Why are whales in danger of extinction, but not chickens?
Seldom does a year pass without a demonstration decrying international hunting that threatens extinction for many large marine mammal species. Yet to my knowledge there has never been a demonstration exhorting us to save chickens. Why not? The short answer is that chickens have never been an endangered species. But that just raises the question of why one species is endangered and another not. Whale populations have been dwindling because no one owns whales. They swim in international waters, and several nations have refused to respect the international treaties that have attempted to protect them. Japanese and Norwegian whalers understand that their current practices threaten the survival of whales and hence their own livelihood. But each whaler also knows that any whale he does not harvest will be taken by someone else. By contrast, most chickens in the world are owned by someone. If you kill one of your chickens today, that is one less chicken you will own tomorrow. If chicken farmi
