Many vegans catch and release spiders, go out of their way not to step on ants, rescue bees and other bugs from swimming pools as well as performing many other acts of insect kindness, but what do you do with those insects whose major objective is to bring you discomfort and possibly disease? It’s the middle of the night, you are trying to sleep but there is a little mosquito buzzing next to your ear and you know that if you don’t do something, you will ultimately be bit at least once, so what do you do? This is a question presented to me by a non vegan and as usual I am interested in others’ perspective. How many people who dedicate their lives to not harming animals take the same stance when it comes to the creepy crawlies or flying pest? Do you kill mosquitoes?
See the conversation on Facebook.
Don't Fear the Vegan 
Believe it or not, I do not kill mosquitoes. I’ve been vegan almost for 2 years, and even when I was a non vegan I just couldn’t do it. (:
If information were sccoer, this would be a goooooal!
Dianna Winn (via facebook) Ha, ha! I’m always trying to rescue insects from swimming pools. :)) Good question about mosquitoes. I do my best to capture and release, but I’ve been know to swap them. But I always feel a bit guilty. :>/
Now we know who the snesible one is here. Great post!
Richa Hingle says (via facebook) i’d like to know too.. mosquitoes, cockroaches, other creepy crawlies invading your home..
someone pointed out to me some days back, that its about self preservation and not compassion at the point when the mosquito is going to bite. but what about cockroaches, flour beetles and termites..though from what i’ve read, we don’t know if insects feel pain. farming kills insects too!
Ya learn something new eveyrady. It’s true I guess!
Leko Batista says (via facebook): I try not to…
Your article perfectly shows what I neeedd to know, thanks!
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I never kill them. As for mosquitoes, I use repellent or one of those candles that keep them away. As for cockroaches, I catch and then release them in a green area, for example, my garden…
I don’t want them to die (they don’t know this is “my house”).
🙂
Heck yeah this is exactly what I neeedd.
Short, sweet, to the point, FREE-exactly as information suolhd be!
Hmm… I kill them. Ticks too. I feel a little guilty about it, but my opinion has always been that I’ve taken responsibility for my pets, not the bugs. I try to remove bugs that aren’t going to do harm when I can (like spiders).
I feel the same way about my companion animals. We use flea and tick treatment, and I don’t know if that kills them or repels them. The health and well-being of my dogs and cats comes first.
The health and well-being of my pets comes first, as well. I was married to a veterinarian for many years and although he was not vegan, I am. I always try to be kind to all creatures, but I must care for my pets health first. Actually, their health probably comes before mine…! I figure I am an adult and know what I am doing, but they have minds like children and I must make wise decisions for them and their health.
I have enough blood for a skeeter who happens past my defenses. Ticks? If they are on me or a pet, I see no other choice but kill them to remove them.
I live in an area where there are a lot of black widow and brown recluse spiders and scorpions. I am vegan and I struggled with my decision to use an (organic) exterminator. The way I see it, I need to protect my home and especially my companion animals from harm. My two indoor cats have a bad habit of playing with any insect that does find it’s way into our home, so I feel like I had to choose between their safety and the well-being of insects that may hurt them. I wish there was another way but I haven’t found it yet. I do, however, catch and release any non-threatening bug that finds their way in.
Great question…I will admit that when I feel a bite out of nowhere, I swat at it, and odds are, the little bug is not fast enough to fly away. Am I a bad vegan? I talk to bumble bees, but run from wasps. I tend to daddy longlegs, but the fast, big, scary spiders belong to my husband, who will 9 times out of 10 remove them from the home alive…I’d love to hear out people don’t kill mosquitos though. It’s just instinct for me to swat at the sting of the bite.
I don’t feel that it’s instinct because I’m able to not kill them going on 30 years. As children you grew up watching 99% of people around you kill them so it’s a deeply ingrained habit . It’s not instinct because if your cat climbs on you and you feel a claw in your arm you don’t hit it, if your getting a needle you don’t automatically hit the needle causing you pain. The brain can process in lightning speed what is causing the pain and respond how you judged appropriately . I personally feel like they have as much value as any other living creature so I merely blow on them.
Wow, great comment, thank you (10 month vegan)
Oh, and if I ever saw a tarantula in my house…I’d move.
