Hi ya'all,

Actually dying of some infectious disease is actually a way of succumbing
to some predator, just one that's hard to spot with the naked eye. Long
live the microbe!

Gene Hunn (hunn at u.washington.edu)

On Fri, 12 Aug 1994, Burton Guttman wrote:

> 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
>
>
>