Recently i found myself grinding some freeze dried oyster samples. ‘Just a regular day at the office if you are an experimental ecologist / biologist’. But what if you are a nearly entirely vegetarian for ethical reasons, and are promoting rewinding, restoration and the reconsideration of the human figure in the world as something that is ‘within’ nature rather than ‘above it’ or anyway ‘other’ ? I often said, i am doing it ‘for science sake’, some reason ‘above’.
But is it correct? What am I getting out of the analysis that will follow the grinding? The Carbon and Nitrogen content of the tissues. And why am I interested in that? To calculate just how much (and if) oysters could be used for nutrient trading or carbon crediting systems (well, the calcification is a net emission so the latter may not happen…). Is this a good ‘reason above’? It sounds to me as yet another way to study how we ‘humans’ can get away with it. You may say ‘but it’s just some oysters’. But who tells us they don’t feel? I am not sure. I know at least I freeze them for practical reasons, so at least they die gently before i pry them open with a knife. At least, if i was opening them to eat them it could be considered as ‘self preservation’, no? Perhaps more ethical.. Doing them to find some new compounds to fight incurable diseases.. that may be a good ‘reason above’ (with all of the ethical dilemmas of saving more lives and then having a dense and aging population …). Anyway. Back to the ‘it’s just an oyster’. I don’t understand why all ethical considerations just go out of the window as soon as we are talking about ‘invertebrates’. If it was fish i was trying to dissect, i would have to fill an immense amount of paperwork. Even if I didn’t want to kill them and just keeping them in a tank. I could keep as many oysters (snails, sea urchins, starfish, crabs, lobsters….) as I wanted, but no fish. Why such difference? Because fish have a backbone so we see them more as ‘relatives’ ? Octopus, squids and other cephalopods don’t have backbones and yet are some super intelligent animals, and i bet many of you readers have watched ‘the octopus teacher’. I guess, I don’t have an answer, and it’s a bit of a novel question to me too. I will keep it in the back of my mind and instead of being just being happy and relieved about the lack of paperwork, I will bring these thoughts into my daily science, being mindful about the number of replicates needed and not just ‘taking some more just in case since i can’. and do as much of the science without the killing and taking away part, because frankly, a lot of observational science can be done directly in situ.. observing.. the old school way
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