Saturday, January 16, 2010

Vegans and zoologists/naturalists/wildlif鈥?biologists??

What do you feel about them? I want to be a zoologist and Im a proud STRICT vegeterian(almost vegan.).Vegans and zoologists/naturalists/wildlif鈥?biologists??
I'm about to graduate with a degree in wildlife biology, and I'm a vegan. There are lots of wildlife biologists who basically just deal with hunting, but there are other career paths as well...I'm hoping to basically get into conservation biology/ornithology and have nothing to do with hunting. But you'll definitely run into a lot of hunters and fishermen, so you have to make sure that you can respect other people's lifestyles and opinions.Vegans and zoologists/naturalists/wildlif鈥?biologists??
If you love and respect animals and mean them no harm, I see a perfect harmony between being vegetarian and being any one of those careers.





Not all zoologists work for zoos, so if you have any concerns about keeping animals in captivity you can find another area - there are organizations that hire zoologists to help them protect the environment and animals. Personally many zoos take good care of their animals and provide ample accommodation for them, but the bad apples out there really do spoil the barrel. In fact, thanks to breeding of certain threatened and endangered species in captivity (like eagles and pandas) many are beginning to thrive today.





All of those jobs require educating the public in an impassioned way about animals and how valid and important they are, how beautiful they are, and of course thanks to their careful study and observation of animals we know so much about them to begin with. They help bring about awareness, knowledge and respect to issues facing all animals - humans and non-humans alike - as well as problems and interactions between them.





Good luck with your career choice, you'll find that many people in those fields will share many of your sentiments about animals. It'll also validate your feelings about animals and how intelligent, worthy and expressive they are, something that a city vegetarian might feel displaced from somewhat.





P.s. I agree with euphoric that you'll find differing opinion on your diet choice, so be open and tolerant, just about everyone will return the same courtesy right back at you then.
I was a docent for a zoo for 3 years. We only have a staff of about 20 and I can tell you about half are on meat free diets. Its like if we are fighting to educate the world about the bush meat crisis and about exotic animals not being pets, why are we butchering other animals?

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