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Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

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Re: Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

#41

Post by hackeraccount »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #17
delichon wrote: post #3

I once lived in an apartment in Colorado with a balcony overlooking a pond. Once a grebe was paddling around in it followed by four chicks. It was a great image for the Colorado Tourism Office. Then mamma grebe swam back and swallowed the fourth chick whole, and the smaller family paddled away. Brood reduction isn't common in grebes, but I saw it anyway, and thought maybe I didn't get the straight dope from Disney mo…

When I was in college I worked in a lab where part of my job was killing rats (I actually had a real moral problem that the general term used for the killing of lab animals at this time was "sacrificing", e.g. "I sac'ed that litter of rats yesterday", because it felt like a way to lessen ones natural emotional guilt at the task. Not sure if that term is still used today.) I really had a moral quandary in what I did,…

I worked with a guy who had an internship studying the effects of some drug on rats. He said he didn't have much of a problem killing the rats but also claimed that he knew his dog realized what he was up to at work.

It made me think he might have had more of a problem with it then he thought.

Re: Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

#42

Post by aziaziazi »

BlackFly wrote: post #35
rixed wrote: post #8

I find the final question about human intervention fascinating. The scientists aren’t recommending intervention, even if the perpetrators tend to be the same few individuals. “We don’t know how natural it is,” says Ursula Siebert, a veterinary pathologist specializing in wildlife population health at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover who was not involved with the work. “It can definitely be hard to watch…

We have absolutely no way of reconciling ethics with animals. In human society, the same individuals will often be using force against others but those individuals may be the police or criminals. The notion of righteousness or injustice in a given situation is contingent on context. Until we can speak with animals, we lack that context. Violence is not inherently wrong: we do not know their nature.

> Until we can speak with animals

One can probably can have a better communication with, say a dog, than a sever autist or someone in the state of deep coma.

We don’t apply our ethics based on the communication (or same-language ability) but instead on an arbitrary selection. That selection evolved recently to includes a wider set of humans (anti-racism and feminism). Antispecism is an interesting view as it state a the specie itself (humans /dogs/caw/cat/chicken…) isn’t a valid denominator to define what is ethic what isn’t.

Re: Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

#43

Post by rixed »

somenameforme wrote: post #24
rixed wrote: post #8

I find the final question about human intervention fascinating. The scientists aren’t recommending intervention, even if the perpetrators tend to be the same few individuals. “We don’t know how natural it is,” says Ursula Siebert, a veterinary pathologist specializing in wildlife population health at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover who was not involved with the work. “It can definitely be hard to watch…

I think the main point is that nature is in a dynamic equilibrium that's built up over eons. We disrupt that equilibrium unintentionally by things like development, but well intended disruptions can have just as negative effects. The typical example would be something like removing a predator (or even a disease) from an area which results in a population explosion of its former prey which results in increased pressur…

By that logic, then we "disrupting" that equilibrium is also part of the equilibrium. Is it consistent to let a few adult male seals murder hundreds of pups while at the same time forbid hunters to hunt a few seals for fur, or fishermen in Faroe islands to catch dolphins once a year?

To me, it sounds that the fear of unintended consequences that you mentioned is what I called "distrust of human society". Yes, I am aware of the risk, and that's an argument that I accept in general. But it applies only at large scale, so not in the case at hand. Or we can picture an even smaller scale: picture a single old male attacking a single defenseless pup. Interfering?

Re: Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

#44

Post by rixed »

tsimionescu wrote: post #23
rixed wrote: post #8

I find the final question about human intervention fascinating. The scientists aren’t recommending intervention, even if the perpetrators tend to be the same few individuals. “We don’t know how natural it is,” says Ursula Siebert, a veterinary pathologist specializing in wildlife population health at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover who was not involved with the work. “It can definitely be hard to watch…

I think the idea is simple, and clear. First, we value human life above animal life, so we always prioritize humans and their pleasures above animals (with the limits being either another human's property, or when the human is showing signs of excessive brutality, such as intentionally torturing animals instead of simply killing them). Then, when a human is not directly involved, what matters is the potential impact…

  I think the idea is simple, and clear.
Simple and clear yet everything that follow is controversial. :)

First, humans are animals. You mean "each species value itself more than others"? I don't know, but I certainly do not value any human life above any other species life; Humans are amazing, but when they are malfunctioning they can do a lot of damage ;)

Of course I was not thinking about preventing predation, or life would be limited to some bacterias, plants and algaes that can power their metabolism from some minerals and/or sunlight.

Some violence in nature is gratuitous (like a cat killing a mouse for fun) and this looks like an example of that. If we let this happen, why stop human hunters from killing seals too?

Re: Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

#45

Post by rixed »

21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #30
TimByte wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's less "nature knows better" and more "we usually don't know enough"

It's also a inability to accept the cthullian horror built into nature. Sentient eating sentient, everything being at constant warfare with everything else- the Grass wars the trees for the light. Add to that, the likelihood that nature will adapt new defenses in our lifetime, by for example having animals propagate hyper-allergenic plant-species - and you can begin to grasp why humanity does not want to look at the…

We make those idyllic paintings, we dream of justice and peace and cooperation, yet we are 100% part of nature.

