Native Americans killed the buffalo right away and THEN they used every part of the animal as not to waste anything and to not make its death a waste- is this better than using fur for show?

Answer 1

Yes because if you just kill for the fun of it you are prettymuch just wiping out a species.

(Edit)

First, the premise of the question needs to be cleared up --- Native Americans did not always "use every part" of the animal, and often buffalo hunted by traditional methods take quite some time to die, due to technological limitations. The idea that Native Americans lived "in tune" with nature is something of a myth -- they altered their environments and impacted plant and animal communities in big ways. However, buffalo hunting by Native Americans was by and large a subsistence activity -- they killed animals in order to eat, to clothe themselves and their families, and to maintain a supply of raw materials for tools. There is an ethic of respect for animals that were killed in this way, but the killing of a buffalo was also an act of pride, because it was dangerous and required great skill. In contrast, the dominant use of fur in western societies for the last several centuries has been for "show," as you put it --- a form of conspicuous consumption mostly done to display wealth or privileged. I think many, if not most people, would agree that killing an animal for survival is ethically superior to killing one to show off, but we shouldn't mythologize the uses of animals in the past --- Native groups killed buffalo using the means available to them, which included buffalo jumps (which kill more animals than is strictly necessary) and spears, darts and arrows (which kill by penetrating lungs or internal organs, meaning the animal must "bleed out," often slowly). We can't formulate ethical answers to the problems of human-animal relationships unless we are realistic about the history of those relationships, and unfortunately we are often taught unrealistic or idealized narratives of the past, which aren't helpful in sorting out how we should behave in the future.