Deer CAN adapt -- that's why they DO flourish, including living in New York City.

Deer aren't the problem with Lyme disease. The disease is caused by a spirochete (a kind of bacterium) Borrelia burgdorferi, it's spread to humans by the tick Ixodes scapularis, and part of the bacteria's life cycle takes place in the white footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus.

All these things are alive. Is our obligation to the bacterium the same as it is to the deer? Is our obligation to the tick the same as it is to the mouse and the deer? If you had to put a rank order of our custodial priorities, most humans would put humans first, then deer, then mice, then ticks, then bacteria. How would you do it?

no the obligations are not the same. It's just a matter of the ratio between awareness and conscience. That's all we're capable of.

Now, in New Zealand, a place I spent a semester of college, deer were introduced within the last ~200 years. They're now a threat to the existence of many of New Zealand's endangered native birds (many of which are flightless). Deer hunting has been encouraged there for the same reason.

Is there a moral difference between 1) hunting deer for food, 2) hunting deer for the sake of humans, and 3) hunting deer for the sake of kiwis and wekas and takahes?

I have to be stubborn here and say that introducing the deer is a human hindrance, a disequilibrium if you will.

There's no difference.

There was a certain equilibrium established before the restitution of forests in southern New England. Sure, it wasn't the original habitat, but an equilibrium had developed over several hundred years. The new state of being IS a disequilibrium, of which deer tick-associated diseases are one consequence.

No moral difference? Shooting deer for sport and leaving the carcass to rot would be seen by most as morally different than shooting a deer for survival when it's attacking you, or shooting it for food when you live out in the woods.

So I have decided that I would give this thread my best effort and report my results. Today, I begin a meat free diet which includes chicken and fish. I will only eat vegies and fruit and eat specifically vegan or vegetarian foods. (Easy to do in my town... Lot's of vegie-hippies and I am not trying to insult vegetarians... I truly mean that most of them are hippies from the 60's)

I picked up some vitamins to keep up my mineral intake and to help the transition. I will give this 1 week. If I do not feel any sort of change then I will quit. If I do then I will make the determination whether I want to continue or not.

I will test this theory of yours.

No moral difference? Shooting deer for sport and leaving the carcass to rot would be seen by most as morally different than shooting a deer for survival when it's attacking you, or shooting it for food when you live out in the woods.

So if eating animals is bad... Why do we have canine teeth used specifically for tearing meat?

As I said, we will see. If this does not work for me than I will go back to eating meat. I am not trying to save an animal or even be a humanitarian. I am strictly researching the health benefits or detriment to this sort of life style.

Then a dead body rots it is the result of micro-life eating it

For me who/what are alike us, our friends, and have to be protected and respected, and who/what are mere tools or fodder is a choice we must all make. All choices are fine by me, but this does not means I will not have to argue with people with different choices to get things done the way I believe they should. Personally, I consider only humans worth of special protection, and other animals are to be protected only if humans need or want to protect then. Maybe I will change my views then we met intelligent life or find ways of communicating with some of the animals we suspect to bne intelligent.

So if eating animals is bad... Why do we have canine teeth used specifically for tearing meat?

So, if killing is bad, why do we have these hands with which we can strangle another human being?

Icon, our biological legacy may tell us what we biologically have done and what we biologically ought to do. But it certainly doesn't inform our moral imperative, i.e. what we morally ought to do.

It's a completely specious argument for vegetarians to argue that our ancestors didn't eat meat and therefore we shouldn't, and it's an equally specious argument for non-vegetarians to argue the opposite. It doesn't matter. How in god's name does that determine what we ought to do? People who are vegetarian can be perfectly well nourished if they eat wisely. Very few things in our diet ONLY come from animal sources. One bad one is cholesterol, one good one is vitamin B12. The thing is we have several years of vitamin B12 stored in our body and it correspondingly would take many years to become deficient in it.

Parenthetically, from what I understand our most distant ancestors were scavengers, i.e. they'd eat meat off of dead things and not hunt. Hunting came later.

I spoke to a small heard of cows some time ago, and told them I would try to help them, and do what I could. They understood me, and I understood them, and this thread is my effort for love and to help them, and for the good of All, for Just or Justice, for Equality.
I see All things equally and the cows could see that too, can you?
Justice is Equality, dontcha know!

=
MJA

I spoke to a small heard of cows some time ago, and told them I would try to help them, and do what I could. They understood me, and I understood them, and this thread is my effort for love and to help them, and for the good of All, for Just or Justice, for Equality.
I see All things equally and the cows could see that too, can you?
Justice is Equality, dontcha know!

=
MJA