(This is a part of an essay calling for all predatory animals to killed off or genetically engineered into herbivores to end all suffering in the biosphere.)

More controversial than the case of tapeworms, cockroaches or locusts would be reprogramming or phasing out snakes and crocodiles. Snakes and crocodiles cause innumerable hideous deaths in the world each day. They are also part of our familiar conceptual landscape thanks to movies, zoos, TV documentaries, and the like - though a relaxed tolerance of their activities is easier in the comfortable West than for, say, a grieving Indian mother who has lost her child to a snakebite. Snakes are responsible for over 50,000 human deaths each year.

Most controversial of all, however, would be the extinction - or genetically-driven behavioural modification - of members of the cat family. We'll focus here on felines rather than the "easy" cases like parasitic tapeworms or cockroaches because of the unique status of members of the cat family in contemporary human culture, both as pets/companion animals and as our romanticised emblems of "wildlife". Most contemporary humans have a strong aesthetic preference in favour of continued feline survival. Their existence in current guise is perhaps the biggest ethical/ideological challenge to the radical abolitionist. For our culture glorifies lions, with their iconic status as the King of the Beasts; we admire the grace and agility of a cheetah; the tiger is a symbol of strength, beauty and controlled aggression; the panther is dark, swift and elegant; and so forth. Innumerable companies and sports teams have enlisted one or other of the big cats for their logos as symbols of manliness and vigour. Moreover cats of the domestic variety are the archetypal household pets. The worldwide domestic cat population has been estimated at around 400 million. We romanticise their virtues and forgive their foibles, notably their playful torment of mice. Indeed rather than being an object of horror - and compassion for the mouse - the torment of mice has been turned into stylized entertainment. Hence Tom-and-Jerry cartoons. By contrast, talk of "eliminating" predation can sound sinister. What would "phasing out" or "reprogramming" predators mean in practice? Most disturbingly, such terms are evocative of genocide, not universal compassion.

Appearances deceive. To get a conceptual handle on what is really going on during "predation", let's compare our attitude to the fate of a pig or a zebra with the fate of an organism with whom those non-human animals are functionally equivalent, both intellectually and in their capacity to suffer, namely a human toddler. On those rare occasions when a domestic dog kills a baby or toddler, the attack is front-page news. The offending dog is subsequently put down. Likewise, lions in Africa who turn man-eater are tracked down and killed, regardless of their conserved status. This response isn't to imply lions - or for that matter rogue dogs - are morally culpable. But by common consent they must be prevented from killing any more human beings. By contrast, the spectacle of a lion chasing a terrified zebra and then asphyxiating its victim can be shown on TV as evening entertainment, edifying viewing even for children. How is this parallel relevant? Well, if our theory of value aspires to a God's-eye perspective, stripped of unwarranted anthropocentric bias in the manner of the physical sciences, then the well-being of a pig or a zebra inherently matters no less than the fate of a human baby - or any other organism endowed with an equivalent degree of sentience. If we are morally consistent, then as we acquire God-like powers over Nature's creatures, we should take analogous steps to secure their well-being too. Given our anthropocentric bias, thinking of non-human vertebrates not just as equivalent in moral status to toddlers or infants, but as though they were toddlers or infants, is a useful exercise. Such reconceptualisation helps correct our lack of empathy for sentient beings whose physical appearance is different from "us". Ethically, the practice of intelligent "anthropomorphism" shouldn't be shunned as unscientific, but embraced insofar as it augments our stunted capacity for empathy. Such anthropomorphism can be a valuable corrective to our cognitive and moral limitations. This is not a plea to be sentimental, simply for impartial benevolence. Nor is it even a plea to take "sides" between killer and prey. Human serial killers who prey on other humans need to be locked up. But ultimately, it's vindictive morally to blame them in any ultimate sense for the fate of their victims. Their behaviour supervenes on the fundamental laws of physics. Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. Yet this indulgence doesn't extend to permitting them to kill again; and the abolitionist maintains the same principle holds good for nonhuman serial killers too.