Eating bunnies (for real)

Posted by Marc Hodak on April 8, 2007 under Invisible trade-offs | Read the First Comment

I always thought it interesting that kids derive a lot of fun from biting off pieces of a chocolate bunny. I wondered what vegetarians thought about that.

Many people get squeamish about the death of animals, especially baby animals. All babies are cute in a way that’s somehow recognized across species. So, when the Discovery Channel showed a gaggle of furry goslings being gathered up by a hungry arctic fox, one felt a sense of relief when the geese parents came back to chase the predator away, making it drop everything. But when the fox sneaked around and grabbed a helpless gosling, and the geese parents looked distraught, one shared their distress. One felt their pain, until the fox reached its little kits with the bird. After the furry little kits shared their meal and were rolling and playing, one was grateful that their mom was able to provide for them.

That’s the way it is. We root for the subject animal. We boo the seals ominously swimming around the icy shores waiting for penguins to jump in. We’re told that the death of a penguin seeking food in the sea also means death to her baby penguin waiting for that food on shore. So, seals are vicious, blood-thirsty ocean creatures. That is, until the show is about seals. Then they’re cute, playful creatures trying not to be eaten by those vicious sharks. And when a polar bear attacks a walrus colony, one’s heart immediately goes out to the pudgy, old walruses. And when the walruses successfully evade predation and the polar bear eventually collapses from hunger, we see that the cost of avoided bloodshed was the death of a noble creature.

Fact is, nature is a bloody, violent place with every creature’s life hanging in the balance, in mortal competition with both their rivals and their prey. “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” as Tennyson put it, has always been difficult for ‘nature lovers’ to accept. But it demonstrates the inevitability of trade-offs in every part of the world. It means that when we see a cute little tiger cub waiting for it’s mom and think, “I hope Simba gets what his little tummy needs!” one has to accept the criticism of being against antelopes and gazelles. Predation is an unhappy fact of life for many. But what would the world look like without it?