I know they don't have a spinal cord like fish, but Chefs drop live lobsters in boiling water.
I agree that wanton emotions show lack of character, but can we at least confine the penalty for cruelty to mammals that have a nervous system like our's?
I myself have bludgeoned a snake to death when my only handy tool was a stick.
“.... but what could be cruel to a shark?”
You would be surprised. Sharks are highly evolved and incredibly smart and have good memories, incredible senses, and even display an ability to learn. In fact, a scientist working in Florida was able to train sharks in a laboratory setting to remember colors and events much the way small mammals have been observed in similar tests. Most of the sharks’ brain is dedicated to smell, but these animals are not your average fish.
They have frequently been seen expressing curiosity and even problem-solving skills. It has not yet been discovered what the body-to-brain mass ratio has to do with the intelligence of the animal, but the shark’s is similar to most birds and mammals and can experience pain and fear in stress situations like cutting it’s oxygen supply down by dragging it tail first and, obviously, shooting it.
People don’t like them because the people have been introduced to the killer and not the animal. Yes they do kill….to eat. So do we….and more. According to the University of Florida, whose area has the largest amount of shark attacks in the world annually, even more than Australia or Africa, in their International Shark Attack File they investigated 130 incidents of alleged shark-human interaction occurring worldwide in 2018. Sixty-six cases represent confirmed unprovoked shark attacks on humans. Thirty-four of the remaining cases were confirmed as provoked attacks on humans. In retrospect, just over 920 people have been shot in Chicago this year, 2019, through just 91/2 months. Year ain’t over.
If you study up on sharks, you’ll find they serve a very important service to the planet with their consumption alone. And when you consider they’ve been around without help for over 400 million years, longer than trees have, I’d say they were doing something right. But no animal deserves to be tortured. We are supposed to be the smartest animal because we can reason best. How far back did these idiots just put us?
rwood