We all need to eat. Some animals need to eat other animals. Nothing new, and nothing to see here. But look again. In nature, the predator–prey relationship is an essential, complex and ecologically balanced affair. In captivity, the live feeding of one sentient being to another is an ugly, artificial and often brutal business.
In captivity, the live feeding of one sentient being to another is an ugly, artificial and often brutal business
It just isn’t crickets
Perhaps the default perception of people towards feeding one live animal to another conjures up images of boxes or buckets of crickets, mealworms, cockroaches and a raft of other larvae and insects. However, small rodents, such as mice and rats, are commonly mass-produced as feeders to be sold living or frozen in blocks, notably to supply several sectors including the keeping of pet birds of prey, snakes, lizards and amphibians, as well as some fishes and large invertebrates.
Surplus farmed day-old chicks that avoid unsightly live maceration as production waste also comprise a hefty component of the carnivorous pet diet, albeit typically having been killed by another questionable method: asphyxiation gassing.
Swarms of breeders and sellers
The business of breeding and selling live food is no small matter, in either scale or ethics. One only needs to do a quick search on Google to see that the edible critter industry is vast, as supplier after supplier scroll across the screen – each likely representing thousands of individual animals being offered up as sustenance. There appears to be little information on the scale of the live food industry for pets. The distribution of live food sold to different consumer categories is also unclear, but surely the angling and exotic pet sectors feature high on the list.
While the possible legal protections for vertebrates (invertebrates lose out as usual) being offered as live food are somewhat non-specific, there are growing voices of caution and morality from within the scientific and veterinary communities, as well as concern from animal welfare groups.
Sentience and sensitivity
Humans have long lost the presumptuous claim of unique sentience along with its implications for experiencing consciousness and sensations, as well as emotions such as pleasure, joy, fear and pain. In fact, there is now a veritable library of research determining that sentience is properly applicable well beyond the iconic “intelligent” species, such as great apes, cetaceans, psittacines, elephants and – of course – “man’s best friend”, but also generally to birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes and – yes – invertebrates, including the diminutive.
[Predators] that will not take dead food merely add to the already overwhelming arguments that wild animals should have no place in vivariums the size of television sets
The issue of sentience is important, really important, and underscores why live feeding should at least be dissuaded. Probably the vast majority of predators can be coaxed into accepting dead food. Those that will not take dead food merely add to the already overwhelming arguments that wild animals should have no place in vivariums the size of television sets, a long way from their own true homes. But to that position, one can easily add that even where animals are sold pre-killed, those lives were likely manufactured and despatched under possibly even worse conditions, and, in any event, to support the frivolous and fanatical habits of self-interested pet keepers.
Sacrificing Peter to save Paul
Arguably, the most bizarre examples of live food use (or abuse) can be found in the global world of reptile keepers who, while proudly proclaiming to be dedicants of all things herpetological, somehow feel entirely comfortable – many in fact boastful during online podcasts and films – as they cheerfully throw one lizard or snake alive and fully conscious onto the dinner table of another.
The philosophically uncomplicated may justify such practices while hiding under the umbrella of “nature is cruel anyway, so why is what we do any different?” Well, it is different. The notion that life in the wild is cruel may be more myth than reality. But whatever one’s views on that, casting a live reptile into an escape-proof box to an awaiting major predator hardly reflects the possibilities of evasion or the fighting chance that nature typically provides.
Casting a live reptile into an escape-proof box to an awaiting major predator hardly reflects the possibilities of evasion or the fighting chance that nature typically provides
To such people, perhaps it is not that an animal itself matters: rather that an animal only matters when it means something to them. And that’s something else to chew on!
