Would you eat elephant meat?

Source background
In "Kangaroo meat puts commercial industry and animal welfare groups into conflict," Kim Arlington says that whether the meat from the iconic Australian kangaroo should be eaten or not is causing considerable controversy between different groups (2016). Farmers would like to get rid of kangaroos, which compete for the grass their sheep and other livestock eat; the kangaroo industry sees the meat as a profitable business; but animal welfare groups object to the killing of this native animal, especially the often brutal treatment of joeys whose mothers are killed for meat. According to Arlington, those in favour of eating kangaroo meat argue that this is the best way to make the animals valuable so that they will be killed more humanely by farmers and meat producers, who will treat an animal with commercial value more carefully than one with no value that is only a pest.

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My Yes/No question is:
Would you eat elephant meat?

My answer is:

Yes, I would but not today.

The Australian coat of arms.
Both national symbols, the kangaroo
and the emu, are on Australian menus.

The more obvious question was whether you would eat kangaroo meat, but for a Thai audience, I thought that the elephant question was stronger. Just as the kangaroo is a symbol of Australia, so is the elephant a symbol of Thailand. I have no idea whether Thais have ever eaten elephants or not, but as Arlington's article points out, Australians do eat kangaroo. I usually have some kangaroo steak on my visits, and would agree that it's a tasty meat. I don't know about the health claims, but it does seem less fatty than other commonly eaten meats.

The first thing I thought of while reading the article in The Sydney Morning Herald was that this issue is an extremely emotional one. People often have strong feelings on these sorts of issues, but that's not a reason to refuse to discuss the issues. On the contrary, it's a very good reason to apply some critical thinking, which is one thing that Arlington tries to do in his article, while he admits the strong emotions that people have.

No elephant recipes in
modern editions

Another reason I made my Yes/No question about elephants is that some people have  definitely eaten (do eat?) elephant meat. As I read Arlington's article, I was reminded of one of my prized books, an old edition of the classic cook book Larousse Gastronomique, which contains a recipe for elephant trunk soup. In later editions, this recipe has disappeared: I guess it isn't easy to find the main ingredient these days.

But why do people who eagerly eat many kinds of meat, ordering and paying for killing on a massive scale every day for no better reason than to enjoy the taste of animal flesh, object to other people eating different animals? Another obvious example is dog meat, which I've enjoyed on visits to Chiang Rai, where it seems popular. The first time was an accident: my brother and I were in a small town restaurant and thought the waiter was recommending duck. Although it was tasty, it was obvious that what arrived on the pate was not duck. A few questions clarified that the waiter had not been saying "duck" but "dog." We had already eaten a bit so continued. Why eat cow, pig, sheep and duck, but not dog, kangaroo or elephant?

I would not eat elephant today because they are under threat, but that objection does not apply to either kangaroos or dogs. And the French are rather fond of horse. This also brings up some interesting questions related to the readings in chapter 1 of Quest 2: can a cultural prejudice make something right or wrong? I don't think so. The cultural background makes prejudices understandable, but that's not the same as making them either right or wrong. Slavery was never morally OK just because many cultures traditionally accepted it. Or am I wrong?

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Reference

Arlington, K. (2016, July 31). Kangaroo meat puts commercial industry and animal welfare groups into conflict. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/kangaroo-meat-puts-commercial-industry-and-animal-welfare-groups-into-conflict-20160721-gqadyg.html