Factory Farming vs. Animal Hunting.

Which is more ethical?

I know I already blogged about this topic once but I feel as though I should come back to it...

This is a question I have been tossing around in my head for a while. Both, to me, seem like unethical topics because each requires taking a life and causing the suffering of the animal before it eventually dies. Billions of pigs, cows, chickens, horses, and so on are killed each year in factory farms. On the other hand, a little over 100 million animal deaths are reported by hunters each year. Factory farm animals are raised just to be meat. Most of them don't even see sunlight and their growth is altered and advanced by hormones and antibiotics. Animals that will be hunted in the wild live a natural life, eating what they please and enjoying the sun. Hunters then take them away from nature by shooting them for their own purpose; trophy hunting, subsistence hunting, or for sport. Both ways of killing animals provide food for families and consumers but which is more ethical?

Corporations control factory farming and employees are desensitized by the killing of animals every day. Conditions are extremely hazardous to the employees, the animals, and the consumer's health. However, consumers are often oblivious to what they are eating. They are able to detach themselves from the animal they are consuming. Since they didn't directly kill the animal, then don't see the wrong behind their meat. Hunters are required to have licenses to kill animals in the wild and are restricted to certain time periods. This way, people actually kill what they eat and the meat is not contaminated and spiked with growth hormones. Although animals do not consent to being hunted, factory farmed animals don't choose to live the lives they do either. It is hard to say one act is more humane than the other because, to me, taking a life in any way is wrong and it is not right to rank which way is more ethical.

However, I am going to have to say that people who hunt animals strictly for food is a more ethical act than the slaughtering of animals in factory farms for food. I wish both actions would cease but if I had to pick one over the other, hunting wins. Although, if people are just hunting for the sport or for the trophy, then they are just as wrong as the big corporations that kill animals in masses. I understand the point that people eat meat to survive but doing it in a way in which animals suffer from birth is really unnecessary and only killing animals for fun is not any better. Factory farming and hunting are the most controversial topics (aside from animal testing) when it comes to animal ethics. In the end, no one should have the right to take a life, human or nonhuman.

My question to you is: In your opinion, are factory farming and animal hunting comparable and which act is more ethical to you?