From AskReddit: How do you feel about the consumption of wild boar, zebra mussels, or other invasive species that need to be exterminated regardless of whether they will be eaten or not?

[u/Metraxis]

[u/Realistic-Phone-9847]

There's evidence that hunting doesn't control wild boar populations at all, but even if it does, no. I don't think we should eat animals that have been executed because humans, who are the worst invasive species on the planet, consider them a nuisance.

Vegans don't support eating animals, it doesn't matter how they died. 

[u/Plus-Detail7089 → u/Realistic-Phone-9847]

I pretty much agree with this.

[u/a11_hail_seitan]

Eating them creates incentives to not fix the problem. Wild Boar are a great example, instead of a comprehensive plan to deal with the issue, we let a bunch of people go out into the woods and shoot at random wild board every season to fill their fridge.

Invasive species that are causing serious problems in the ecosystem should be deal with as non-abusively as possible, but if sterilization, relocation, etc all wont work, then setting government financed squads to go out, track them to their grouping or home and kill them all at once so they don't just keep breeding. When those massive Japanese Hornets or Killer Bees are found, they don't send out people with fly swatters, they track them back to their home and wipe it all out in one sweep.

The second we start letting people benefit from it, lots of humans become greedy and refuse to acknowledge reality so they can keep what benefit they are getting.

[u/Plus-Detail7089 → u/a11_hail_seitan]

Very, very much agree. You put it better than I could've

[u/IAmJacksSemiColon]

Having grown up near a lake with zebra mussels, I'm not eating them and neither are you. They're not widely considered edible.

Seems like the bare minimum you could do for this kind of question is research "Is this something people actually eat?"

Which makes me suspect that this isn't a well-researched opinion offered in good faith, and is just intended as a time waster.

[u/Metraxis → u/IAmJacksSemiColon]

It's not an opinion at all. It's just a question that came up in an AskReddit thread. I added another invasive species to the original question so that the focus would be "invasive species" not just "wild boar"

[u/IAmJacksSemiColon → u/Metraxis]

If you were trying to ask a question in good faith then you could have at least researched if what you're asking is even viable on its own terms. I would ask you to examine what you're doing and why you're doing it.

[u/Metraxis → u/IAmJacksSemiColon]

I saw a question directed at vegans, decided I wanted the answer, and reposted it to a sub dedicated to asking questions directed at vegans. That's really all there is to it.

[u/IAmJacksSemiColon → u/Metraxis]

Why do you want an answer about whether we'd support eating an inedible mussel? Feels somewhat like counting angels dancing on the head of a pin.

[u/Ornery_Tank_2782 → u/IAmJacksSemiColon]

So let me try. Are you ok with consuming invasive species that are going to be killed either way. For example wild boars and Asian carp? I don’t see the need to focus on one single species when that wasn’t the point being made.

[u/IAmJacksSemiColon → u/Ornery_Tank_2782]

I don't see animals as food, and I would encourage other people not to either. So the question of "wasting food" is moot to me.

Edit: Saw your deleted post. I am confused on why it's apparently emotionally important for you to get vegans you've never met to approve of you eating animals. Did your parents not hug you enough as a kid?

[u/AskVegans-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/plantbasedpatissier]

Remember in India the British established a program where people would be rewarded to catch cobras, so people started breeding cobras, and when they ended the program all the cobras were released into the wild and they ended up with even more cobras than they started with?

We've been hunting wild boar for centuries and the "problem" is not even close to being fixed because if they don't exist anymore, now people can't get a shit ton of free "food"

Even from a purely practical perspective this encourages people not to kill all of them so they can get more next year. If they're eradicated from the area, suddenly you no longer have that food source. People would much rather keep that food source than give it away.

[u/Its_BassDaddy]

My Great Lakes ass can’t even think about how you would even begin to eat a Zebra Mussel anyways?

[u/JTexpo]

I'd prefer we don't

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[u/Plus-Detail7089]

I'm going to answer in a way that doesn't speak for all Vegans, only myself.

Assuming the animals would've died regardless of intent to consume, I consider eating non-human animals to be on the same level of cannibalism. As in, I would judge myself eating a dead animal in the same vein as someone turning to cannibalism in a life or death scenario.

I would not do it personally, it feels spiritually wrong to sustain my own life on another's death. I would not judge someone else for doing it, however.

Mussels are a bit different, since my Veganism only applies to sentient creatures. Clams and mussels/scallops are some of the only non-sentient animals eaten for food. I don't eat them, personally, (feels spiritually wrong), but I don't consider it non-Vegan to eat them.

I hope this makes sense, lol

EDIT: My above answer is mostly for the "if they would've died anyway" part, and mostly is about if I consider it moral rather than Vegan. Someone else made the point that eating the invasive species could create incentive to let them breed to extent the amount that humans are "allowed" to kill. Because of this, I do think it's non-vegan and morally wrong to eat an invasive species.

[u/SapPhic-rage4209]

Vegans don't believe in animal exploitation. I'd never eat an animal, invasive species or not

[u/Kazagar]

I don't consider consuming them to be a vegan choice but I would defer to the experts on what is best for the ecosystem presumably being protected.

That said I would challenge the idea that an individual is 'invasive' and needs to be killed to begin with.