Animals you consider too smart to eat

[Ideologue]

Attendants at the Augusta Languish meet may or may not recall that I deeply enjoy calamari, but a few years back I stopped eating cephalopods, for the same reason that I would refuse to eat dog or cat.  Octopi and cuttlefish are clearly too intelligent to be ethically consumed, and squid are borderline enough to qualify for protection.

Naturally, I would expect most people here would not even consider eating a great ape, cetacean, or elephant, animals approaching human levels of sapience, at least outside of a starvation scenario that would already permit a justification for eating other people.

I'm also disturbed by the possibility that pigs are cat/dog-level intelligent, because pig meat is too delicious to say goodbye to.

Are there any animals that you won't eat, because you consider their cognitive abilities to be sufficient to permit them a right to live?

Syt, whatever name he's posting under or if he's still here, need not reply to this, because "none" is not a terribly interesting answer.

[Grey Fox]

Syt uses "Syt".

[Ideologue]

Well, that clears things up.  But I haven't seen him since I returned.

[Eddie Teach]

The reason we don't eat dogs and cats isn't because they're smart, it's because they are our companions. Horses too, though they are too big to let go completely to waste when they die.

[Caliga]

I don't understand the connection between intelligence and fitness for consumption. 

IMO carnivores should be free to consume any other animal that provides necessary nutrients.... and I say this as a quasi-supporter of the Great Ape Personhood movement.

[Eddie Teach]

Sytass uses "Syt".

Just struck me, he was one of the ones railing about namechangers, wasn't he? 

[Admiral Yi]

Since when are squid brainy?

[Caliga]

Since when are squid brainy?

Squid look like octopi, and are therefore equally intelligent? 

[Admiral Yi]

Squid look like octopi, and are therefore equally intelligent? 

Since when are octopi brainy?  I missed that memo too.

[DisturbedPervert]

Pigs, dogs, cats, monkeys, apes, whales, dolphins, elephants.  But I can't resist eating pigs.  Sorry my mud wallowing friends, you're just too delicious.

No qualms about eating squid.  They are the enemy.

[Caliga]

Since when are octopi brainy?  I missed that memo too.

AFAIK Ide is right about that.  Octopi have been observed 'playing', which apparently only intelligent animals do, as well as figuring out how to get out of enclosures and how to unscrew jars to get at food inside.

I have no idea if this applies to all species or not, though.  I wouldn't assume all monkeys are sapient just because humans are, for example.

[Neil]

Since when are squid brainy?

They're not, but many of them have proportionally large, complex brains, usually related to their colour-changing abilities.

[Neil]

There is no animal that I wouldn't eat due to intelligence.  I wouldn't eat human meat because it's socially unacceptable (even in Germany), and I wouldn't eat insect because I dislike their alien appearance.

[Ideologue]

Since when are squid brainy?

Squid look like octopi, and are therefore equally intelligent? 

Squid are cephalopods, which as a group tend to have complex brains.  They are not (on average) as intelligent as octopi*, but to the best of my knowledge it is not verified that they don't reach my arbitrary, gut-feeling theshold level.  Some are no doubt very stupid--plenty of chordates are and I eat them with gusto.  However, I doubt many servers or even chefs would be able to answer with particularity when you ask "what species is this?" at a seafood restaurant.

This is important--some squid species caught and sold for food are social hunters, displaying intelligence.  I suspect cuttlefish is also sold as calamari, and cuttlefish are nearly linguistic--using chromatophoric visual communication that is also displayed by many species of squid.  Along with imperfect information on my end about which species deserve protection as well as unresolved questions on my part regarding "what precisely constitutes an ethically indefensible consumption?", it is simply easier, and I think a more moral decision, to abstain entirely from cephalopod consumption.

Btw, this board needs its spellcheck software updated, "cephalopod" is not misspelled, nor is it a particularly uncommon word.

Cal, answer me this: how would you square the rights of primates with this putative right of a human predator to eat one? (Primates up to and including humans, even.)

*Note: I don't want to too eagerly make broad generalizations about whole orders of animals that have hundreds of species apiece.

[Caliga]

Cal, answer me this: how would you square the rights of primates with this putative right of a human predator to eat one? (Primates up to and including humans, even.)

Because, as I've said before, I don't think there should be a connection between intelligence and eligibility to be consumed. 

There are extraordinary social taboos against human cannibalism, but I don't think it really goes against nature.  Isn't there ample evidence that humans have practiced it for like 99% of the time our species has existed?  I have no desire to eat human meat but I'd do so in an emergency, as I know we all would whether or not we're willing to admit to it (e.g. Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571).