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Page 10 %u2013 National Poultry Newspaper, February 2025 www.poultrynews.com.auFig. 1. Three ecological mechanisms of animal killing behaviour by humans, showing (1) predation (carnivory or meat-based diets), (2) interference competition (when animals are behaviourally deprived of access to shared resources or fear effects) and (3) exploitative competition (herbivory or plant-based diets, or consumption of shared resources). Solid lines = direct effects, broken lines = indirect effects.Why humans kill animals - Part 2KILLING animals has been a ubiqui- tous human behaviour throughout history, yet it is becoming in- creasingly controver- sial and criticised in some parts of contem- porary human society. Over a three-part series, researchers from around the globe review 10 primary reasons why humans kill animals, discuss the necessity or not of these forms of killing and describe the global ecological context for human killing of animals. The article can be viewed in its entirety at sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723039062Humans historically and currently kill animals either directly or indirectly for the following reasons: %u2022 Wild harvest or food acquisition%u2022 Human health and safety%u2022 Agriculture and aquaculture%u2022 Urbanisation and industrialisation%u2022 Invasive, overabundant or nuisance wildlife control%u2022 Threatened species conservation%u2022 Recreation, sport or entertainment%u2022 Mercy or compassion%u2022 Cultural and religious practice%u2022 Research, education and testing.The first five of those reasons are discussed here.1. Wild harvest or food acquisitionMany omnivorous and carnivorous predators %u2013 from insects to whales %u2013 hunt and kill wild animals for food. This behaviour is known as predation and is a process integral to the proper functioning and maintenance of ecosystems.Predation can, and often does, cause great harm and suffering to the individual animal being killed.Some predators are specialists that target a narrow range of prey species and others are generalists that target a wider range of prey species.Humans, and their ancestors and relatives, are generalists %u2013 omnivorous mammals that have hunted, killed and harvested a wide variety of animals for approximately 2-4 million years.Wild harvest is the most ancient form of predation by humans.Moreover, the evolution of humans%u2019 proportionately larger brain size is hypothesised to have occurred because of the fats and proteins acquired by eating animals, and therefore killing and eating animals was essential for the very emergence of humans.Humans on or in the waters around all continents still harvest wild animals for food today, including people from developed and developing countries and those practicing traditional and contemporary lifestyles.Many types of sentient and non-sentient animals are harvested, including echinoderms, molluscs, crustaceans, insects, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals.Wild harvest of mammals, reptiles and birds is often characterised by low-volume or opportunistic hunting, such as the acquisition of bushmeat.Other forms of highvolume or intensive harvesting are also practiced, such as the many fisheries in operation around the world or the commercial kangaroo harvest in Australia.Wild harvest of animals cannot be practiced without killing animals.Wild harvest, predation or directly killing animals for food can be avoided by adopting plant-based lifestyles (for example, herbivory or veganism), but doing so cannot avoid all the indirect forms of animal killing associated with such lifestyles (see reasons 3 and 4). This type of indirect killing is known as competition, which can also lead to prolonged animal suffering, death and eventual extinction over time. Herbivory leads to competition-induced animal killing when humans eat plants that would otherwise be utilised by other animals, that is exploitative competition. Competition-induced animal killing also occurs when fear effects behaviourally deprive animals of otherwise available resources, that is interference competition.Hence, the wild harvest of both animals and plants results in animal killing %u2013 the primary difference is that one is direct killing and the other is indirect killing (see Fig. 1). Human carnivory and herbivory are forms of wild harvest that are ubiquitous across trophic levels, ecosystems and epochs.All forms of wild harvest cause harm to animals and there are no viable alternatives to these forms of animal killing if we are to continue feeding the 8 billion plus humans currently on the planet.Directly killing animals for food can often be done in ways that cause no or negligible amounts of pain or harm (see Fig. 2). When done in these ways, it can give animals a more humane or painless death than the alternatives they would otherwise experience from large-scale plant or animal-based agriculture or through natural causes such as disease, starvation or intraspecific fighting.2. Human health and safetyKilling animals in self-defence or to protect human health and safety is also one of the most ancient forms of animal killing by humans. It is done proactively when an animal is killed to prevent a possible threat or reactively to eliminate a present threat. Examples of proactively killing animals for human health and safety reasons include Ph: 08 8359 1588 E: sales@titanfan.com.auMADE IN AUSTRALIA FOR AUSTRALIAN CONDITIONS SINCE 1990LOCALLY manufactured at Titan%u2019s factory 12-14 Kenworth Rd, Gepps Cross, South Australia 5094Stir Fan FH800/0.37kw/4 blade/1ph/3ph EC (variable speed 200 rpm %u2013 1000 rpm)ORIGINAL Stir Fan available ON/OFF 1ph/3phNEWLight eliminators available in 20mm and 40mm spacing Made to your specifications.Height: 1380mmWidth: 1380mmNEWHeight: 1380mmWidth: 1380mmDepth: 820mmWall Mounted FanWM1220/1.1kW/3B/3Ph/Direct DrivePart Number: PF8125Titan fans suitable for variable speed controls.Wall Mounted FanWM1220/1.5kW/6B/Belt Drive* continued P11Fig. 2. Examples of direct and indirect animal killing by humans, showing (A) two springbok wild-harvested for meat in South Africa (reason 1), (B) land clearing for peanut and sugar cane crops in Australia with a feral pig shot to alleviate damage to the crops (reason 3), (C) small-scale urbanisation illustrated by a group of rondavels under trees in Botswana (reason 4) and (D) a feral cat in Australia trapped to protect threatened fauna from cat predation (reason 5). Photos: Benjamin AllenADCBn Delving into and discussing the first two of the five reasons