Dr. Will Tuttle: Educator & Author
November 20, 2013
Those of us eating a plant-based diet often find our food choices causing more questions and consternation during the upcoming weeks than during the rest of the year. One of the perennial concerns I’ve found people have is that if everyone went vegan, what would happen to all the animals—chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows? If we stopped eating them, wouldn’t they just take over the Earth, threatening our survival?
For years this question irked me because it seemed patently ridiculous, and worse, would be used to justify the cruelty of eating animal foods. Now, though, whenever I hear this question, I see it as an opportunity to deliver a brief meditation on how our world can be healed.
Imagining the world gradually going vegan is imagining the most positive possible future for our species, for the Earth, and for all living beings. First of all, as we reduce the number of animals we are eating, that will send a message to agribusiness to forcefully inseminate fewer female pigs, turkeys, cows, fishes, and other animals, so fewer animals will be imprisoned, and there will be less mutilation, killing, violence, terror, and suffering. It also means there will be lower demand for GMO corn, soy, alfalfa and other feed grains, and thus less deforestation, monocropping, and pollution. As this continues, there will be more food to feed starving people, and also monocropped land can be returned to being critically-needed habitat for wildlife, whose populations are being decimated by the habitat loss caused by grazing livestock and growing feed grains.
As the vegan trend continues, streams will come back and run cleaner. More birds, fish, and other animals will be able to thrive, there will be far less toxic pesticides and fertilizers needed, and the oceans, which we are devastating, will begin to heal. As studies continually demonstrate, livestock production is the main driving force behind global warming, and this also will decrease. In addition, by eating less animal-based foods, people will be healthier physically as they eliminate the toxic fat, cholesterol, and animal protein that drive obesity, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, kidney disease, heart disease, and drug use. People will become healthier emotionally and spiritually, also, as they cause and eat less misery, and our culture, as its level of violence decreases, will become healthier as well.
As forest, rainforest, and prairie communities come back to life, along with riparian and ocean communities, the devastating mass extinction of species that is going on right now will slow down. To raise and slaughter hundreds of millions animals daily for food on this planet, we are forcing hundreds of species of animals and plants into extinction every week. Because of our appetites for a few species of birds, mammals, and fish, we are destroying the Earth’s genetic diversity, and it seems absurd to be unconcerned about these tens of thousands of species, but to care only about the few that we’re eating. In any event, the animals we imprison today for food lived freely in nature for millions of years and could do so again. The animals that we most intensely enslave for food and products, such as turkeys, ducks, geese, chickens, and fish, are all doing just fine in the wild (aside from being hunted and having their habitat destroyed). They would continue to do so, and this is also true for pigs, sheep, and goats, which even today have substantial wild populations. There is no reason to think that the animals we are eating and using wouldn’t be able to return to their natural lives living freely in nature—they already are!
Cows are the only possible question—their progenitors, the aurochs, were forced into extinction in the 1600s, but it is certainly conceivable that cows could be reintroduced into central Asia and Africa where they lived for millions of years, and with time would return to the ecological niche they inhabited before cruel human enslavement tore them from their ancestral homelands.
So, it’s a refreshing question to ponder. It’s remarkably uplifting and heartening to reflect on “what will happen if we all stop eating meat, dairy products, and eggs?” Contemplating this, we see clearly that there’s nothing stopping us from creating a heaven on this beautiful and abundant Earth – nothing except the culturally mandated, deeply-ingrained, and deluded habits of routinely abusing animals for food. Each one of us can question this, and I hope the next time you hear this question, you’ll welcome it enthusiastically!
We can all discuss this question a few times during the holidays, and by doing so, pull back the curtain to reveal the positive future we can create together. There is no action more powerful anyone can take to subvert the dominant paradigm of exploitation and inequality than to shift to a plant-based diet for ethical reasons. By going vegan, and spreading the vegan message creatively, we take the most effective action to create a world where peace, abundance, sustainability, freedom, and universal joy are not just possible but natural.
