The rise of the Militant Vegan

[kenneal - lagger]

I was listening to the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 as I was, ironically driving home with some animal feed from my supplier. They were talking about the rise of Militant Veganism and had a vegan crackpot ranting, and I do mean ranting given the volume and raised tone of voice, about "murdering animals" and "blood and fear and shit in the slaughter house" and taking "reluctant animals to their death."

He would have been banned for inflammatory speech and could possibly been prosecuted if talking in that way about some other subject. I would imagine that his way of ranting, I won't give it the benefit of saying speaking or conversing, is the same way that people are converted to Militant Islam.

He, and many of the other vegan respondents were against the killing of any animals. How they think we would be able to grow enough food for the human population if we didn't control the numbers of pest species, such as mice, rats, deer and grey squirrels, I don't know.

I am also pretty sure that a deer or a squirrel would far rather be shot than hunted down by a predator and have its throat ripped open or be killed in a strangle hold which is the way most big cats kill their prey in nature.

They are living in an era of easy living where food is plentiful, they can get a complete diet all year round from imported foodstuffs and they just don't recognise what a privileged and precarious life they lead. It is only this privileged and precarious life that enables them to opt for a vegan diet and with global warming and the tremendous changes that that will mean for food availability that diet won't be available for much longer.

With the demise of gas based fertilizers animal manure will again become a vital part of building soil fertility again and if we don't eat the animals used we will be losing a massive source of nutrients available in the food growing system.

I do recognise that we now eat more meat than is good for us but that will be taken care of as fossil fuels are removed from use because grain fed meat will become increasingly expensive as will grain itself. Indeed all food will become more expensive as more human labour replaces oil in the growing process.

Such ignorance of life and nature!!

[woodburner]

I think vegans are naive, (and I know some really nice vegans) as I don’t see how they can avoid nutrient deficiencies on a vegan diet unless they take supplements. B12 is a major one which can easily be obtained from cheese, Swiss and French unpasteurised particularly. But then you need animals.

When they get to the level of your ranter, that is probably caused by a B3 deficiency. If not that then he is deficient in something. He also has a poor case as the only thing he can offer as an argument is violence. Hardly an indication of confidence in his position.

[adam2]

I recall an incident of a militant vegetarian teacher in Wales.
They lectured a class of rural kids along the lines of "meat is murder" and you could not "kill an animal after seeing its loving trusting face"

A friends child remarked that there was nothing loving or trusting about a particular ill tempered boar, and that they were glad when dad killed it with the gun.
This horrified the teacher who left the room and called the police to "a firearms incident, with children present"

The police armed response unit were somewhat perplexed to find a peaceful farm, with several lawfully held shotguns.

The teacher later complained that nothing had been done ! Not certain what she expected to be done about lawfully held and correctly used shotguns on a farm ?

And that was a vegetarian ! I think that vegans may be more militant.

[vtsnowedin]

I recall an incident of a militant vegetarian teacher in Wales.
They lectured a class of rural kids along the lines of "meat is murder" and you could not "kill an animal after seeing its loving trusting face"

A friends child remarked that there was nothing loving or trusting about a particular ill tempered boar, and that they were glad when dad killed it with the gun.
This horrified the teacher who left the room and called the police to "a firearms incident, with children present"

The police armed response unit were somewhat perplexed to find a peaceful farm, with several lawfully held shotguns.

The teacher later complained that nothing had been done ! Not certain what she expected to be done about lawfully held and correctly used shotguns on a farm ?

And that was a vegetarian ! I think that vegans may be more militant.

And yet the people in Wales are letting this person teach their children.

[woodburner]

Wild boar are indeed dangerous, they are technically out of control, as no controls can be implemented as Defra refuse to acknolowledge their presence, thus no cull can be organised.

The other problem is it needs a big bullet to stop a wild boar, the size used for deer (0.22) are not adequate, and a shot gun will just annoy a fullgrown boar, they just let the boar know someone has shot them and where they are. It is also a very different matter shooting a boar as there are few places to place a kill shot, compared with deer.

I know someone who shot a wild boar, in France, in a school playground, with the approval and appreciation from the police. I wonder how the Welsh teacher would suggest to a boar in the same circumstances that it must go back into the woods to play.

[adam2]

The episode to which I refer did not involve wild boar. It was a male domestic pig that became exceedingly aggressive and chased one of the kids INDOORS which is most unusual behaviour.

The father killed the pig in the bathroom with a shotgun before it could do any more harm, it had already badly bitten the kid.
Use of a shotgun in the bathroom is rather damaging to the surroundings, but unavoidable in the circumstances.

A pet dog had disappeared without trace, a few days earlier and although its fate is unknown, there was in retrospect a suspicion that the pig had killed and eaten the dog.

