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Ethical question

  • #21
[b said:
Quote[/b] (JustLikeAPill @ Jan. 19 2005,9:17)]oh i hate vegetables..all of them. after a little while you get used to being a herbivore and you dont get cravings anymore.
Oh think I could ever give up meat... especially ham. God I LOVE spiral cut ham! Actually I love pig meat in general. It's all good.
 
  • #22
just about the only meats i like are chicken (turkey too) and sometimes fish.
But I do love veggies
biggrin.gif
some fruit too... but mostly veggies.
 
  • #23
alpha i bet you havent tried many varietys of fruit then. for some reason i hate oranges
 
  • #24
[b said:
Quote[/b] (JustLikeAPill @ Jan. 19 2005,7:17)]oh i hate vegetables..all of them. after a little while you get used to being a herbivore and you dont get cravings anymore.
You make the idea of becoming a vegetarian sound so enticing
smile_n_32.gif
 
  • #25
yeah ... oranges annoy me too. I like orange juice, but the actual orange itself is too much work. you end up all sticky and nasty. lol... at least I do :p
 
  • #26
Back to the original question.

Prehaps you misunderstand the situation. Cps are caring and wonderful plants. Can't you see what is happening!! The drosera and pinguicula a very concerned about the health of the new found friend. Sure he looks a little funny, but they can over look that. They know he needs to eat, but he lack the cunning of a well seasoned hunter so they are catching extra food for him. But alas, they can not get the food to him. Try as they might they can not reach their friend. They call to you, "Help, help". Listen closely!
 
  • #27
Heliamphora are not the best bug catchers in the world...They might have evolved to catch whatever falls into their pitchers(leaves, frog poop from frogs sitting in the pitchers) . They might be a good candidate for a liquid food of some kind. I know one lady from S. Carolina who used to alternate every two weeks with dilute orchid fetilizer in the pitchers, then in the soil.
I must be in a humourless mood today to take such a serious answer apporoach to this question.....
confused.gif


Cheers,

Joe
 
  • #28
MMM BREAD.
I mean beef.
 
  • #29
Vegetarian

- An old Indian word for Bad Hunter
 
  • #30
Is it unethical to take a bug from a Drosera and eat it yourself? And, if the bug's still alive, are you a good hunter or just a common scavenger?
 
  • #31
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Copper @ Jan. 20 2005,6:14)]Vegetarian

- An old Indian word for Bad Hunter
LOL Mind if I use that in my sig Copper?
 
  • #32
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]And, if the bug's still alive, are you a good hunter or just a common scavenger?
If it was already trapped, you're a bad hunter (those are canned hunts!)
:p
 
  • #33
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Copper @ Jan. 20 2005,9:38)]Back to the original question.

Prehaps you misunderstand the situation. Cps are caring and wonderful plants. Can't you see what is happening!! The drosera and pinguicula a very concerned about the health of the new found friend. Sure he looks a little funny, but they can over look that. They know he needs to eat, but he lack the cunning of a well seasoned hunter so they are catching extra food for him. But alas, they can not get the food to him. Try as they might they can not reach their friend. They call to you, "Help, help". Listen closely!
Unless of course you are a cross between a VFT and a butterwort (Audrey 2) Feed me Seymour!
 
  • #34
I think you shouldn't worry about stealing insects from the other plants. Obviously it doesn't want to catch the insects around it. ;)
 
  • #35
Hey, what about male dragonflies that impragnate females while at the same time manage to get the sprevious suitors' sperm removed? I'm sure they are not agonizing over it!
 
  • #36
I do not think the plant will care that much as long as it looks okay
 
  • #37
Personally, I say leave the situation as is, if you feel the need to augment your heliamphor'a growth, do so with a very dilute fertilizer solution. If memory serves (I haven't been to actively keeping my cp knowledge up this last year) heliamphora may be more of a detravour, providing a ideal environment for decay to happen within their pitchers, and possibly mildly helping the situation along, rather than being a carnivore. I tend to think of it as an opportunistic plant, not a carnivore. Another thing to consider, is whether it will handle the insects your sundew catches well? kind of like a VFT getting a nice acidic ant than burns the trap.

