The ever-popular and much-used maxim “Live and let live” is an ideal slogan for the animal advocate. Too often this expression is used to refer strictly to harmonious human-to-human interactions, but I believe it can be applied in a broader, more ecumenical, less speciesist way.

How can you best help the planet and all its denizens, including humans? By living your own life in a manner that does not prevent or obstruct your fellow animals from living theirs. Live and let live. Nonhumans want to survive just as much as humans. They’re on the planet for their own purposes. They serve a specific function in the ecological picture. If we erase too many wild animals from the picture, or add too many domesticated animals (including humans), the entire planet will suffer. It does suffer. In fact, in my opinion, because of the continued unwillingness of most humans to treat other animals with dignity and respect, it is dying.

Isn’t it hypocritical to treat your pets well while ignoring the institutional abuse and murder of so many other animals? So why not take that extra moral step and also consider the right to life of the dogs, cats, birds, mice, horses, cows, pigs, bears, deer, elephants, seals, tigers, monkeys, chimpanzees, reptiles, fishes, and other species who are tormented needlessly in vivisection labs; who are beaten to make them perform in circuses and rodeos; who languish for life in zoos and marine parks; who are shot by “sport” and trophy hunters; who are bred assembly-line style in puppy and kitten mills; who are cruelly trapped, clubbed, or “farmed” for their fur; who are fought or raced to death; and who are impaled, netted, force fed, boiled alive, or confined indoors in tiny pens and cages?

Live the kind of life that allows other life to survive, because, among other benefits, it will also help humans to survive. Live and let live.