s wonder, I don’t hope to replicate any violence that my animal neighbors have had to endure or inflict. We can appreciate nature’s beauty while choosing to lead a more peaceful life than the most dominant predators in the ecosystem.

Lions are eco-friendly by default; we have to work at it

Lions aren’t causing global warming. They exist in balance with their prey. By comparison, a United Nations report last year suggested that humans should eat less meat to combat climate change.

Even on a plant-based diet, we kill animals through accidental deaths in plant agriculture, construction, transportation, and other industries. Our pollution hurts animals, as does the depletion of their habitats.

This is not about guilting ourselves. It’s about being honest with ourselves so we can be better neighbors to the animals. Modern civilization has added comfort to human life while taking away the comfort (and homes) of non-human animals.

Personally, I wish to embrace personal responsibility for improving that impact on other creatures, while still enjoying my own life.

I imagine myself in the animals’ position

My last reason why looking at lions only increases my resolve to be vegan? It has to do with the golden rule.

We can have empathy for the nirvana that a lion feels as they accomplish a bloody murder, and share the feast with their kin.

We can also have empathy for the wildebeest who dies in terrible fear and physical agony, which I could never wish upon anyone.

Or even better: Experience empathy for farm animals. I am completely divorced from the particular predator-prey relationship that lions and wildebeest have, or that any natural animals have. That is between them.

What applies to me is my relationship with fish, chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows, and all of the other animals who I could choose to be eating. I always try to put myself in others’ positions. That could be me getting killed and eaten, and I wouldn’t want it to be.

Being as lucky as I am, not eating animals is a choice I make to try and give back to this beautiful circle of life.