Friday 18 October 2013

Who is the fowlest of them all?

Oxford Brookes University disciplines students for hanging dead partridges around halls. Since this is a vegan blog, you can pretty much take for granted that I am not that impressed by the behaviour of the students in question. On the other hand, I'm not clear why it is a disciplinary offence given the context. The setting for the offence was a university hall of residence in which the fridges were most likely packed with parts of dead animals, animal secretions and so on. I could hazard a guess that chicken parts feature quite strongly, purely because these are for some reason seen as less of a challenge to cook than other dead animals or parts thereof. (I have no idea why, when I ate meat this was a moot point due to being too young to use the oven or sharp knives.) Given that partridges are in season, making it legal to kill them, I struggle to see the moral distinction between them and the more-usually-consumed birds available in Tesco. (well, it's either a chicken or Pegasus, that's the risk you take when you dabble with these things) I am guessing that the presence of whole, feathered dead birds was considered a nuisance to housemates and cleaning staff, and possibly to passers-by who noticed the birds hanging in windows. But, again, why are people concerned about this? I doubt the majority of the people in a position to be disturbed are vegan or even vegetarian. (and by the way, if you eat commercial eggs you are involved in the killing of birds, even if you are not eating them directly) Are they disturbed by the honesty of a minority of their animal-eating cohorts, the ones who don't buy into the story that meat appears ready-wrapped on the shelf? Maybe they should consider making some changes to their own lives if so.