We have a terrible meat-to-bone ratio and an awful diet.

Just as a general rule of thumb, predators will normally leave other predators alone. Its just not energetically a good equation to have to fight to the death for a few lousey pounds of meat when a nice tasty non-violent herbivore is sitting around anywhere NEAR in the neighborhood. Which would you rather do for dinner? Order out for pizza or go mano a mano with a cougar? Animals aren't stupid. Neither do they share our highly developed sense of morality and ethics (at least in theory highly developed - one wonders sometimes). There is a difference between killing and murder. I submit that animals are incapable of murder. That trick Man alone knows how to play. As for the fabled lions - I suspect that was a fable and nothing more.

Very well said!

In order to make that statement you have to define killing and murder. So when a tomcat comes upon a litter of kittens it hasn't sired, does he murder or kill them? When a mongoose finds a non-poisonous snake, that it's not going to eat, does it kill or murder the snake? When Shrikes have an overabundance of prey, do the murder or kill the ones they don't eat?
Even human law divides murder into many catagories depending on the circumstances, so where do you draw the line?
I disagree on the Tsavo lions in that I think it's documented well enough that although it could well be exaggerated, I doubt if it's fabricated. Animals, like humans, occasionally produce odd looking and/or behaving individuals. That's what keeps Wolf and my friend Sharon, the Animal Control Officer, guessing. :worried:

Actually its a pretty well documented story. Here is the link to the Chicago Field Museum where the lions are on display.
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/exhibits/...maneaters.html

Here is the link to a bunch of the photos Patterson took.
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/exhibits/...o/gallery.html

I think for it to be murder there has to be sentience

Sentience, n.
The quality or state of being sentient; consciousness.
Feeling as distinguished from perception or thought.

Sentient, adj.
Having sense perception; conscious: "The living knew themselves just sentient puppets on God's stage" (T.E. Lawrence).
Experiencing sensation or feeling.

Uh,...Do you mean a critter would have to know they were killing another critter, Dana? As opposed to kicking it's ass until it happened to die? I'm confused.
I think animals understand when another animal is dead vs alive, but they'll never attach all the ramifications people do, to death. I'm convinced that when a lion grabs a victims throat, they're aware the victim is going to end up in a state of what the lion understands to be dead. It's intentional and premeditated, which only leaves "justified" as the determining factor between killing and murder.
Maybe. :confused:

I think it's exactly that ability to understand the ramifications of the act which causes us to classify killing as murder. Animals have no such sensibilities, they have no moral or ethical understanding of the world.
There was a time when animals were considered capable of murder. During the middle ages there were several well documented cases of animals being tried for murder and in some cases executed. That was because murder was seen as an act of evil and animals were seen as capable of being evil

There is no court in the land that would try an animal for murder. Animals that kill human beings are simply dispatched themselves or in rare cases, relocated to territories far enough away from humans. Look at all the outcry there was on that thread sometime back about sharks in Austrailia being killed for having killed humans. No one accused the sharks of murder. No one came forth to plea extenuating circumstances for the sharks other than that they were merely animals. Males of various species of felines will kill kittens that they have not sired - this is called the reproduction instinct. Every organism is equipped with an instinct to perpetuate its own genetic code. By killing kittens, it did not father, a male feline is merely following this instinct and could hardly be considered a "murderer". Animals may be sentient beings, but they do not have the intelligence from which to create a strict rule of morality and ethics. The ethic of the animal world is Nature's - nothing more. The cases where we see the animal "ethic" go awry are generally ones where either man has interfered and upset the balance in some way or where we do not know the full story of what is going on. I find the killer lion story highly suspect because no zoologist or ethnologist was on the scene to obseve the facts in a scientific manner. Felids are known to prey on men almost always because the cat is injured or sick. The large size of the lions killed make me think that the "great white hunter" of the time found a couple of convenient scapecoats to placate the natives and tell a good story back home while the real killer lions probably had died of some illness or injury already sustained.

Oh and Bruce, I just found your quote in the hamster thread, "She would have to have comprehension and I doubt she's pondering the meaning of life. I fully understand your not wanting her to suffer pain, but how do you know she's feeling anything other than unusual?" Well which is it? Either an animal is capable of advanced philosophical thought or it's not. Make up your mind.

Ok, then I'll agree that critters can't commit murder because even though they can premeditate it, they don't have the comprehension of the moral/social ramifications. But dead is dead so it's really semantics. :)

Oh? So why do courts make a distinction between, say, manslaughter and murder in the 1st?

And people have the intelligence to create a strict rule of morality and ethics, so I'm bound by rules you made up instead of "nature" like the cat. And of course the rules you made up are infallible so it doesn't matter what I think the rules should be.
I see, then murder is a violation of your rules and not a crime against nature. That being true, then I'll have to agree critters can't commit murder.
Well, duh. If I stick you with a pin you'll be FEELING pain. I know you can't help it, being female, when you hear the word "feeling", your thoughts skip right over the obvious physical trauma and skip right to emotional drama. Of course being male, I could never understand, no less discuss, feelings. :p

I'm not sure which rules I'm supposed to be making up. My comments on feline behavior come from what I learned in an animal ecology class at University of Colorado. Take it up with them if you feel they are teaching feline behavior incorrectly. I don't understand your last sentence. Maybe its because I'm a girl.

I recall in the last year or two (I wish I had a link to post for you) the lions' den was discovered. A cave near the bridge was found with a large number of human skeletons. At first the authorites suspected foul play until they noticed that the human bones had marks on them that looked like lion teeth marks. The number of bodies (I don't remember how many), the tooth marks on the bones, and the relative proximity to the site of all the lion attacks led them to believe they were some of the bodies of the railroad workers.

I’m not taking issue with your comments on feline behavior. You described a well known phenomenon.
What I questioned was your statement, “I submit that animals are incapable of murder. That trick Man alone knows how to play.” I responded with examples of animals killing for neither food nor defense, one of which you explained.
Now, when you smugly state animals can’t murder, then define murder as killing while cognizant of a strict rule of morality and ethics, that’s a straw man. I’ve shown examples that premeditated killings occur and I won’t argue whether it should be called murder for humans and nature for animals. It’s still the same thing.

I’m not surprised you didn’t understand the last sentence in that post, it was a joke. :eyebrow: