Animal Suffering and Human Suffering

[Maria]

To those who speak of souls, does that go just for mammals? Fish and insects? Are you suggesting that mosquitoes have souls? Mice? Amoeba?

I've read theories that say that the lesser the organism, the more likely it is that a single soul controls a group of those organisms. One soul controls one or two people, or ten or twenty cats, but can control a billion mosquitoes. It's a matter of the amount of attention required to run that organism. If most of the behavior is hardwired (so to speak) then it doesn't take much attention to run that creature- so they get to run large numbers of them.

To those of you who believe human life and insect life are of equal value, do you swat mosquitoes? What is the justification? Do you swat your neighbors to death when they annoy you? Why not?

I don't believe that human and insect life are of equal value- but I don't unnecessarily destroy insect life, either. If a blood sucking insect is attacking me, I will kill it if no other means of dissuasion works, exactly like my body does with invading bacteria or viruses automatically. I kill them without thinking about it, and have almost the same reaction to mosquitos and ticks. If the group soul theory is right, then you aren't killing all the entities that THAT soul is controlling, anyway.

Last summer, I needed to move a pile of old boards and tires from where they were, and my husband couldn't help because wasps were living in them. (He's deathly allergic!) He wanted to go get some wasp killer spray and kill them all, but I told him it wasn't necessary. I moved those tires one by one, and as the wasps buzzed around me, I strongly envisioned them flying off and making new homes elsewhere. I didn't hurt them, they didn't hurt me, even though I was destroying their homes. I didn't try to explain what I was doing or apologize or anything... I just pictured them flying off and they did. Insects are very suggestible. There was no need to kill them.

Just yesterday I saw a roach in my bathroom while I was using the toilet. I watched it for a while, remembering how I used to smash them with my shoe... and for a while it was within my reach and I almost did it... but- instead- I pictured it going out the bathroom door and on out the exterior door and finding a home outside. I didn't see where it went after it went out under the bathroom door- but it did get the first part of the suggestion right and I haven't seen it again.

Anywhere there is life, there is a soul behind it, whether it be animal, vegetable or single celled organism. I am biased towards humans because I am one- but that doesn't mean I don't recognize what is behind the myriad faces of life around me. They all have that spark in them- and it's just our bad luck to be in a game that requires death to live.

[Cerin]

Thanks for that explanation, Maria!

Well done with the wasps. (I get a bit panicky when a wasp or other stinging insect makes it into the house.)

[yovargas]

Anthy's recent post about returning a mistakenly unpaid for item and the accompanying shock (and Anthy's shock at their shock) reminded me of some of the attitudes here about general human behavior. I guess I just wanted to reiterate my belief that most people are generally decent folks and hope that it resparks this interesting conversation which died rather abruptly.

[Erunáme]

Well, saying that people's viewpoint is immoral and that it feels very wrong doesn't exactly want to make them stick around and discuss.

[yovargas]

If that level of disagreement is unpleasant for you and others then by all means I understand you not wishing to participate. I just wanted to make it perfectly clear that from my part nothing personal was intended whatsoever. To me, it is just a differing perspective, a difference of opinions. I have all sorts of difference of opinions with people ranging in all sorts of topics but those differences do not impact what I think of you (generic 'you') as a person. Sassy and me disagreed rather heatedly in the thread I did on this in b77 but I still think that she's thoroughly awesome. Hell, I have people close to me who think homosexuality is a sin and I still love them! So, yeah, I understand if you don't enjoy the discussion but don't think for a sec that it means I think any less of you or others.

[anthriel]

yov:

[MithLuin]

Last night, I went to bed around 1 AM. I was very tired, but as soon as I laid down, there was a weird buzzing sound. I figured out there was a bug in the room, and decided to ignore it. The buzzing persisted, and I got nervous. So, I sat up. Buzzing stopped. I laid back down....buzzing started back up. I sat up....buzzing stopped. By now, I was freaked out and convinced that something giant and evil and very scary was in the room with me, and there was no way I was going to sleep. Sooo...needless to say, I sat up and turned the light on. Something big did fly across the room; I ducked. It was just a moth. I picked up a shoe, killed it, and went back to bed.

Could I have survived the night with a moth in my room? Yes. Was I getting to sleep with that strange buzzing noise? No. I solved my problem; there are dead moth parts on my bedroom floor.

Is what I did 'bad' in any way? I don't expect anyone to condemn me as evil scum for killing a moth. But was it even minorly bad? I mean, as far as I am concerned, it was unfortunate for the moth, but that is about the extent of it. If I see a creepy-crawly in my room again, I will kill it again (probably even if it's not dark and I'm not scared). It's not that I want all bugs to die or anything - I let ladybugs well enough alone, even when there are like 50 of them in the room. I see nothing wrong with setting mouse traps (or disposing of the bodies afterwards). While this might not be necessary....it isn't 'bad' either. To me, these decisions are all neutral.

Co-existence is a fine thing...but I don't see why it would be bad to kill bugs in my house. Especially if they sting. I have been stung by wasps and bees so many times - I really don't like it much

[Erunáme]

To me it's a little bad. I'd try to catch it an put it outside. The only insect I wouldn't do this with was a venomous spider, bee, hornet, wasp..something like that because it could harm me.

[yovargas]

To me, these decisions are all neutral.

That's my view of it.

[Jnyusa]

Generally I don't kill anything that can be easily moved out of doors.

The tiny brown spiders that make cobwebs I just leave alone because they take care of other things on my behalf. (But I do dust the cobwebs.)

Jn

[Maria]

How do you dust the cobwebs, Jn? They are so fragile!

Or do you mean get rid of them entirely rather than getting the dust off them?

I wouldn't have killed the moth, Mith, but that's just me. I do kill house flies if they get annoying. It's so hard to keep them off of food during meal times and that's a disease vector.

I catch mice in humane traps... but then I dump them out in my yard and let my dogs kill them. Another disease vector that I can't allow in the house. I regularly visit a messageboard for "homesteaders"-- people with small farms trying to live in rural areas, and one of the topics that perennially crops up is rat control in barns.

I'm absolutely horrified at the lengths some people will go to, to get rid of rodents on their place. They put out loads of poison bait, they gas the tunnels, they do all kinds of nasty things. I'll be the first to admit: rats can do an incredible amount of damage merely from chewing up inedible things. They tear things up and crap everywhere and generally ruin anything soft that you try to store out in a place where they have access. WE had a rat problem the first five years we lived on our place. They lived next to our chicken house and we could see them trooping in every evening to take the chicken feed right from the feeder. We tried shooting them, big snap traps, the humane trap/dog combo and even a spell of hitting them with sticks. They are really quite smart and learn fast, but I refused to let poison be used, and eventually we finally hit on the ultimate solution. We got a rat terrier.

That little dog is the best rodent solution ever. She is obsessed with killing rodents in any form and spends most of her time hunting them. She's killed all of the rats and most of the mice on our place and is now working on rabbits (but she can't catch them very often). However, whenever I try to tell this to people on the farming threads, I'm utterly ignored. They'd rather cause the rodent an agonizing death by poison than get a dog that can kill quickly and cleanly. It's most puzzling to me. The dog works better, faster, cleaner, cheaper and is good company to boot.

I've lost track of my point...

OH! I'd rather kill something than cause it pain, and only do either in self defense.

edit: left out a key noun.

[MithLuin]

Maria, I totally, completely agree. I grew up on a farm . [Some people are just idiots about that stuff, I guess. I would hate to make assumptions, but it sounds like the people on that board are suburbanites who moved out to the country.....] We had groundhogs (well, still do), but they were really bad - they would dig under the apple trees, and since we were running an apple orchard, this was a bad thing. We also solved this by getting dogs, though my dad did shoot a couple of them in special circumstances. Our labs were expert groundhog killers, and one collie (all muts, of course) did a great job. I remember watching the collie go in for a kill once while I was mowing grass - he just bolted across the field, intersected with the groundhog (who had strayed a bit too far from its hole), there was a flash of bright red, and it was over. Talk about instant death! That has to be the cleanest, easiest way of doing it. Of course, that same dog dug up a nest of baby bunnies once, and we found out how they scream when they die . Oh...and that pair of dogs also put a dent in our duck population...and our cats...though at least one cat did outlive them both!

I try to put things outside, sometimes. I have no problems with the bats who live in the attic. But when they come down into the house and swoop eerily around the kitchen - nyah-ah, they've got to go. Out the door is fine, but down the toilet is just as good . I generally try to avoid spraying for bugs, just because it seems unnecessary. But I have, at times. I just don't overdo it. I don't enjoy killing anything. I just consider it a necessary part of life, not unlike killing things to eat them (I've eaten mutton and beef when I knew the name of the animal it came from.... and I know lots of people who hunt).

[Jnyusa]

How do you dust the cobwebs, Jn? They are so fragile!

Or do you mean get rid of them entirely rather than getting the dust off them?

Usually I sit cross-legged on the floor and blow on the little cowebs ever so gently until the dust lifts off them and they are all clean for the lady spiders again.

But if I'm in a hurry I go after them with a great big dustmop.


The reason I don't like to use spray on insects is because I realized that I was doing more harm to myself and my cats than I was to the insects.

We have a carpenter ant problem in the building where I live. There is a nest underneath the elevator shaft that can't be gotten to, so when it's time to swarm, these guys tunnel up through the joists where the plumbing and garbage disposal systems for all units are attached to one another and try to get outside. (Actually, it's about time for this to happen again. They swarm in May.)

So the condo management would send the exterminaor around every year and he would douse the floorboards to kill the ants as they entered the living spaces. Well, this worked for about two years, and then I noticed that I was not only still getting ants every year, the number of ants was increasing every year. They were developing into a poison-resistant strain. (Fire ants are even resistant to chlordane - it's lethal to humans and illegal now but it became useless before they banned it.)

So, for the past eight years what I've done is to just open the window when I see the ants coming and leave it open until they are gone. It sounds disgusting, but they go up the wall and right out the window and they're gone. None of them hang out in the house if there's a way out. It's a lot safer and easier to disinfect after they are gone than to have stinky poison coating the floorboards where the cats come into contact with it and we all breathe the evaporation of it into the air.

If we actually had carpenter ants in the walls then I would take out the whole wall to get rid of them, but they are underground and only bother us when it's time to swarm. This is an irresistable force of nature and I'm not going to poison myself fighting against it.

Jn

[The Watcher]

How do you dust the cobwebs, Jn? They are so fragile!

Or do you mean get rid of them entirely rather than getting the dust off them?

Usually I sit cross-legged on the floor and blow on the little cowebs ever so gently until the dust lifts off them and they are all clean for the lady spiders again.

But if I'm in a hurry I go after them with a great big dustmop.


The reason I don't like to use spray on insects is because I realized that I was doing more harm to myself and my cats than I was to the insects.

We have a carpenter ant problem in the building where I live. There is a nest underneath the elevator shaft that can't be gotten to, so when it's time to swarm, these guys tunnel up through the joists where the plumbing and garbage disposal systems for all units are attached to one another and try to get outside. (Actually, it's about time for this to happen again. They swarm in May.)

So the condo management would send the exterminaor around every year and he would douse the floorboards to kill the ants as they entered the living spaces. Well, this worked for about two years, and then I noticed that I was not only still getting ants every year, the number of ants was increasing every year. They were developing into a poison-resistant strain. (Fire ants are even resistant to chlordane - it's lethal to humans and illegal now but it became useless before they banned it.)

So, for the past eight years what I've done is to just open the window when I see the ants coming and leave it open until they are gone. It sounds disgusting, but they go up the wall and right out the window and they're gone. None of them hang out in the house if there's a way out. It's a lot safer and easier to disinfect after they are gone than to have stinky poison coating the floorboards where the cats come into contact with it and we all breathe the evaporation of it into the air.

If we actually had carpenter ants in the walls then I would take out the whole wall to get rid of them, but they are underground and only bother us when it's time to swarm. This is an irresistable force of nature and I'm not going to poison myself fighting against it.

Jn

When we bought the house I now am living in, we discovered that following Spring that we had a nest of carpenter ants that had made its way into the inside wall between our front entrance and the wall of the neighboring bedroom and front entry closet. (The guy we bought the house from had been gone due to his job for weeks at a time, and probably never knew they were even there.) I went whacko for weeks trying to figure out what to do - we got ant traps, we did boric acid, anything but poisons, which I was terribly reluctant to use in the house with kids and pets. What did we finally do? We removed the molding along the floors and doors and sucked up the ants with the vacuum cleaner hose attachment. Yes, it was disgusting, but we used my old vacuum with the bags, and then I just took the bags outside to the garbage can. After several weeks of doing this, voila, no more ants!! We also then discovered the colony under the cement front stoop and worked to eradicate that and plug the holes.

But, I am in the camp with live and let live if it is not harming me - I can often get a wasp or bee out of the house by opening a window and waiving it towards freedom. Little spiders I leave alone as well - they are worth their nuisance in terms of catching flies or fruitflies and other little flying pests.

Big spiders, well, I will not touch them, but I do take exception to brown recluse spiders which occasionally take up residence in my yard - they are poisonous and their bites can be deadly to small pets and a major nuisance and quite painful to humans. My other icky critter phobias are our occasional inchworm infestations or some of the more obnoxious caterpillars which can destroy trees and shrubs. There, I use the insecticides. Carefully and prudently.

