The Bodster writes:
>anyone
>out there who loves animals *and* eats them (i mean their own pets)?

Nothing to offer except the observation that recent hunter/gatherers have
been seen to be very _un_sentimental about pets--indeed our word "pet" is
probably not properly used in this context...

Testimonial: We recently put a dozen goldfish (carp at 8 cents a piece)
into a backyard "pond" which has filled up with seasonal rain water. Being
quite stagnant the mosquito larvae were flourishing, so I thought: Hey some
fish'll eat them. The guy at PetCo suprised me by being full of info on the
subject. He says nurseries sometimes sell "mosquito fish" for precisely
that purpose. But that goldfish might work. He wondered why I didn't add a
tablespoon of vegetable oil to the "pond" and suffocated the larvae. I
thought the fishies would be quite a bit more entertaining, and I plunked
down 96 cents plus tax for a dozen. But, alas, they didn't seem to eat any
larvae. So I ended up dropping some oil (EV olive no less) in the pond.
Wiped out those nasty larvae in a few days, but the fishies survived. All
except two of them: floaters. So being the intrepid RAF investigator that I
am, I scooped them off the surface of the water and...and put them in the
Can o Worms to compost.

OK, hands up. How many thought I was going to...never mind.

Cheers,
Kirt