October 29, 2012 4:52 pm
Guilt-Free Meat-Eating Strategy: Hunt Invasive Species
Invasive nutria in the Southern U.S. Photo: USFWS
For many vegetarians, the decision to give up animal flesh stems from environmental or ethical concerns. But some former vegetarians are calling for a win-win solution that skips the methane emissions and animal cruelty while bolstering environmental management: eating pesky invasive species.
Just think of the possibilities: iguanas and pythons in Florida, lionfish off the Atlantic Coast or rat-like nutria in the Deep South. While gaining a savory snack packed with protein, consumers of invasive species can take solace in the fact that they’re helping to remove an unwanted animal from the ecosystem.
Grist’s Enrique Gili conducted a Q&A with Jackson Landers, a former vegetarian and a hunter who just published the book, Eating Animals: One Man’s Adventures Hunting Invasive Animal Species. Here are some highlights from Landers’ responses:
There are so many people right now who have meat-eater’s remorse — people who eat meat and feel kind of bad about it, but they’re not actually going to stop. Or they’re vegetarians and their bodies actually crave meat.
The beautiful thing about hunting, especially invasive species, is it’s a way of dropping out of the mainstream meat paradigm, where so many of the ethical and health problems associated with eating meat arise.
Though Landers says none of the animals he ate while gathering material for his book tasted bad, he does admit that nine-banded armadillos “have a funk to them.”
“I have this scent memory of stinky armadillo belly that’s going to haunt me,” he told Grist. “But I don’t think that should prevent people from eating armadillos that other people have hunted.”
More from Smithsonian.com:
Eating Invasive Species to Stop Them?
Are Humans an Invasive Species?
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Interesting article. I’m a vegetarian myself, but I’ve always felt like hunting and raising one’s own eggs or beef or whatever were much more defensible than the typical store-bought consumption. Controlling invasive species only adds to the ecological value that hunting brings to the ethical and environmental questions surrounding meat consumption.
This quote, however, seems to reflect a common misunderstanding about vegetarian diets:
“Or they’re vegetarians and their bodies actually crave meat.”
Vegetarians aren’t generally lacking protein or any other nutrients — our bodies don’t crave meat. The American Dietetic Association’s position is that vegan/vegetarian diets are perfectly healthy, and generally superior to diets that contain meat to any significant degree.
Comment by Johnson — October 30, 2012 @ 2:59 pm
im no vegetarian, but i could care less about meat its gross really. your eating a dead decaying body something like yourself was living and breathing.
all this talk about evolveing, and the last scull i saw that was claimed to be millions of years old and from a human had a set of teeth that couldnt possibly chew meat, [or in my opinion been human]
Comment by tam — December 8, 2012 @ 9:28 am
So, by this logic it’s alright for me to start eating people? Our ability to live in any environment is more devastatingly invasive than any other animal. And, according to the article, killing “wild” people is not cruel or inhumane, so, win-win.
Advocating the hunting of specific animals has devastating effects when a group of hunters concentrates it’s efforts on a specific species – the grey wolf population is recovering but the carrier pigeon will not.
“Vegetarians” who would eat any animal for any reason simply are not vegetarians, and shouldn’t be labelled as such.
Comment by Desiree — December 13, 2012 @ 12:20 pm