[Chasaway]

Yep...

Nature is red in tooth and claw.

It seems “barbaric” and “children shouldn’t be watching”, but anyone who spends much time fishing or in the outdoors around untamed animals sees the merciless, unblinking, cold-eyed violence of the animal world.

Someone once said that nothing dies of old age in the sea. Something else kills it or eats it.

It is truly jarring for me when I see animals chase and kill other animals: hawks, coyotes, bobcats, foxes, trout, redfish...all of ‘em.

I think we’re so urbanized and so far from the actual “edge” that we’ve lost the awareness of how fragile life is in the wild. The writer wrings his hands over the unknown affect this is gonna have on these children. Can you imagine the affect if they made them cut animals open, pull their insides out and cut them into pieces? Oh, wait. Kids used to do this and many still do. It’s called butchering your meat. Hunters and ranchers do it all the time.

Now I’m not saying that allowing people to play with lions’ “pre-food” or that obvious cruelty to animals for cruelty’s sake is okay. And a lot of what was written seems cruel and unjust to many of us. It is also written to appear that way. However, in some parts of the world an animal is still just an animal. Too often we “humanize” them and turn all animals into our “pets”.

Peter Capstick (big game hunter/guide and author of “Death in the Long Grass” and others) talks extensively about how we’ve been “Disney-ized”.

This’ll probably get me flamed.

[dbwz]

Now I’m not saying that allowing people to play with lions’ “pre-food” or that obvious cruelty to animals for cruelty’s sake is okay. And a lot of what was written seems cruel and unjust to many of us. It is also written to appear that way. However, in some parts of the world an animal is still just an animal. Too often we “humanize” them and turn all animals into our “pets”.

Peter Capstick (big game hunter/guide and author of “Death in the Long Grass” and others) talks extensively about how we’ve been “Disney-ized”.

No flaming here, I get what you're saying.

But... It's one thing to understand how nature works and how yes, blood and death are involved at times.

Reveling in the imagery, however, seems to me to be something a bit different.

[eastforker]

Not by me, what you sat is the truth. I have always wondered, if there was no law against murder, would the rate be any higher than it is today? Somehow I doubt it would be.

[Ransomed]

I know where you are coming from...but animals should not be treated as less than animals, either.

Freegards