I'm a member of another forum - it's a food forum mostly frequented by meat eaters, which is fine. There are plenty of discussions I can get involved in and many recipes I can use and/or adapt to suit my needs. I've also been able to offer many vegan recipes, which have been welcomed - most people are curious and very open to trying new things:) I like this forum and many of the people on it and haven't had any conflicting emotions until now.

Basically, one of the members has acquired several swan eggs, which a neighbour gave to her - apparently he keeps 100's of swans, which I find rather confusing, as they are not normally consumed for meat. This member is based in Australia so I'm not sure what the deal is there but I know in the UK swans are a protected species and you face prosecution if you interfere with them in any way.

Aside from all that I'm annoyed at the response from many of the other members - one said she was lucky to get her hands on such a delicacy! Thankfully not everyone was happy and said she should glean more information surrounding the man, the swans and the eggs before using them. I bite my tongue most of the time on this forum as I feel it is not the place for me to air my feelings - afterall this is a forum set up by a cook who loves her meat!

I was horrified when someone recently asked how best to cook her Zebra meat (yes, you did read that correctly - ZEBRA!) and now this:( I honestly despair. These are, for the most part, lovely people so when they have such a blase attitude to things I care deeply about it breaks my heart. 

Aine,

I've had to quit a couple of groups I've been in because I really disagreed with some things that were being promoted.  I think in both groups the issue I really had was people being really closed minded and intolerant of other viewpoints. 

The last straw in a natural parenting group I joined was the group owner jumping into a discussion about birth control and basically telling people they were going against God if they used any form of birth control whatsoever.  In the other group - a healthy eating/cooking group, the final straw was the group moderator telling someone that basically they could not eat healthy and use Splenda, and that was against what the group was about.  I found myself defending the Splenda user, something I would never even use myself, just because I thought it was so ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm certainly not suggesting that you should quit by any means, but I understand how disheartening it can be to discover that a group you're excited about is advocating things that you're deeply against.  It could be an opportunity though too to enlighten a few people.  But, I also wouldn't feel bad if you end up deciding that you just can't reconcile your views with that of the group either.

Good luck! :)

Hey Nicole, thanks for your response. I don't think I'm going to quit - I'm quite attached to the forum really. In fact, I tried to quit once only to go back several months later, lol!

I probably just needed to vent on here with like minded people. I try to be as tolerant as I can but sometimes it's difficult. It's not my place to convert anyone but I did receive a lovely message on my blog recently from someone on that very forum saying I was making her want to revert to her vegan ways again - this absolutely made my week! So I think it's worthwhile staying put and give everyone a very gentle nudge:)