Just to add another to Dennis Paulson's list of "horror stories," when I
was birding on the Texas coast, someone told me about a heron (GBH, I
think) that decided that a Sanderling or some little peep would make a
good meal--grabbed it, shook it senseless, and ate it. This kind of
thing happens all the time. And, of course, there's cannibalism, too. So
many species will eat their offspring, or the offspring of their
neighbors, under the right circumstances.

But, I worry [;-)] about your comment that there may be a lesson for
people about it being better to succumb to some predator rather than waste
away from a terrible disease. Some anti- Right-to-Die nut may accuse you
of wanting Grizzly Bears or some kind of Human Hawk roaming about,
sniffing out the infirm and finishing them off with a quick blow. Oog!
Not nice to think about. Yet thinking about it raises an interesting
point: I think people recoil at the idea of one animal eating another
because we anthropomorphize them too much--we imagine that all other
animals have psychic lives like ours, with the same richness of awareness
and experience, so death for them is as sad, painful, and horrible as the
death of a human. This kind of unjustified anthropomorphizing also
underlies the animal rights attitude that values a feral cat just as much
as the native birds it kills.

Oh, nuts! This started out to be a light-hearted comment, and look what
it's turned into. You see what comes of giving college professors an
easily accessed electronic soapbox?

Burt Guttman guttmanb at elwha.evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College Voice: 206-866-6000, x. 6755
Olympia, WA 98505 FAX: 206-866-6794