Re: Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

#46

Post by rixed »

kergonath wrote: post #38
21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which though, are not a sign of harmony- its more a sort of horrific balancing act at the abyss having clear winners and losers, the losers becoming cattle, organs or worse and usually they do not defect only because then some horror from the abyss eats the whole gametheory board and their abilities have atrophied -aka cooperation usually is a sort of slavery.

> its more a sort of horrific balancing act at the abyss having clear winners and losers No need to appeal to emotions this way. At the individual level there are only losers, and we all die. At the universe level, whatever happens, happens, and it’s up to us to find beauty in it.

and it's up to us if those ugly old seals murder those pups or not :)

Re: Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

#47

Post by Dusseldorf »

dlcarrier wrote: post #22
vasco wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So strange when you look at our total interaction with the environment. We kill millions of animals, many just for literal sport, but to save an animal from another is 'too much intervention' And I bet the moral scientists sat there feeling sorry for themselves and for the seal. Meanwhile other people are destroying full ecosystems. If you feel like saving an animal from another, do it, what a ridiculous horse to dec…

There's a species where each individual literally eats a billion animals over its lifetime. If saving animals from an early death is important, then we should do everything we can to make blue whales go extinct.

Finally, a cromulent argument to nuke the whales!

Re: Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

#48

Post by j_bum »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #17
delichon wrote: post #3

I once lived in an apartment in Colorado with a balcony overlooking a pond. Once a grebe was paddling around in it followed by four chicks. It was a great image for the Colorado Tourism Office. Then mamma grebe swam back and swallowed the fourth chick whole, and the smaller family paddled away. Brood reduction isn't common in grebes, but I saw it anyway, and thought maybe I didn't get the straight dope from Disney mo…

When I was in college I worked in a lab where part of my job was killing rats (I actually had a real moral problem that the general term used for the killing of lab animals at this time was "sacrificing", e.g. "I sac'ed that litter of rats yesterday", because it felt like a way to lessen ones natural emotional guilt at the task. Not sure if that term is still used today.) I really had a moral quandary in what I did,…

Yes, the term is “sacrificed” is unfortunately used today in many research labs in the US.

My advisor had a *strict* policy against people using that terminology in the lab and in his department.

“We sometimes euthanize or kill animals in a part of the difficult process of research. We do not sacrifice them - we are not making offerings to some deity. We are conducting research, not participating in a religion.”

“Sacrifice” is a euphemism that serves only to disconnect the ethical and emotional burden of killing animals for research [0].

And I deeply sympathize with your ethical and emotional guilt. The research I did in my PhD contributed to the foundational knowledge in my field, but not without severe and serious tolls. The way people become normalized to euthanasia in research environments is scary.

[0] https://openworks.mdanderson.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=...

Re: Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

#49

Post by mannanj »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #17
delichon wrote: post #3

I once lived in an apartment in Colorado with a balcony overlooking a pond. Once a grebe was paddling around in it followed by four chicks. It was a great image for the Colorado Tourism Office. Then mamma grebe swam back and swallowed the fourth chick whole, and the smaller family paddled away. Brood reduction isn't common in grebes, but I saw it anyway, and thought maybe I didn't get the straight dope from Disney mo…

When I was in college I worked in a lab where part of my job was killing rats (I actually had a real moral problem that the general term used for the killing of lab animals at this time was "sacrificing", e.g. "I sac'ed that litter of rats yesterday", because it felt like a way to lessen ones natural emotional guilt at the task. Not sure if that term is still used today.) I really had a moral quandary in what I did,…

Thank you for sharing your story. I also experienced something similar having to kill mice we caught on glue trips before I knew of how painful they can be for the mice. I heard being scared about yourself and realizing the potential you have for darkness within you, is a natural step in healthy human development. (Not that everyone has to kill or actually do something dark or unethical to realize that, there are certainly other ways).

Then when I dug into some rabbit holes to better understand the potential for humans to execute on this darkness or sinful behavior both historically and currently, it opened me up to a sudden realization where I could no longer see or experience the darkness in the world with the gullibility and naiveness I had as a child - this means surely someone died in an area like the public mall where I am at, or in this alley over the centuries, or even this may happen later today and I was just there - it could even involve my own death if I should be unlucky. (or self defense, and someone else's).

Do you ever wish you could go back to a state of ignorance about "sacrifices" and death in the sense of what those experiences opened up for you?

Re: Cannibalistic attacks between gray seals leave telltale “corkscrew” injuries

#50

Post by dlcarrier »

Dusseldorf wrote: post #47
dlcarrier wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a species where each individual literally eats a billion animals over its lifetime. If saving animals from an early death is important, then we should do everything we can to make blue whales go extinct.

Finally, a cromulent argument to nuke the whales!

Gotta nuke something
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