This is an edited version of a column that first appeared in the April 30, 2004 edition of The Citizen:
The winter he and I turned 10, Troy took me out with him a few times to tend to his rabbit trap line. With a single mom and a younger sister, Troy was the man of the house. Too young to get a paying job, he started putting meat in the freezer.
Our subdivision in Hay River, a small town on the south shore of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, backed onto a thick forest. Someone, perhaps an uncle, had shown Troy how to set traps for rabbits, looking for their paths in the snow.
While these traps were lacking in humane treatment of animals, they more than compensated for their simplicity and effectiveness. I don't remember if it was fishing line or something thicker but the traps formed an invisible noose, hanging from a branch, over a trail. The rabbit would run through head first and find itself caught by the neck, the line tightening its deadly grip during the short struggle.
Not a pretty way to die, but Troy filled up the family freezer and I'm sure I dined on his mom's rabbit stew once or twice. He would take them home to skin and gut them himself. I think he may have even sold the fur because I vaguely remember skins hanging to dry off the back porch.
Troy had to go out each afternoon, after school but before dark, to tend his trap line. If he skipped a day, he was liable to find the ravens beat him to a trapped rabbit. When they did, all the birds left behind were a patch of pink snow and a few tufts of hair.
I think of my childhood friend whenever I think about animal rights.
The more affluent and urban our society becomes, the more horrified we become at the prospect of animals suffering so that we may feed and clothe ourselves. The presentation of meat in grocery stores and even most butcher shops is to sanitize the source of the food. The cleanliness of the presentation is about instilling consumer confidence that the meat is fresh and good for you but it's also to completely divorce the meat from the once-living animal that provided it.
Except for hunters and the shrinking number of farmers, we as a society have become above such pursuits so we nod approvingly when passionate environmentalists and furious media commentators demand an end to barbaric treatment of the poor critters.
Inspired by Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente, who wrote in a 2002 column that she was "ashamed to be a Canadian" because of the Newfoundland seal hunt, two UNBC professors investigated this very issue.
International studies professor Heather Myers and her colleague, Tracy Summerville, in political science, published an article, "Anti-use campaigns and resource communities: the consequences of political correctness," in the journal Policy Options. The article looked at the growing outrage among urbanites over resource extraction. They found that there's no consideration of the devastating social, economic and cultural costs on rural residents when these legitimate, sustainable resource activities are forced to stop solely on ethical concerns expressed by urban activists.
What has always interested me is the role esthetics plays in the environmental awareness of urban Canadians. If polar bears looked like cockroaches, would anyone care about their survival? If the trees in the Ancient Forest weren't so tall and majestic, their tops swaying peacefully in the gentle breeze, would anyone have cared if they were cut down for lumber? In other words, do environmental concerns run deeper than a mere enjoyment of beautiful animals and attractive landscapes? Do animals and their environments have an inherent value of their own?
Those are just some of the agonizing questions another UNBC professor, Annie Booth, has asked for years in her environmental ethics class.
For Troy, rabbits were cute and plentiful, as well as a great source of food and income. Then, and now, there's no shame in having a broad enough mind to live in both realities.
