Posted by kat on September 06, 2002 at 23:08:52:
In Reply to: Re: bugs posted by john on September 06, 2002 at 22:17:40:
: : No easy answers! I have brown recluse spiders living with me. The only bugs I have seen in my house are ants (insects) and these spiders (arachnids). Anyway, the recluse spiders, w their cute little violin backs have not killed me yet. They live in dark places like closets and wardrobes. I saw one crawling out the other night. I think he was on my bathroom counter. I simply moved him away from my area and let him crawl around somewhere else. But I'm no Jain saint or anything. I have also on occassion killed them. My main goal now is to cohabitate, but at the same time, I'm not against exterminators, and we do use an extermination system here. There are no easy answers here. I don't want to play God, but I also don't want my living space to be taken over by potentially dangerous animals. Also, there is the whole matter of food and cleanliness. Anyway, having a few bugs around never bothered me. I have these cute ants that get in the house from somewhere. They are the big kind. They are usually solo or in duos. I usually just say hello to them and talk to them while I'm shaving or sitting on the toilet reading a book. I would have no desire to kill them for sport, but if my home were suddenly invaded I would kill them.
: : Bill
: This may sound contradictory to my earlier thoughts, but i have no problem ridding my living area of things like black widows (native), which I had LOTS of. The reason is that I walk around more or less barefooted, legged, handed, and chested most of the time. I don't want to worry about having to stick my hand into the shed to grab a tool and losing a 2 inch chunk of my flesh from the bite. Not to mention my wife and baby. Now I don't hunt them into the swamp, but i kill them in the shed and under and around the house. This is survival to me, not the same thing as killing the frogs, which aren't directly affecting my well-being. Plus the spiders have very poorly developed nervous systems and no bones. They can be killed quickly and with little pain. But a 5 inch long frog with bones and legs and arms is a different story. It looks at me and SEES me.
: Through all of this, I've had one thing come to mind. It was a statement made by one of my favorite profesors, and a quite well recognized man in his field. Dr James Goetsch said that he didn't eat meat because he couldn't eat it with the proper awe to justify taking the life. Basically he was too far removed from the act to understand the sacrifice this food made for his survival. He told me of Native American hunting rituals in which they view any ill as a sacrifice given to them by God and with the will of that animal. As if God asked this beast to give itself to the men for food and it agreed. This is because they couldn't have caught it without the help. It doesn't quite relate to the killing of exotic species, but it keeps ringing in my head.
: And one more thing. I do often recognize that we have to do things in this fallen world that we do not wish to do, and I do them when I must. One of these is killing things. So while i am wondering if it is right ethically, that doesn't stop me from doing what is necessary until I figure it out. Of course the frog thing isn't that pressing, so as yet, the Cuban frogs are unharmed. But if I see too many again, I will cull the herd so to speak.
: Also to throw another curve. What about stray cats? They are far higher on the chain of sentience than frogs and they are PROVEN predators that place major stress on native rodents and lizards. In fact they were proven to be the single cause of the near extinction of a species of rabbit that lives in the Florida Keys. Is it the same to kill them, or does it seem worse because they are familiar?
: Actually they could be a food source, so the killing doesn't have to go to waste. I know that grosses people out, but we are talking about the natural world here, and it isn't always pretty.
Eat Cats!? Now you've gone too far! Sacrilege!
Oh yeah, please have your pets spayed or neutered!