I also find the ethics of concern over a plant, or its insect pray interesting, or as someone mentioned, drawing the line at animals with a central nervous system. Where do you draw your ethical line how relative is it?

Example, going off the Vegan not touching an animal with a central nervous system because it can feel pain:

Lets say we have a perfectly nice cow, is never going to be slaughtered or used in a dairy farm, the outside life expectancy for it is around 20 years, throw it in a dairy farm, 4 to 6 years, make it a market animal for beef, 1.5 years. It has a central nervous system, highly developed digestive tract, feels pain, recognizes and cares for it's young, (recognizes it's owner as well (we have some cattle on our ranch) and is generally, while not considered the most intelligent creature in the world, highly developed and complex. However, it is a 100% domesticated animal, it's been bread for thousands of years for purpose specific existence. Let's compare it to two other creatures:

Creature 2, the sea anemone. The sea anemone is not by any means highly developed, it is a corallamorphin, belonging to the cnidarian family (coral also belongs to this family) and does not feel pain, it's stimulous is (in most cases) to react to lighting, and chemical reception, i.e. if it's blastocysts touch food, they strike, and the anemone eats. It has no central nervous system, is made up mostly of water. It's definately not a food animal, but thousands are harvested off reefs every year to supply the aquarium trade. fewer than 5% most likely survive the process of being trans shipped held in various tanks, and eventually being plopped in a tank, fewer than 5% of those probably survive do to lack of knowlege on the aquarists part. What's the big deal? it's a blob of jelly right? right... an immortal one. Sea Anemone's do not age like we do, they simply have no cellular degredation do to their age, there are anemones in the wild believed to be hundreds, if not thousands of years old, size is of no value in determining age, anemones shrink and grow according to the food supply. Is it ok to take an anmial out of the ocean and possibly POSSIBLY end it's existence for the sake of your pleasure in owning it? CP collectors generally don't suffer this moral compunction because most of the plants are captive bred, this is not an option for many reefkeepers. Anemones are certainly not endangered. I have an E. Quadricolor anemone in my reef tank, it's a hardy species that usually survives in aquaria, I also have about 80 aptasia and mojano anemones that are so well adapted that they can become a plauge, much like weeds in the garden I kill them with aplomb, where do I draw my ethical line?

How about another food animal... Octopus and Squid, arguably some of the, if not THE most intelligent animals in the ocean, next to man there is no more highly developed nervous system on the planet. Like dolphins they display rudimentary intelligence, curiousity, pleasure at recognition of their owners (if kept in an aquaria). They typically have only a 1 or 2 year lifespan however. And we eat them as food. Yummy Calamari.

Hows that for an ethical dilema?
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  • #38
Good to see you Ram Puppy.

I'm vegetarian because I think it's pretty wrong to eat something that is basically like you, but with a smaller brain. People love their cats and dogs yet eat pigs and cows. Whether the animal has been kept in a 'utopian' environment for years on a kind farm, it's still dead at the end of the day. And the old argument 'well it wouldn't exist if it wasn't for man, it exists to be eaten' is codswallop to me. People seem to thing we are a way way higher than any 'animal', whereas we're just apes with big brains that have evolved a thing called 'self awareness' which doesn't reach out beyond our own species.

As for the sea creature, sounds kind of like a plant to me. The harvesting of them sounds along the same lines of deforestation of rainforest to me.
 
  • #39
anemones are far more complex than plants, (i assume your not talking about cephelapods (squid and octopi)) they are mobile, contain stinging cells, but, most do exist in a stunning symbiotic relationship with not only algae, but bacteria as well.

My poing about a cow living on a farm for 20 years wasn't to show that it lived a nice life and died, but to say that is the potential life span. I am not trying make vegan and vegitarians carnivores or viceversa, I am having fun muddying the ethical questionability of where we each choose to draw the line. I for instance, have no problem feasting on a gorgeous black angus Prime Filet MIngion, (I do have a problem with veal). I personally don't see cows or for that matter, any animal as being 'like us' I don't consider man to be 'just an animal' I see humankind as being slightly more special than that, but I will freely admit that falls into my religious beliefs and that is totally off topic.
 
  • #40
anemones have a primitive nerve net, like starfish. you dont need a central nervous system to have nerve cells.

i dont care what you do with them though
smile.gif
 
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