Halal and Kosher hit by Dutch ban

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by tater

and birds are pretty stupid, though,

Wrong. In the recent years biology had to almost rewrite major parts of what was considered to be safe knowledge about birds' intelligence. Even our understanding of their brainstructure had to be corrected, and not slightly only.

Since we do not read fishes' minds, I do not rukle out that we woukld be surprised of some fishes intelligence as well, like we get surprised by psychological and social characteristics of for example sharks time and again, features that just 20 years ago we would not even have dared to imagine.

In the top group of the most intelligent animals, you will find not just one but several bird species, leading from self-recognition, over social cooperation in complex tasks, to use of tools.

And I have seen sufficient film material on TV now to believe that these birds also have humour, enjoy playing for the sake of it, can be treacherous and sly, betraying each other, forming altruistic concepts of social cooperation, and can form quite close social relation amongst each other and towards humans, both in good and worse. But parrot owners I probably don't tell something new.

But it is not just about parott and raven species.
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Germany has laws regulating fishing/hunting seasons, but also aiming at certain standards in animal treatment and killing procedures, aiming to prevent certain cruelty and pain.

I hate trophy hunters, however I am willing to accept local traditions of hunting for own food supply, but then it still is not a party, imo. Killing, hurting or making to suffer living creatures never should be done for sports, joy, excitement, or trophy-gathering. The more aware the life is that you take, the easier you should consider not to take it. But if you like hunting to kill for the sake of it, duel yourself with other humans, please. Ethically, sometimes even an animal can be more worth than a human.

[tater]

If they are not smart enough to prevent us raising them as food, I don't particularly care how smart they are. They picked a bad place to be on the food chain. Tough luck for them.

I'm fine with mandating a humane way to bump them off, but I won't stop eating any of them.

[Gerald]

But you've a choice and choose.

Still, my point stands that if there is a method agreed with by society as "humane," all people should have to follow the humane rules, regardless of what a book they claim to be magical says.

Yet there is no real agreement so there was no real point.

Fish and birds are pretty stupid, though

Tell that to the animal rights people, after all this bill is being dressed up as being all about the animals isn't it.

[tater]

To be honest it's not something I ever looked into.

It seems like the appropriate way to slaughter animals would have been regulated long ago. <shrug>

I'd not be against regulations here in the US that set standards for commercial slaughter, and I'd not care if it interfered with rules set forth in a supposedly magical book. Regardless, any such rules should have no religious exceptions—no laws should have religious exceptions IMHO.