And yet we still drive our gas or gas/electric hybrids too, as we putter from one place to another across town or country...We still tax the local electric generating plant to post our messages...We even continue to pollute the skies by jumping from one location to another via air transit.

Hmmm...

We've been wearing the skins of other animals for hundreds of thousands of years now. This is just as long as we've been exploiting the Earth (as a whole) to mold our environment to suit our needs. Our needs...

Let's flip the perspective. At what point does this questioning of "how" we manipulate our environment...end - for all things and concepts are finite? We'll never be a zero-sum creature; for that matter, no animal has, is or ever will be a quid pro quo when it comes to this Earth. We'll ALWAYS leave an impact. Call it the Second Law of Thermodynamics - the total entropy (i.e., disorder) of any isolated thermodynamic system (i.e., Earth) tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value (billions of years in the future).

Thus, to some, it's a matter of how good they feel at the end of their game and not as much as to how they played the game. While our decisions can be tempered by some influences; they need not be blinded by yet others. If this is false, then what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Using that logic, we should all be driving SUVs, sucking down a gallon of gas for every 12 miles. And yet, we're not.

It's that range and diversity that humans display (among many other qualities) that makes us unique (and sentient). To narrow the range would make us more like the non-sentient animals and insects. Mindless and instinctive. Thank you...but no - for me.

Quality of death is as important as quality of life. These animals on fur farms have neither. This would never happen to a human being, we are far too self absorbed and consider ourselves immune to all we feel justified to inflict on the voiceless innocents. We should all be ashamed.

Methinks the cheetah could give a "hoot" about the death of the antelope, other than for the meat to fill its oh-so-hungry belly. The same is true for raccoons and freshwater mussels, birds and worms, Ebola and... whatever mammalian IT wants to ravage, human and mink. Therefore, the quality of life or death is largely immaterial in the animal world - always has been and always will be... world without end. Amen. Pax vobiscum. Yada, yada, yada…

If you choose to be a Vegan or vegetarian or X, remember it's a choice and NOT a requirement for the human condition.

File that point under "N" for Nature... Or perhaps under "M" for Manipulation of one's environment - not that there aren't limits or boundaries (aka influences). As a species, we humans always create and "muddy" or own ethical waters, but that’s another debate.

But a significant point is raised. Shame. Do other animals feel shame (aside from the wee l'il critters in the Disney, Bugs Bunny, Narnia, Ice Age, etc... cartoons and films)? Should they? Does it matter? Others animals (I truly believe) do not know the emotion - for that IS what shame IS - an emotion. And why should we ascribe a "human" quality (such as an emotion) to another species, aside from our own hubris?

Let the chipmunks be chipmunks and not humans. Please. The humans can screw it up royally for themselves, “Thank you.”

I think the emotion of "shame" SHOULD and DOES matter to us humans, though - meaning human upon human to be precise. "Shame: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety." It matters because we perceive it - from within and to one another – singularly or collectively. And yet, day after day, year after year, EVEN century after century, we accept and tolerate that which we do to one another - Darfur, Iraq, Serbia, Somalia, Rwanda, China, Cambodia, Tibet, Soviet Union, Germany, Armenia, etc... etc... etc...

Yes, WE should be ashamed. How could anyone EVER expect us to respect (for lack of a better or more fitting term) another species, when we cannot do the same for our own?

As my Irish grandmother said (and often), “Oh, but the bitter tone we have for our own.” My apologies if this is a bit too… intense. It’s not meant to offend but to enlighten and offer another flip of the coin.