Unexpectedly Vegetarian Animals—-What Does it Mean?

AiG ^ | June 2, 2009 | Bodie Hodge, M.S.

[GodGunsGuts]

In a world full of death and suffering, some creatures are known to be fierce carnivores (meat eaters). In fact, the perception of animals eating other animals is seen as normal in today’s secular, evolution-influenced society. But was it always like that?...

[svcw]

So are you being testy, sarcastic, rude, funny - what?

[fso301]

Not necessarily. What if the reproductive rate was held to a frequency necessary to maintain then current population levels?

Maintaining population levels implies death. The article said at the beginning of creation there was no death. If there was no death, why would maintaining population levels be necessary?

Or what if fertility was shut down completely?

Then there would be no reproduction. If death existed without fertility, you would have extinction in short order.

Why do you assume unlimited fecundity? Even evos maintain that systems can regulate themselves.

true but death and decay are requirements for regulated systems. The article said at the beginning of creation, there was no death.

[Bellflower]

ping

[smalltownslick]

Not sure - could be any of those, I suppose. I couldn’t quite believe this was serious - so many things to be concerned about, and anyone would worry whether an animal was vegetarian?? Geez, find something important to worry about.

[AZ .44 MAG]

Not necessarily. What if the reproductive rate was held to a frequency necessary to maintain then current population levels?
Maintaining population levels implies death. The article said at the beginning of creation there was no death. If there was no death, why would maintaining population levels be necessary?

I admit that was a poor example. What I'm trying to convey is that if there was stasis before the Fall then most of the rules we see now didn't apply. If there was no death then there was obviously no need to regulate population levels since they would be the same at all times.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[GodGunsGuts]

Some will snatch a dead fish from time to time, but overall they are almost completely vegetarian “birds of prey.” It just goes to show you can’t always judge a bird by its beak, a spider by its venom, or a lion by its fangs.

[dr_lew]

The notion that animals that are carnivorous today have always been that way needs to be reevaluated when thinking back to creation. Originally, all animals were vegetarian; it was only after sin that death and suffering entered into the world—for animals as well as for humans. Animals that one might expect to be carnivorous but that easily survive without meat—like spiders and cats—offer a glimpse of what life could have been like originally. It also shows that these carnivorous animals could have easily have survived without meat in the original creation.

OK, who's buying? Step right up.

[ColdWater]

Some will snatch a dead fish from time to time, but overall they are almost completely vegetarian “birds of prey.”

Uh, vegetarians don't eat meat.

[ColdWater]

The only disagreement I see here is “why”.

No. It was your "why not?"

[GodGunsGuts]

As a species they are almost completely vegetarian...and many of these birds may be on a full veggie diet.

[ColdWater]

Is that ‘almost’ as in ‘almost pregnant’?

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

As it turns out, many predatory animals have *returned* to a vegetarian diet :o)

The author offers no evidence that the spider in question was ever carnivorous. The author's own link says the vultures "feed on Raphia and Elaeis palm fruit but will also take invertebrates, fish and carrion;" the author adds the phrase "on occasion" to make it sound like it doesn't do it very often, but that's an unsupported implication. The author also makes it sound like it's really hard to tell a pacu from a piranha, requiring a close examination of "slight differences" in their teeth, which is likewise deceptive: according to Wikipedia

piranha have pointed, razor-sharp teeth in a pronounced underbite, whereas pacu have squarer, straighter teeth in a less severe underbite, or a slight overbite. Additionally, full-grown pacu are much larger than piranha, reaching up to 60 pounds in weight, in the wild.

One of the lions was raised vegetarian by a human for unknown reasons; the other lived about a third of the normal lion life span.

Somehow I'm not impressed.

[dr_lew]

I think with this one you’ve gone “a bridge too far” in your creationist campaign.

[DouglasKC]

That is precisely my point. It is all conjecture from a few Biblical sentence fragments that only refer tangentially to the subject of this conversation. We each came to our opinion based on our assumptions, not the text. The Bible is pretty vague on this subject. And, it really doesn’t matter. The pre-sin existence of animal predation is not among the major (or minor) tenets of Christianity. It is a Biblical triviality — merely an interesting question to ask the Almighty when your number comes up

Well, yeah in a way. But speculation can be useful because it can better fill out a vision which can lead to hope and a strengthening of faith. But you're right in that speculation and conjecture shouldn't be taught as doctrine.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

Some will snatch a dead fish from time to time, but overall they are almost completely vegetarian

Not according to what I'm reading. From the author's own source:

these birds feed on Raphia and Elaeis palm fruit but will also take invertebrates, fish and carrion. When feeding on palm fruit they hang upside down below the fruit, pull it off the tree with their beaks and then hold it in their feet to eat it. Interestingly they have started to use a similar technique for taking carrion at game lodges. At Samburu Lodge the staff bait a branch to attract Leopard, they hang a goat haunch below an angled branch and the Leopards lie along the branch and haul the haunch up to feed on. The Palm-nut Vultures have developed the habit of hanging below the branch, using their palm fruit technique to enable them to pull off strips of meat.

From here:"Sometimes also small birds and mammals, lizards, crabs, molluscs and locusts (grasshoppers), frogs and carrion."

And another source: "Unlike other vultures, the palm nut vulture often catches live prey---both on land and from the water. On several occasions I have seen them grabbing fish with their feet from the lake surface and then carrying the fish to a tree or to the lake shore to feed on it."

That's an awful lot of flesh for an "almost completely vegetarian" species.

[ColdWater]

and many of these birds may be on a full veggie diet.

how many?

[calex59]

Not necessarily. What if the reproductive rate was held to a frequency necessary to maintain then current population levels? Or what if fertility was shut down completely? Why do you assume unlimited fecundity? Even evos maintain that systems can regulate themselves.

Sorry but I have to answer this. What you are proposing is silly. What would happen in that case would be a population build up of all species until saturation was reached and then people and animals would have to quit. With no death there would be no frequency, no self regulating system to maintain population levels, no death means just that, no death, ever. All reproduction would have to stop and then all the animals and people would live forever population rates staying the same, never again reproducing. No regulation, but stagnation and I do not believe any creator would make something that stagnated and stayed the same forever.

Think about it, without death, no reproduction is possible, because no regulation would be possible, and that would not apply to plants if people were eating them, new plants would have to grow. Unless people wouldn't have to eat, with no death why bother eating? What's the point, you can't die, so why do you have to eat?

[Fire_on_High]

I’m sure that whole going blind from lack of taurine thing is just a small inconvenience for the cat right? Right??

[Oztrich Boy]

As it turns out, many predatory animals have *returned* to a vegetarian diet :o)

Just the "bad hunters"