As far as the idea of suffering in general, I believe that ALL living things can suffer, and in that regard, I try to be aware of that in all of my dealings with life in general. I do not wantonly kill or destroy anything if it is not harmful, and that even goes to ecological treatment of weeds, lawncare, etc. I would much rather use organic methods wherever possible, and respect the food chain and realize that everything does have its place and purpose. That is not to say I will not swat a mosquito or fly, nor fear to trap a mouse that gets inside my basement.

Do humans bear a right to "better" treatment? Well, I guess that goes into more of a sociological argument - we ARE people, of course it would figure that we might put a higher precedence on our collective well being over that of some other life form, say coyotes, or tigers, or other dangerous predators. We after all evolved WITH such creatures, and we may have some sort of instinctive need to be wary of them. The same sort of evolved reactions may explain our relationships with food animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, etc. We feed them and care for them, but then we eat them. Does the sheep raised in such a way overall have a worse life than it would have in the wild? Who knows. I guess it would be a different story if there was something out there bigger and badder and more powerful and intelligent that was trying to capture and eat us.

[Maria]

lol, Jn!
Actually, the first thing that came to mind was using a vacuum or something so that the cobwebs wouldn't show up so much, if there wasn't dust on them!

I've done the vacuum thing on fruit flies, Watcher.

The reason I don't like to use spray on insects is because I realized that I was doing more harm to myself and my cats than I was to the insects.

I quit using insecticides on my cats years ago, and they are much healthier now. My oldest cat used to get weepy eyes whenever I'd put a flea collar on her, and I finally decided I couldn't do that to her anymore. I keep a flea comb in the house, and whenever they get noticible, we comb the cats and reduce the population. The occasional flea doesn't seem to upset the cats and as long as the fleas stay off the humans, I'm OK with the situation.

[vison]

Whoever it is that has bats in her attic? Get rid of them. Bats are our friends, but NOT in our dwelling places. Their droppings are quite deadly, and the air in your house can be contaminated without you even knowing it.

Bats carry, among other diseases, Rabies and Hanta Virus. They are suspected of carrying Bubonic Plague (their fleas, rather).

Bats should be let live, of course. But they should not live in a person's house, nor in any building you frequent. This is true of rats and mice, as well. They are not cute little critters, but carriers of deadly diseases. I knew a woman who died of Hanta Virus. This is a serious matter, believe me.

Skunks are excellent ratters!

I put big spiders outside but ruthlessly --- even with a vengeful grin ---kill flies, mosquitoes, or wasps that get into my house. I am currently battling The Ant. I am extremely reluctant to use poison, but I did put out a little dish of borax bait in the hope it will do the trick.

And if I didn't put slug bait down once in the late spring, I would not have a garden at all. We live in Slug Central. All the slugs from all over the world come here for their holidays.

[Maria]

Diatomaceous earth kills all sorts of insects, without poison. I use it on my garden a lot in the summer, and sometimes in the house for ants, if they get overly bold. The concept is a tad gruesome, but it has less environmental impact than poison.

[anthriel]

I think bats are cute.

[MithLuin]

Bats are quite graceful when they are flying, and yes, I've noticed this while weilding a broom to bat them down. They also help manage our mosquitoes, since we have a large pond and some swampy land.

If they enter the house, we kill them. With a broom. And then dispose of them by flushing them down the toilet. We don't touch them, and we don't let our pets 'play' with them. This mostly happens in June, when the juvenilles get 'lost' and come downstairs. No one has ever been bitten, though my mother lives in fear of this.

We've had exterminators in. The bats have been there for over 30 years (at least, they were there when my parents moved in 30 years ago....). Even if we kill them all, new ones come back the next year. There really is nothing we can do - the roof of the house is made of slate, and has a million (I kid you not) little openings they can get in. This is an old Victorian farmhouse with (among other things) three chimneys and two attics. The house was built in stages over the past two hundred years.... Our attic is not really part of the house - we have the floor of the attic insulated.

We were always annoyed that they chose to live in our attic rather than our barn, but the barn had barn owls, and I don't think they peacefully co-exist.... and now the barn is no more. [Side note: Once, at a party, I remarked 'we have owls in our barn' and a boy overheard me and thought I had said 'we have elves in our barn.' ]

[Jnyusa]

the roof of the house is made of slate, and has a million (I kid you not) little openings they can get in.

Bats are like mice - they can squeeze through a hole smaller than a dime.

In the tropics, though, they are very beneficial, eating multiple times their own weight every day in malaria-bearing mosquitos.

Jn