[vtsnowedin]

Domestic pigs are not that far removed mentally from their wild cousins with much of the boars thinking being driven by testosterone. 12 Gauge Foster slugs or OO buckshot is the answer to you restricted from owning a rifle.
Most deer rifles are caliber .243 to .458 with .308 being the odds on favorite and very good hog medicine.

[kenneal - lagger]

... the size used for deer (0.22) ...

It is illegal to kill a deer with a .22 in the UK. The 22 uses subsonic ammunition while supersonic ammunition is required for a small bullet. The minimum size for deer shooting is a .223. Although it might seem to be only fractionally larger than a 22, the bullet is longer and much heavier and the cartridge, the bit which holds the propellant, is possibly ten times the volume of a 22 cartridge being of considerably larger diameter, 2 to 3 times, and longer again 2 to 3 times.

I have shot a boar pig with a shotgun in the past. It chased me into the house after it had pushed me forwards with a feed bucket over its head and over the electric fence. A pig usually backs off if you put a bucket over its head. I had then fended it off with a pitch fork but it backed me up against a wall and pushed the tines of the fork into its shoulder making it even more annoyed with me!. I had let go of the fork and run to the house with the boar following. I hopped up the four wooden steps into the front door leaving the pig waiting outside for me at the bottom of the steps. I got the shotgun loaded with no6 shot, bird shot, all I had, and shot it in the head from about six feet. It made a hole about an inch diameter and dropped the pig instantly. It wasn't messy at all. I then had a rush to cut the pig up before the blood congealed as I didn't have anything at the time to hang it up with or from. It was the only time that I encountered aggressive behaviour from my pigs.

[kenneal - lagger]

When I kept pigs I was often asked "How can you kill those lovely little piglets?" My answer was, "They aren't lovely little piglets when you kill them, they're adolescent hooligans and I'm usually glad to see the back of them by then!" It usually caused a raised eyebrow followed by a wry smile.

[kenneal - lagger]

....The teacher later complained that nothing had been done! Not certain what she expected to be done about lawfully held and correctly used shotguns on a farm? ...

The police should have prosecuted her for wasting police time or at least given her a formal warning.

And yes, VT, why was she still teaching kids at all let alone in a rural area. The governers should have sent her off for retraining.

[adam2]

The teacher was given "words of advice" by the police.

[kenneal - lagger]

I know there are people who have lived on a vegan diet for thousands of years but, as far as I know, they live in the tropics where it is possible to grow three or four crops a year from the same bit of land so fresh food is always available and a wider range of vegetable crops are also available.

In northern climes, where it is necessary to store food for winter, meat and dairy, both stored and fresh, are an essential for a balanced diet. Yes, we can store vegetable food using refrigeration and import food from the tropics at the moment but this moment isn't a good time to rely on electrical energy and long distance transport as they are provided by our complex society. And that is a society which won't be in existence for too long.

Perhaps I should encourage people onto a vegan diet because come the crash they will die off quickly and leave more space for the rest of us and wildlife.

[Mr. Fox]

Two books I can heartily recommend on this subject (for vegans, vegetarians and everyone else):

Lierre Keith's "The Vegetarian Myth" (extract here)

And Simon Fairlie's "Meat: A Benign Extravagance"...

...the latter being the book that caused George Monbiot to completely change his position on veganism.

(or maybe I just love bacon sarnies too much? )

[woodburner]

I read Lierre Keith’s book a while back, and from reading the linked articles I must get Simon Fairlie’s book and read that.

[vtsnowedin]

... the size used for deer (0.22) ...

It is illegal to kill a deer with a .22 in the UK. The 22 uses subsonic ammunition while supersonic ammunition is required for a small bullet. The minimum size for deer shooting is a .223. Although it might seem to be only fractionally larger than a 22, the bullet is longer and much heavier and the cartridge, the bit which holds the propellant, is possibly ten times the volume of a 22 cartridge being of considerably larger diameter, 2 to 3 times, and longer again 2 to 3 times.

I have shot a boar pig with a shotgun in the past. It chased me into the house after it had pushed me forwards with a feed bucket over its head and over the electric fence. A pig usually backs off if you put a bucket over its head. I had then fended it off with a pitch fork but it backed me up against a wall and pushed the tines of the fork into its shoulder making it even more annoyed with me!. I had let go of the fork and run to the house with the boar following. I hopped up the four wooden steps into the front door leaving the pig waiting outside for me at the bottom of the steps. I got the shotgun loaded with no6 shot, bird shot, all I had, and shot it in the head from about six feet. It made a hole about an inch diameter and dropped the pig instantly. It wasn't messy at all. I then had a rush to cut the pig up before the blood congealed as I didn't have anything at the time to hang it up with or from. It was the only time that I encountered aggressive behaviour from my pigs.

I would say that once is enough. Brian shot you can immediately slit the throat and the jugular artery as the heart not having got the message will beat enough times to fully bleed out the animal even lying down. But not letting the boars get too old or big before sausage day is probably the best policy.