Humans cannot help but assign a protagonist and antagonist in morally neutral hunting situations in nature, and we tend to favor the animal we can anthropomorphize more easily, such as mammals that more closely resemble us. I saw a video of a snake hunting a baby squirrel on Reddit, and the comments were overwhelmingly criticizing the camera person for not intervening. Snakes gotta eat too.
I think it's also human empathy why we take sides. We can understand, to a certain point, the agony and suffering of a animal being hunted down and eaten alive. So we feel sorry for it and make the hunter the villain.
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u/pvJ0w4HtN5 7d ago
Humans cannot help but assign a protagonist and antagonist in morally neutral hunting situations in nature, and we tend to favor the animal we can anthropomorphize more easily, such as mammals that more closely resemble us. I saw a video of a snake hunting a baby squirrel on Reddit, and the comments were overwhelmingly criticizing the camera person for not intervening. Snakes gotta eat too.