Sunday 14 August 2022: Comment 'below the line' in The Guardian newspaper

Sunday 14 August 2022: 

Comment 'below the line' in The Guardian newspaper 

I rarely write 'below the line' comments regarding articles printed in the online version of The Guardian newspaper. Partly, this is because I am not one of the commenters whose comments are welcomed. When I have written a comment, the comment usually receives few (if any) likes. Sometimes, on contentious issues, my comment attracts the attention of commenters vehemently opposed to what I have written. I never engage in arguments or spats, aware that some of these commenters may be paid trolls whose work is to sow antagonism. "Don't feed the trolls." I have little interest in what they think about an issue. Partly, also, the window of opportunity to comment usually closes after only a few hours, and, before now, I have spent a long time writing and carefully honing a comment only to find, once I am ready to post it, the discussion window has closed. I neither enjoy writing 'on the fly', nor am I competent at doing so. I much prefer to think, to write, to edit, think some more, write some more, and so on. Unless I do so, then I have a tendency to miss out key points, I express ideas clumsily, I realise that what I have written could be taken with a different meaning, perhaps even a contrary meaning (written English can be treacherous), and so on. When I am in a position to write how I prefer, then what I have to say is better balanced, more nuanced, and communicates, more or less, what I intended. Maybe I ought, now, to rewrite this piece, perhaps to illustrate my point. (This I have now done, but not with the purpose of illustration, but simply to communicate both more accurately and with greater precision.)

The text below is the gist of what I wrote in a comment regarding a click-bait piece in The Guardian. My comment attracted no 'likes', but some unpleasantness from commenters who have a visceral dislike of veganism. Although substantively the same, the text is now better written, and better expresses something of the complexity and tension in attempting to live a principled life.    

My family (wife, daughter and I) are vegetarians, and have been so inclined for decades. I have lived as a strict vegan for nearly thirty years. It is a truism to say that there are almost as many types of vegan as there are vegans, an issue I might take up for another post. My veganism is of the whole lifestyle variety. I do not use leather (especially relevant to footwear), silk (ties in particular) or wool (clothing). Floor coverings are tile, vinyl and man-made fibres. Medication and toiletries are animal-free. I go to lengths that many people might consider extraordinary so as to ensure that I avoid animal-derived products. In the garden, I relocate, to a neighbouring field, a great many slugs and snails so that they can no longer much on our lettuces and brassicas. When I am digging, I move earthworms out of harm's way. The other day I rescued a lizard from a bonfire (and, amazingly, saw it again the next day). As the autumn advances and the days and nights become colder, mice come into the house from the garden and surrounding fields, seeking shelter, warmth and food. We use humane, small mammal traps to capture these unhygienic animals, and I can sometimes be found around midnight traipsing up a hill, torch in hand, with the purpose of depositing the unfortunate creature in a wood a quarter of a mile away (mice simply return to the house is they are not transported far enough away).

In some considerable contrast, cats require taurine in their diet, which means that they can never be naturally be vegan. That's just how the universe is. The same applies to lions, tigers and other carnivores. Seals and dolphins did not evolve to graze on seaweed. We have two pet cats. We live in the countryside, surrounded by fields. Both cats hunt. Mostly they catch mice, rabbits, pigeons and occasionally rats. Mostly, they eat what they kill, moles and toads being notable exceptions. I should not be sad were the cats were the cats to catch more mice so that they (the mice) do not make it into the house. There were rats in the house for a while after we first moved in, but the predatory behaviour of the cats seems to have cleared rats from living near the house. The idea of rats in the house still makes my blood run cold.

However, apart from the issue of blood and entrails being left of the floor of the utility room, I am also satisfied that the cats catch and eat wild rabbits Obviously, wild rabbits do not invade the house. Their dispatch is a convenience to me, because the rabbits are a terrible nuisance. They attack my vegetables, gnaw the bark off my many fruit trees, and readily build warrens in which the breed scores more rabbits. The presence in the village of a local horse and hound hunt, and the near complete absence of foxes in the area, may be mere coincidence. However, apart from a family of buzzards, there is little to predate on the rabbits. It cost me £1,700 to have a rabbit-proof fence erected around my allotment garden, which makes the cost of growing beetroot and chard, carrots and brassicas, rather expensive. I bought a humane rabbit trap, but have managed to date to trap only one rabbit and an extremely cross badger. Further, but on a different point, fresh rabbit flesh may be better quality food than the canned food on which I feed the cats twice every day. Indeed, if I knew how to do so (which I do not), I would encourage the cats to catch even more rabbits. However, the cats are sleepy in the summer heat, and so the rabbits often get killed on the road instead, which, from the perspective both of cat nutrition and of their behavioural enrichment, seems like a waste (and can't make much difference to the doomed rabbits).

Despite any amount of netting, on which we have spent a fortune, the pigeons still manage to devastate the brassicas, turning their leaves into green filigree. Again, when there are too many pigeons, they end up as road-kill. If the cats manage to catch the occasional pigeon, they are, unbeknown to themselves, performing a minor service, other than the horrendous riot of feathers, and the entrails, they leave.  

In summary, we keep cats for the reason why cats have lived, symbiotically, among humans for millennia: to prey on vermin, which is part of the natural algorithm of their DNA. If the natural diet of cats included cans of industrially-processed animal parts, then surely they would have evolved claws to open steel cans.    

The boundaries of my veganism lie distant, but they do not involve a total denial of the natural world.