Per the title. If an animal dies out in nature without any human involvement, shouldn’t it be considered vegan to harvest any of the useful parts from it (not nessicarily meat, think hide), since there was no human-caused suffering involved?
Similarly, is driving a car not vegan because of the roadkill issue?
Especially curious to hear a perspective from any practicing moral vegans.
Also: I am not vegan. That’s why I’m asking. I’m not planning on eating roadkill thank you. Just suggesting the existence of animal-based vegan leather.
To me it’s not a matter of ethics but a matter of health. Unless you saw the animal die from something that clearly isn’t disease I wouldn’t trust meat I just found laying around.
It doesn’t have to be edible. Glue, gelatin for skin mimicry, clothing, and bones for weapons, etc are all non-edible uses of animals.
Good point. I forgot vegans included all that stuff and not just eating animal products.
For me personally: Veganism is also about signaling to the outside world. Suppose I were to skin an animal that died naturally and make a jacket out of it, this would probably be the most ethical way to produce a leather jacket. But I still wouldn’t wear it, because by doing so I would signal to the outside world that it’s okay to wear the skinned hide of animals. Outsiders can’t know under what circumstances I got the leather.
It might be a bit more radical, which is why I might face hostility, but I also throw away non-vegan foods that I unintentionally receive, instead of giving them to non-vegans. Simply because I don’t want to project to the outside: “Here you go. I would never eat it because I find it unethical, but if you eat it, then that’s okay.”
Neither would I but what about the hide?
This is something that has always bothered me about roadkill animals (esp deer which are particularly prevalent as roadkill in my area).
Its my understanding that the hide can remain in good and usable condition for days to weeks after the animal’s death. It seems that this could be a decent source of blankets and other light-medium cold weather gear.
I’d imagine it largely comes down to the skinning process. The internal organs of dead animals are supposed to get real gross real fast (and that’s in the best case scenario - if anything ruptured when they were hit, then the grossness increasing exponentially) and removing those is the first step towards skinning. Additionally, everything in harvesting the hide would need to be done by hand.
But boy, if we could build one of those Boston dynamics bots to do it…
I trust old meat I find lying around. It may be a different color, but it still spends the same.