Agenda for a New America
Part One
The Politics of Vegetarianism
By Vasu Murti
Chapter 14 - Environmental Extinction

Significant environmental damage results from livestock agriculture,
often driving many other species into extinction. The existence of
dodo birds was first recorded in the early 1500s by Portuguese
Sailors. The dodo, which weighed about 50 pounds, was incapable of
defending itself and could not flee from its enemies, since it lacked
the ability to fly. Large numbers of these birds were killed by human
beings for food. Additionally, pigs that were brought to the islands
destroyed a significant portion of the dodos' eggs, creating a severe
decline in the dode population. The species became extinct by the 18th
century.

The Steller's sea cow once inhabited the coastal waters of the
Commander Islands in the Bering Sea. Russian Sealers, who were the
first to record the existence of these creatures in 1741, estimated
the entire population to be about 5,000. Their meat was considered a
delicacy by Russian sealers, who decimated the entire species by 1768
..

The Labrador duck has been extinct since 1875. This species formerly
inhabited the coastal regions of northeastern Canada. The extinction
of the passenger pigeon was caused by the American westward expansion
in the second half of the 19th century. As passenger pigeons became a
popular food item, the numbers of this species rapidly diminished.
Millions were slaughtered each year and shipped by railway cars to be
sold in city markets. Another bird to become extinct because of its
use as food was the heath her, which became extinct about 1932.

The pacific sardine lives along the coasts of North America from
Alaska to southern California. Sardines, once a major part of the
California fishing industry, are now considered to be "commercially
extinct." Another species classified as "commercially extinct" is the
New England haddock. Ecologists have also been concerned about the
significant reduction in finfish, the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Lake Erie
cisco, and blackfins that inhabit Lakes Huron and Michigan.

More than 200,000 porpoises are killed every year by fishermen seeking
tuna in the Pacific. Sea turtles are similarly killed in Caribbean
shrimp operations. Some animals are killed because, as carnivores,
they compete with the human predator for the right to kill other
animals for food, including wild game and domesticated species raised
by livestock ranchers. Alaskan hunters are eager to reduce the wolf
population in their state because this animal is a predator of moose.

Cougars, coyotes and wolves are considered a menace to the cattle and
sheep industries, and livestock ranchers have engaged in a large-scale
campaign to exterminate them. Two species of wolves are now
endangered, and very few wolves can be found in the United States
except in Alaska and northeastern Minnesota. The relatively small
number of eagles in the U.S. is largely due to the destruction of this
species by livestock ranchers, particularly those in the sheep
business.

Herbivorous animals that inhabit rangeland areas are also killed by
the livestock industry because they compete with cattle arid sheep for
food. Large numbers of kangaroos are being exterminated in Australia,
while in the United States livestock ranchers seek to destroy wild
horses, wild burros, deer, elk, antelope and prairie dogs.

An ever-increasing amount of beef eaten in the United States is
imported from Central and South America. To provide pasture for
cattle, these countries have been clearing their priceless tropical
rainforests. In 1960, when the U. S. first began to import beef,
Central America was blessed with 130,000 square miles of rainforest.
But now, less than 80,000 square miles remain. At this rate, the
entire tropical rainforests of Central America will be gone in another
forty years.

These tropical rainforests are among the world's most precious natural
resources. Amounting to only 30 percent of the world's forests, the
rainforests contain 80 percent of the earth's land vegetation, and
account for a substantial percentage of the earth's oxygen supplies.
These forests are the oldest ecosystems on earth and have developed
extreme ecological richness. Half of all species on earth live in the
moist tropical rainforests. But these jewels of nature are being
rapidly destroyed to provide land on which cattle can be grazed for
the American fast-food market.

The current rate of species extinction is 1,000 species a year, and
most of that is due to the destruction of rainforests and related
habitats in the tropics.

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"Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our
technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics. We plow
under habitats of other animals to grow hybrid corn that fattens our
genetically engineered animals for slaughter. We make free species
extinct and domesticate species into biomachines. We build cruelty
into our diet." -- Jim Mason