It's also noteworthy that many of the things PETA and other animal rights groups are most against are largely absent in Africa. (At least the parts where they are hunting apes for food.) We don't want to raise and butcher our own chickens and cows and couldn't even if we wanted because our cities have laws against such things. So, big businesses take care of it for us in some isolated locale in the smallest amount of space possible because of cost reasons. This creates the cramped chicken farms PETA hates, where the chickens don't enjoy the existence they had on Grandpa's farm that we used to love visiting when we were kids. And because everything is out of sight and out of mind, many people lose all connection between what appears on their plates and its origins. This makes it extremely easy to wash your hands of the whole thing and label it somebody else's problem. Plus, it promotes the romanticized view of animals that is only possible when you don't have real life, day-to-day exposure to them.

A few years ago, I recall an article about the problems caused by the exploding deer population in some area where they'd never been a problem before. Deer were damaging people's landscaping, eating their gardens and frequently being hit on the roads. One official noted that every newcomer to the area arrived loving the deer and opposing the idea of culling the herds, yet within a few months they would invariably join the crowd demanding something be done about the problem.