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Animal cross breeding, good or bad?
Ok so this is more of a debate than a question but it hit me this morning that it is so wrong to cross breed animals. Basically in my biology mock exam for science the first question was About a zorse, a half zebra half horse. It made me think that it would be just like forcing a human to reproduce with a gorilla or orangutang. What are your views on animal cross breeding?
So for me it depends on the situation. In some cases it can be very good, others pointless.

On the good side cross and selective breeding is how we have all the various domestic species we have today which has been a very helpful thing. With wild animals they have been playing around with the idea when it comes to critically endangered species. Take tigers for example, several of the species only have a few left and in the long run for survival it might be helpful to take say a handful of bengals and put them in areas where other subspecies have poor breeding numbers. Of course you are going to blur the gene and subspecies pool but it might also be enough to save the species/subspecies.

On the bad side, personally I find it cruel and pointless if it is done out of greed and retains no conversational or human (with domestic species) value. Look at ligers (tiger/lion), they retain NO conversational value and have horrid genetic and health problems due to their size and the mixing of the genes. On top of that the only reason it is done is because people are either ignorant and house lions and tigers together or they do it on purpose because they think ligers are cool. 100% cruel
Bad: 3 Middle: 2 Good: 5
So I will be tallying your votes and then we can see everyones opinions!

I don't think force breeding is right at all! How would you like it if you were forced to marry someone? It ain't right!

Alright, thanks for your opinion!

I honestly don't think its that bad-- As long as they aren't forced to mate. If they're forced, then of course it's pretty bad, but I'm not sure if that's always true. So I'd probably say middle, but it depends on if the animals are forced or not. I'd also say it's bad if they get like the Liger (Problems due to genes and such)

Thank you

Cross breeding, while perhaps slightly alike to attempting to breed a "human with a gorilla or orangutan", is by definition very different. Humans and gorillas are not the same species, and (to my understanding) cannot produce any sort of offspring, especially not fertile sorts.

I do not understand the notion of allowing a being to come into the world as "100% cruel". The entire nature of the unborn is heavily rooted in the unknown; we cannot know based on genes if an animal's life will be satisfactory or worthwhile. If anything, it is cruel is assert that a life will be pointless if allowed to be carried to term, solely based on the known genetic make up of an individual. I am saying, a liger may very well be useful to society, serving as a subject for science, or generating income at zoos where people pay to be entertained, and may very well be content with its life, regardless of its genes.

Not to mention, humans selectively breeding has allowed nearly every kind of domesticated animal and food humanity knows to exist today.

Thank you Alrai, I always find your opinions on things very truthful and needed to face the reality, but what about the genitic problems that we could cause using these animals as science expirements? Also thank you for the post that has some effort and thinking behind it. Thank you, Alrai!

Thanks for the praise, albeit undeserved.
I am unsure what you mean by the "genetic problems that we could cause using these animals as science experiments."

I've thought about it a bit more.. If professionals think that it will make an animal that is more than less likely to survive in the wild, then cross breeding is okay. As long as they aren't forced!

Yep.

Force breeding is bad, especially if it's cross breeding.

However, if the animals do it because they want to, they're not forced, it's fine. Even though, most likely, their off-spring will have health problems.

good XD Animal crossbreeding is good but if i hear about ppl forced breeding them i will Terrorize ppl with chainsawZ! (jk) but i do hate forced breeding.

also if you could put some explanation in your post, that would be great.

I don't get what the thing about force breeding is, yeah it's bad but the animals
don't have a choice anyways. They go in heat and mate, it's kinda forced anyways.
It's not like humans, who 'mate' for 'fun' sometimes. ( LOL GROSS )

Animals mate because of chemicals and such that make them go in heat, there
is no choice. If they don't go in heat, they don't mate. So really they're forced to
mate anyways, albeit forced by themselves.

Let's remember that this is cross breeding, two different species of animals being mated together. This is not just FORCE breeding.

I agree with Slueth on this one... I have a yard full of birds, and I've seen male ducks try to mate with female chickens.
Did I force them to do this? Heck no.
Was the female happy about this? Double heck no.
If they had been humans, it would be sexual assault, because the females were defiantly not enjoying themselves.
We also had geese, and the males killed female chickens when trying to mate with them. Broke their necks from pinning them down too hard.
Male chickens do the same to female chickens, and broken legs for the females have been results of it.
Whether humans force the animal or not, it's quite likely it will be forced by one anyways... and they will also try to cross breed on their own at times as well. I haven't actually seen a legit half-duck-half-chicken hatch before, but tigers and lions can and probably do it on their own in the wild.
Also I am quite curious how one would force lion/tiger breeding. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that if you tried to force either species into doing something would likely tick it off and you'd lose and arm or something.