Endangered or domesticated

It’s true that the animals we eat are unlikely to go extinct because we eat them, but it’s only part of the story.

Domesticated species such as cattle, chickens, and pigs exist in huge numbers because humans actively breed them. Their survival is tied to their economic value. As long as people want the products they provide, humans maintain their populations. This is why there are about 34 billion chickens, roughly 1.5 billion cattle, and about 1 billion pigs.

They are among the most numerous large animals on Earth because humans created an ecological niche for them. They are not endangered, and we don’t let livestock go extinct because we rely on them.

It’s an interesting question to ask why are top predators endangered? Animals such as wolves, lions, tigers and sharks, face extinction not only because we don’t eat them, but because they compete with us. Predators kill livestock and game species, or are seen as threats to human safety. Historically we’ve exterminated them intentionally.

It’s also generally true that they require large territories. Large carnivores need vast, intact ecosystems. Habitat loss is devastating for them. And they reproduce slowly. Compared with prey animals or domesticated species, predators have fewer offspring, with longer intervals between births, and longer maturation times. This makes population recovery slow and extinction risk high.

Unlike livestock, no-one has an incentive to breed lions or sharks at global scale. Tourism brings some value, but nowhere near the consistent economic demand that farming creates.

Species humans depend on for food, fibre, or labour, become economically protected, often to the point of overabundance. In that narrow economic sense, being edible can be a kind of protection.

Predators are endangered not just because they are not food we eat, but also because they threaten or compete with humans, are ecologically slow to recover, and need more space than most modern landscapes allow,

Other things being equal, there are no strong economic incentives for their conservation. We preserve those we find useful, and top predators usually don’t fit that category. Livestock thrive because humans actively breed them.

Predators decline because humans actively remove them and destroy their habitats.

We can, and do, pursue active conservation measures, maintaining game farms and organizing safaris to watch them in the wild, but this is tiny. Those who campaign against the exploitation of animals should be aware that most of those we exploit are only plentiful because we exploit them. Yes, we should do that humanely, but if we didn’t do it at all, they wouldn’t be there

Madsen Pirie