unknownk- Are you a vegetarian? I'm not opposed if that's your choice but just trying to frame your issue in a larger context.
So for you it appears that it boils down to margins of return, right? So, if my coon average was at $50 a piece it wouldn't bother you as much than just ten bucks?? Do you begrudge farmers for low margins on return when specific livestock markets are in the crapper?? One of my friends wanted to be a pig & hog farmer and worked for an animal vet who had such an operation on the side. Tim took over the hog raising about the time the 1996 "Freedom to Farm" farm bill got signed. For whatever reason, too much manipulated supply, too little demand the price of live weight slaughter hogs (220-240 target weights) fell to ridiculously low numbers in the winter of 1997/1998 or so such as 9 cents on the pound, so Tim only got about $25 when he sold each of his hogs. Suffice to say, he didn't last too long on his own.
But that's right, someone got to eat that pork and not just use its leather to make footballs or its heart values maybe in human open-heart operations so its also the matter of not using enough of the animal to justify its death is part of the equation. How do you know I don't eat raccoon, at least once in a while?? If done right, getting all the fat off of it before finishing its cooking and avoid eating any fat within the muscle meat, the back leg tastes a lot like a combo of lamb and pork. I also clean up various animal's skulls and teeth and sell them, although I don't ask people anymore what they do with them. So they get a bit more used than just for their fur.
But then again, as I explained a while back, I'm part of the overall management system for wildlife that thrive in my altered ecosystem. Before Euro-American settlement in South Dakota there were very few raccoons and now they're everywhere because they like "edge" habitat such as crop fields, planted tree shelter belts, stock dams, etc. etc. much more than they did the old tall-grass prairie. Most animals have apex predators above them and people in most places are the apex predator to raccoons. Whether we kill coons with our vehicles or my traps (either lethal sets or with a quick .22 shot after I show up), people will keep on killing these animals. Its a cycle of life that most critters endure.
Bookmarks