this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Most food animals would go extinct if humans stopped raising them for food. A number of food plants too.
Why would that be an issue? Those animals only live lives of suffering and the environment would benefit greatly if we stopped breeding them.
Domesticated species are selectively bred by humans to enhance characteristics we find desirable. Many of these characteristic would be weeded out by natural selection within one generation. Cultivated banana trees, for example, cannot reproduce; and Dairy cows can die if not milked regularly.
That's a big part of what makes them "domesticated".
I'm asking why it matters if they go extinct, not if they would.