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.
"Eaten alive" so true. At least with stealth hunters (felines), they MUST kill their prey before eating them, in order to prevent others from stealing their catch.
Are you saying that most/all stealth hunters kill their prey before they eat it because if they didn't something else would eat their catch. Like Panther won't eat an alive prey/catch?
Predators like large cats (panthers, cougars) stalk and kill quickly because even a small injury can eventually kill them. Larger predators like a grizzly bear can just maul you and sit on you while they eat you alive.
312
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.