I do kill mosquitoes sometimes, but I’m always aware that I’m taking a life, and I feel a some guilt. 😦 I oftentimes apologize to the little bugger either aloud or in my head. Once in a while, I’ll watch them bite me and wish them luck. But, I try to avoid killing by using repellant or barriers or swooshing them away. Our life comes at the expense of others’ lives: even the plants we eat involved the death of the plant, insects and microbes: the circle of life involves death; let’s not deny death. The point of veganism, IMO, is to be as compassionate and mindful as possible and to not cause unnecessary suffering or death for our (ostensible) pleasure. Thanks for the thread.
Apologizing is NOT sufficient. You are killing bugs and each bug’s life is just as valuable as the life of a cow or a deer or a sheep or a chicken. If a person eats 10 chickens and 2 cows worth of meat a year but kills no mosquitoes, that person has taken 12 lives. If you kill 24 mosquitoes a year, you have taken 24 lives. You are twice the murderer of the person who is eating 12 animals a year.
This is a very helpful thread. Husband and I have reduced the insects we kill to just a few species. We don’t like the ecological consequences of commercial repellants and Frontline-type ingestible flea/tick repellants (plus they *may* have had a role in our 2 past elderly dogs’ loss of motor function). So I use powdered “diatomaceous earth” with added sage on our dogs’ bodies and KAL yeast flakes in their food and organic ACV in their water, and daily careful combing, which actually has been working for us in east-coast Florida! FYI, when I sprinkle yeast flakes regularly on husband’s and my food (salad, popcorn, rice…but don’t cook the yeast), we ourselves aren’t attractive to mosquitoes. Back to the dogs: sometimes I find one to four fleas a day (and for about 10 days a year, closer to 20…on those days, I comb and twice daily. I pick off and crush fleas between my fingernails. Granted, this is easier because our dogs are lighter-colored, relatively short-haired. Outdoors, I leave mosquitoes alone and pray the birds and lizards will eat them (bats too, though it seems the bats are dying off). Indoors, I swat mosquitoes. I know mosquitoes and fleas are biologically compelled to live on our blood, but I regard them as attacking, and I don’t believe they process fear and suffering the same way many other animals do (including fish, and even lizards). I regard ticks in the same way. I admit that my ethical stance on this point is questionable, and admire those who try harder to spare the lives of insects. Long ago, I killed spiders, something I’d never do now. (I wish they’d eat the mosquitoes and silverfish.) Being in Florida, we do have cockroaches, which I try to catch and release, but still sometimes squash. I recently bought a “Bug Bazooka” that sucks up roaches (for release outdoors); my husband has success with it, but I seem to just wind up terrorizing the roaches with it. I sense their fear, although they are ballsy critters – they do return 🙂 The bazooka is a good solution if you are quick and coordinated, which my husband is and I am not. As a believer in God who believes that God expects each of us to act ethically and morally according to our enlightenment, I want to improve my behavior and be a more consistent vegan, yet I still kill the blood-sucking insects.
If you killed a total of 100 insects (mosquitoes, cockroaches) a year, then you have committed 100 murders of life. If another person killed no insects in a year but ate the meat of 10 chickens, 1 cow and 14 fish a year, then that person has committed 25 murders of life. In that context, you have murdered at 4x the rate of the animal eater. I don’t know how you are being a true vegan in that context!
Just spent over an hr not killing the mosquitoes in my room. Have to be up early and it’s midnight. Instead of sleeping I chase the a- holes around my room to save myself from bites and them from death. So angry but can’t kill the bastards.
Kill your self please.
I am vegan. I kill mossies
Vegetarianism and veganism absolutely positively without a doubt reduce mosquito bites. At barbecues the meat eating alcohol drinkers attract all the mosquitoes (other insects) before becoming a vegetarian, mosquitoes did bother me.
Four rules:
Don’t eat meet
Don’t drink alcohol
Do not slap but If necessary flick
Do not show fear or aggression
Course if you prefer poisons, so that you can continue eating meat, it’s your choice.
It’s 4:37 am right now and I’m up determined to kill a mosquito that has not me three time! One time being on my lip! Who gets mosquito bites on their lips?? 😫😫😫 He’s messing with the wrong vegan tonight!
What disgust me more than mosquitos are peoples refusing to kill them for “moral reasons”. Ok, let them eat you and your family, pets, or neigboors.
So you’ll save cockroaches, mosquitoes and deer ticks. Does this also follow suit when it comes to opposing the termination of human fetuses?