It behooves all of the 'animal lovers' in society to fight for improved conditions under which all animals are raised and treated. This is one of the main thrusts at AAS and other activist organizations. We must all do our utmost to ensure that any creature in our care is treated with respect and kindness, even those we call food.

Many of us do, indeed, allow our animals to be fed as they would in their own habitat - if they are carnivors, they need meat for their well-being.

This speaks, once again, precisely to the issue that has been raised here frequently - if we did not hold our animals captive, we would not be forced to kill yet other species for their food.

Is this not what we advocate for? No animal should be bred for human entertainment or convenience or food. If by some miracle all of our current 'pets' were not replaced with newly bred 'pets', eventually all animals on earth would be right where they belong: in their own respective environments. They would be doing their own hunting and killing, as they were intended to do before we dragged them into our homes and zoos and aquariums.

Then we humans - who have a choice about which type of food we eat and will then not need to butcher and consume the flesh of others - can make the ethical decisions that will spare all of the suffering now endured by creatures that we have conquered and subjugated and consumed.