Exposing the Big Game 
There have been and are successful populations of feral cattle, too, Will.
That’s true, Mary, and bison aren’t that distant a relative, as far as a model of how wild cattle might live.
I often feel bogged down by all the wars, aggression, cruelty, hunting, etc. which are clearly related to eating animals/animal products. A world of vegans seems utopian. But maybe if we have a distinct image of what this world would look like, we can make it real! Thank you for making this image more accessible/tangible.
It was a joyous occasion when the rescue where I volunteer took a group of milk goats from the foreclosed farm of a lady who was very nice to them. The males were neutered and the females didn’t have to produce anymore milk. They were a family happy to be together. The babies were adopted by a children’s petting zoo. I never like to see animals leave, but that makes more room for newcomers.
Reblogged this on Girl for Animal Liberation.
It’s a good question. I think a lot of species rely on humans now to survive, they are domesticated. who would feed them if they were pets? Would they be abandoned and go out and become feral, mix with other kinds of animals from the same species (like I’ve seen domestic and wild geese do), would the cows and pigs be successful and multiply like deer in my county? Feral pigs are fierce and considered a threat in some places around the country, wild rabbits, dogs and cats have been very successful in parts of the world to the point of causing problems to the society – backlash resulted and they become targets and killed indiscriminately. I would love animals to be roaming free and happy and healthy but many scenarios could come out of it. It really does make you wonder what the outcome would be. That being said, better care, better lives for domesticated animals. I am all for that.
Your concerns arise from living in an overcrowded and rapidly growing society. An essential part of any vegan paradigm that considers the welfare of all other species should be a gradual but steady decrease in the human population.
Yes, that’s true, but the trajectory we are on right now doesn’t point to a large decline in population. We are lucky in the U.S. we have still a lot of wide open space. As I mentioned, it’s a really interesting question and subject to consider.
The important thing is no more farmed animals would be forcibly inseminated and fed antibiotics in a feedlot or horribly overcrowded barn for their entire misery-filled lives.
To me the question is what would happen if humans went extinct? This is more likely, and would be a better outcome for all species, than if all humans adopted veganism.
There are far worse things than death–particularly a humane one. Homo sapiens has upset the very biosphere to the core, and native wild animals are now trying to survive in less and less viable, healthy ecosystems. Since there are billions and billions of so-called “food animals” enslaved around the world, and as natural ecosystems continue to decline, we humans will have to take the responsibility of making sure these billions of poor livestock do not suffer anymore. That may mean we have to humanely euthanize many of them. I know it is not a topic many of us want to face, but that may be the very stark reality. We know that as we blog here, millions of enslaved animals are suffering and slowly dying due to the many natural disasters happening because of human-caused climate change. What will happen to these poor animals? There is no longer enough arable, wild habitat available for the native wild species, let alone for the billions of domesticated animals. A choice will have to be made in the near future, as the grids fail, and as more catastrophes happen. Humans have made this mess, and there are simply too many of us, too. In order to perhaps save some of the wild native species of flora and fauna, domesticated animals, both human and non-human will have to decline drastically in number in order for even a portion of the biosphere is to survive at all.
Open Space is really an urban concept. The large areas of public lands in the west are already crowded with humans camping, hiking, snowmobiling, ATVing, hunting, trapping, fishing, mining, drilling, and grazing livestock everywhere. These areas are badly needed for native wild animals, who are finding less and less available intact, undisturbed wild lands where they can live in peace. The National Parks and other official visitor sites on western lands, are now so crowded that one often has to make a “reservation” at least a year in advance. Wild animals needs large, wild places, which have been denuded and taken over by thoughtless, greedy humans.
Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
Because death is common to every living thing…There is enough room on earth for us ALL. Bring it on. Because of the Yulin Dog and cat slaughters this week my heart has been traumatised and terrified all weekend. So, move over and make room for us animals too. love Rosie the cat.