: Yes. The snaring of any animal is cruel (no such thing as "unneccesarily" cruel - which would imply there is neccesary cruelty). "Our" ecosystems were just fine by themselves for millions of years w/out the tampering of humans. And please, give these examples of how animals suffering naturally is "often a hell of a lot worse than what we do" to them. When Bambi came out, deer hunting decreased. The deer population rose. Then it fell, because the overpopulation led to lack of food, and starvation. A second with a bullet is not comparable to starving to death. The same with beavers and trapping. If we don't trap, they'll overpopulate and kill themselves, not to mention cause flooding that can be as bad for nature as it is for people. Oh, and I haven't even started with invasive species. Take the red fox. An alien with no natural predators, it would take over the ecosystem, and many animals would be defenseless against it.
It's true that ecosystems have gotten along fine without us. But we've screwed them up. We eradicated the American wolf, the deer's only natural predator. We introduce alien animals, and we have two choices. Control them to the best of our ability, or let the natural process be forever corrupted.
Anyway, is it in animals' best interest to boycott the Nature Conservancy?
