We (the British) exterminated 750,000 in preparation for WWII. Voluntarily.
"People were worried about the threat of bombing and food shortages and felt it inappropriate to have the 'luxury' of a pet during wartime"
"People were worried about the threat of bombing and food shortages and felt it inappropriate to have the 'luxury' of a pet during wartime"
Humans can shoot guns back at invaders, dogs can't.
I'm an animal lover and conservationist but don't disagree with this decision, it was reasonable in a food shortage.
It's not like anyone was starving, there were of course shortages of certain products but the daily calorific from rations was 30-50% higher than what is recommended today. I don't think anybody had to resort to eating dog food?
The British mainland isn't anywhere close to self-sufficient on food, and wasn't during WWII. So it needed shipments of food. Literally shipments because it's an island. Now, under ordinary rules of war ("Cruiser rules") you can't just blow up civilian transports moving food, you need to search the ships, find illegal shipments and then you can sink them after making their crews safe. But that's not how you win a war quickly against people with more resources than you, so Hitler ordered instead "Unrestricted submarine warfare" which is if you see a merchant vessel, attack and destroy it, they all drown, too bad.
There's a down side to unrestricted submarine warfare of course, unlike wearing badges with skulls on them (like the Mitchell & Webb sketch, but something elite military units on every side in conflicts have tended to do) blowing up unarmed merchant ships and killing their crews in order to starve civilians is clearly something that bad guys do, so, no moral high ground for you.
However in terms of starving Britain it was close to success. And the British government of the day assumed that, if starved, the civilians would demand their government surrender to Hitler to receive food. Would that have happened? We don't know. The Japanese experience suggests that civilians might just accept starving to death rather than surrender.
Not sure why you're downvoted btw; it's a legitimate if hard/difficult question and spurs discussion. And it's easy for us today from luxury of our homes to point out to sterile facts of "average calorie intake".
Having a pet in a war is difficult. When there's bombing, do you leave the pet in home or do you take them to shelter? If there's snipers and bombs pestering the city every day for years, how do you take them out to do their business? How do you give them exercise and love and attention and play with them when your friends and family just got killed, when you yourself are a shell of a terrified, stressed out, depressed, uncertain human being? How do you explain to the animal what the terrifying nightly sounds are that make it go berserk and attack furniture and other pets and human children in sheer terror, while keeping it confined to a couple of small rooms for years?
I don't think the cold simplified wikipedia article gives any justice whatsover to the actual emotions and situations and difficult decisions and tradeoffs those people had to make.
Heck, in the middle of the war, every day you have to make decision for yourself and your family - are we going to live another day? Should we end this? Is this suffering worthwhile? Is there end in sight? Is there any rainbow or light or good ending to this? Pets are simply part of that larger heartbreaking awful equation we as human beings inflict on each other.
You act as you would for your children, you feed them, shelter them ... and kill anyone and anything that threatens them.
It may or may not surprise you that is not universal.
I for one admit to being speciest. If I have to choose between my dog and my son I will not be thinking very long.
It is not even remotely hypothetical btw. Most of us, when our dog threatens and bites our child, will get rid of the dog and will not rid of the child.
In my mind either:
1. You did not fully think through and empathize with war situation and mentality. That's possible and even likely and I would not judge for that. E.g. Many Ww2 and Vietnam veterans famously persisted In telling people "you won't understand unless you've been there". that's infuriating and insulting yet true. It is difficult for a person in comfortable situation to empathize with extreme situations.
Or
2. You are not being fully honest (either with yourself or us). I.e. You'd LIKE to think you are kind and giving to pets and don't want to admit that in extreme situation you might make a difficult decision and harm a pet.
Or
3. You genuinely put pets and humans on the same level. That's certainly possible. I would say that when push comes to shove (as opposed to internet theorizing) that would put you in minority. Don't get near my children, especially if you remotely meant your last sentence - which would be TERRIFYING.
https://kashmirlife.net/fell-in-drain-struggled-for-days-for...
the government was pressured into "animal rights" by lobbyists who wanted to hug and care for stray animals but that has resulted in conditions like these.
i truly feel for "animal lovers" and their convictions but if a human life is lost because animals who could be put down are not put down, that makes me very very sad. and angry but very sad mostly.
Edit : red: " covid lethal to all living things " the insect population of the city of London vanished towards the end of the official pandemic measures. Maybe the job was considered done because only this January the most lethal covid variant was culling infants and young children in Japan killing in under two weeks through multiple organ failure and the day after NKK broke the story Rishi Sunak the prime minister of the UK ordered air routes to and from Japan to be fully opened up from lockdown rules completely without any review.
I would imagine it's more likely that people kept their cats indoors or stopped feeding ferals.