Are carnivorous plants vegan?
Like, go look into more interesting things, like the fertiliser and non-food products that are difficult to avoid if you want something interesting, but even then you'll find that veganism can be quite pragmatic. But don't throw non-problems like the above at people.
My personal opinion would be that if anything is vegan (the "plants nourish on dead animals" position is an argument for another day), then a carnivorous plant itself is unquestionably vegan.
If the question is about belief, I would not consider "vegan" a diet in any possible meaning of the word.
(The above does not state that I find veganism to be wrong—rather, it merely classifies the ideology.)
He told me that he'd just avoid eating them to avoid the question of morality.
So to answer your question from what a vegan told me: possibly.
And if the issue is taking advantage of the pollinator's hard work, the vast majority of fruits are off limits.
I believe all figs work that way, with co-evolved fig wasps pollinating it. The pollinating female is actually the smallest part of the animal protein digested by the fig: only the female wasps and a subset of the parasites (which managed to infect female wasps before their exit) make it out, male wasps and the rest of the parasites die inside and get digested as well.
Or "are they themselves vegans?"
The second question is obviously No for the proverbial flytrap, but it hints at another interesting question:
Can a non-human animal (or plant) be a vegan?
Examples: a pet wolf you only feed with vegan food; a cow you don't force to eat other cows.
To dig into your question, one first has to answer what the definition of vegan is in the context. Is it just a diet, or is it a belief? While a pet wolf fed only vegan food would probably die from malnutrition, it is fair to assume that a cow left to its own devices would eat food that, while indigestible to human vegans, would be vegan in nature.
But, does that make the cow "vegan", as the cause of this choice is merely a biological one? I do not think it would hesitate to enjoy honey if presented, nor worry if meat was its primary food source.
And if it's intent, are all vegans equally vegan? If I "eat vegan" for my own health, and you "eat vegan" because you want sustainable agriculture long-term, and Suzie "eats vegan" because her religion tells her to, are we all really "vegans?"
And if we are, then why isn't a giraffe? We have no insight into its motivation, and "it evolved to do so" is a slippery slope.
If figs aren't acceptable because wasps get digested by the plant, then surely no food is vegan, as insects are certainly involved in pollination and probably form some small percentage of almost any food product available.
While I believe that some vegans might have some concern about harvesting. I’ve never met anyone who wouldn’t eat conventionally-harvested vegetables.
NB: not a vegan but a kosher vegetarian and so have some similar restrictions.
https://www.joe.ie/news/forms-guinness-worldwide-draught-bot...
The system between wasps and figs is mutual. The fig doesn't trap wasps against their will—the wasp enters voluntarily because they have evolved to lay eggs in figs, as the fig provides a brilliant environment for the eggs to safely grow. I do not know of any mechanism where the fig benefits from the death of the wasp—that the opening is so narrow that the wasps wings detach is, from what I can gather, in order to protect the wasp's offspring, which is to the benefit of the wasp, not the fig. It is therefore not really a killer plant. The wasp is the one that keeps squeezing as its wings are torn off.
If fig is not vegan because an insect voluntarily died in the process of its pollination, then I simply no longer understand the concept of veganism. Not eating fig is not about avoiding animals or animal products, nor about not contributing to their production (If you consider the fig an animal product due to this process, note that most plants absorb nutrients from dead animals through the soil).
I hate figs personally, though, so I'm not trying to contribute to their consumption. And wasps.