Humans generally do the same when they’re starving.
Great Stephen King short story:
Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead
31–40 of 69 posts
Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Food security is still not a reality in the United States. Millions of people struggle with poverty and face hunger.
I meant food security in the sense of consistent food surpluses and not facing periodic starvation. Americans today throw away about 40% of the food produced, and are the fattest people on the planet.
> and are the fattest people on the planet
Not even close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass...
Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead
#33Humans generally do the same when they’re starving.
Fortunately humans always have a choice and don't function by strict instinct:
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/08/the-scientists-who-sta...
Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead
#34And mother rabbits will eat any babies of theirs that die during birth. Is this news?
To a lot of people antromorphizing their pets and educated by disney - it obviously is. Also this phenomena usually goes along with a disability to empathize with ones fellow men. So sharing some information on nature, as in the real nature, can be helpfull to shake some people who waste their emotional lives on animals out of this stance.
Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead
#35It’s just protein, if the alternative is to die there’s no question
The article mentions a study from Switzerland [0] where the domestic rabbits would prefer eating the meat, which suggests they had access to herbivore feed alternatives.
Seems there's a bit more to it than just "Rabbit will eat meat before they starve".
[0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10344-015-0980-y
Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> On the other hand, it does show that a voluntarily purely vegetarian diet is an artificial human creation. That's an odd comparison. For the hare, if the choice is "starve in the middle of winter" or "eat meat", it's not surprising they eat meat. I think to say that a "voluntarily purely vegetarian diet is a purely human creation" is true not because of the vegetarian part, but because of the "voluntary" part. Most…
Food security for humans was first achieved by the US around 1800.
It's unfortunate you're being downvoted, because you are broadly correct. The US was the first country to achieve a sustained, structural food surplus nationally. By 1920 it was saving millions of Russians from starvation via its immense food surplus. Millions of Europeans fled their homes over decades to come to the US because of food scarcity and starvation back home. During most of the 19th century starvation was still a common problem across nearly all of continental Europe. All the way back to the late 18th century, the British soldiers and Hessian mercenaries that were raping and pillaging their way across the colonies couldn't believe the general prosperity that New Englanders were enjoying (such that they had any cause to be rebelling; see the book 1776 by McCullough). Until the last 40 years, the US had typically been far wealthier and with a far greater national food surplus than most of Europe. Even now, the US GDP per capita is typically 50-60% higher than the EU GDP per capita. The Irish, Germans and Italians that fled Europe to the US did so because of extraordinary poverty and famine. The standard of poor in the US today is greater than 10x higher than the floor on poverty in Europe, which you see in countries like Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria, etc.
"Irish, German, and Scandinavian immigrants arriving during the 1840s and 1850s made up the second wave of European immigration, fleeing famine, religious persecution, and political conflicts."
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/european-immigrants-...
Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
> On the other hand, it does show that a voluntarily purely vegetarian diet is an artificial human creation. That's an odd comparison. For the hare, if the choice is "starve in the middle of winter" or "eat meat", it's not surprising they eat meat. I think to say that a "voluntarily purely vegetarian diet is a purely human creation" is true not because of the vegetarian part, but because of the "voluntary" part. Most…
Poppycock. Thy're eating meat because they can, not because they are starving and there is no vegetable matter available.
But my point is in the wilderness the threat of starvation is an ever-present risk, so it helps not to be choosy. Modern humans in first world countries don't have that problem.
Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I meant food security in the sense of consistent food surpluses and not facing periodic starvation. Americans today throw away about 40% of the food produced, and are the fattest people on the planet.
> and are the fattest people on the planet Not even close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass...
There's a few countries that are on there multiple times (like Mexico and New Zealand). How does that work?
Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I meant food security in the sense of consistent food surpluses and not facing periodic starvation. Americans today throw away about 40% of the food produced, and are the fattest people on the planet.
> and are the fattest people on the planet Not even close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass...
Interesting to me that most of the countries high up on the list are dominated by indigenous populations that are even less able to deal with modern carb-rich Western diets than European-based populations. E.g. I'm assuming New Zealand is so high because of Maori people.
Re: Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just hares; deer and horses (for example) also eat meat if they can get it. They usually go for injured birds or squirrels that can't run away from them (naturally a horse isn't a good bird predator).
Cows, too.
Those cocky bastards even organize hunts- chase the rabbit towards the road, then eat the road-kill.