Consuming Intelligent Animals

Over the next few years there will be many new scientific discoveries. Many of these new breakthroughs will come from traditional research methods derived from the scientific community around the globe. Where science may make its biggest leaps though, is from the ever-quickening capacity to measure things. Raw micro-processing power grows by leaps and bounds, providing for advances in computerized measurement and analysis tools that are far more sophisticated than anything we could have imagined even a few years ago.

So this brings up an interesting question, one that has been tugging at me for the last few weeks. How intelligent does an animal need to be before I, or better yet, we (as humans), stop eating them? I’m certainly not a vegetarian—not at this point at least. But in asking myself this question, I’ve needed to stop and really consider the answer. Think about it, rarely a day goes by where the scientific community hasn’t discovered another animal that has been determined to be far more intelligent than previously thought. Pigs are pretty darn smart, much smarter than dogs. I’ve recently read reports of chimpanzees that use crude spears to hunt for food in the wild, and numerous reports on birds being far more intelligent than suspected. Chickens actually have a fairly comprehensive vocabulary too, and they communicate to each other quite effectively. I even read recently that chickens have the ability to cognitively “reason,” that once an object is out of sight, they know it still actually “exists”—which shows far more cognitive abilities than previously thought.

There are many examples of animals being more intelligent than previously determined. Doing a quick search on the web you can find more than you’d think existed on this subject. But this particular post is not so much about how smart specific animals are, but more of a philosophical question; what are the criteria for an animal’s intelligence that we as humans, will no longer want to consume it? For some, intelligence is not the criteria at all, it’s more of a moral issue.

We have, for the most part, stopped consuming animals we have affectionate bonds with (dogs and cats and such), but what if, and I suspect this day is coming soon, we discover that certain birds or other commonly mass-consumed mammals are determined to be substantially more intelligent than we thought? Many people, including those in my own family, flatly would not care how intelligent an animal is, “They’re just part of the food chain … ” One family member in particular (who will remain un-named here), said that when he gets a call on his cell phone asking to be taken off the dinner menu, he’d consider it then.

So do chickens in the back of a truck have any clue that they are on their way to certain doom at Friendly Farms Chicken Ranch? No way! But if they did …