Increasing World Population: More Human Misery and Animal Cruelty

By Kenneth Roy

This coming spring readies itself for the annual seal hunt in Newfoundland, Canada. This despicable event only serves to satisfy human vanity. Last year’s hunt killed 37,609 seals including 1,700 ragged jackets (molting seals under three weeks old).

Each year, thousands of seals are clubbed and shot to death in Canada for their fur. This annual commercial seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world.

Thank you, Russia! With the Russian federation, Belarus and Kazakhstan joining a growing list of countries that have banned seal fur, it’s time for the Canadian government to finally end the commercial seal hunt.

The above cruelty is practiced by only a tiny part of the human population, however, as human populations are rapidly rising, the atrocities committed by the small segment are rising also. This includes the numbers of people involved dog fights, cock fights and bull fights, etc.

Now let us get into the legitimate cruelty of factory farming. It is cruel and inhumane to grow chickens in long lines of stacked, tiny cubicles where they can barely move. It’s worse for calves, whose movements are extremely limited in order to produce veal. And who would want to be that poor lobster jammed into a corner at the bottom of the pack in a tank in the supermarket? Adding population adds to more animal abuse!

In the wild, animal life is in trouble. The tiger is disappearing; there are now fewer tigers in the wild than are in captivity. To the people who complain about mountain lions in their neighborhoods, I counter with the fact that sprawling subdivisions have invaded and crowded out the lions. In the United States, we lose acreage the equivalent of 4 1/2 Rhode Islands every year to development caused by population growth. At this rate, who do you think will disappear after the wildlife?

Last fall, the earth’s population crossed the seven billion mark. It took only 12 years to increase from six billion in 1987. Compare that with the length of time it took for the human population to jump from one billion in 1804 to two billion in 1927 (123 years) and you’ll see that we are experiencing a period of rapid population growth like the world has never seen.

Readers, please ask yourselves, “Can you think of any problem on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any way aided, assisted or advanced by having larger populations at the local level, state level, nationally or globally? Can you think of anything that will get better if we crowd more people into our towns, cities, nations or world?

How many people are enough?

Kenneth Roy is a resident of Center Lovell. Sources used for this article include: Humane Society of the United States, “The Population Fix” by Edward C. Hartman and “Population Connection” by Marian Starkey.