VeggieBoards banner

Rabbits are Live Lunch at Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, FL

6K views 56 replies 16 participants last post by  imdead-goaway 
#1 ·
deleted
 
#2 ·
I have to be honest: why do people bother trying to save endangered predators from extinction? If the big cats vanished, would that be so bad?
 
#3 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Capstan View Post

I have to be honest: why do people bother trying to save endangered predators from extinction? If the big cats vanished, would that be so bad?
That depends on how many more days of hunting season(s) and planned mass killings of prey animals by wildlife agencies you'd like to introduce into the calendar.

Human destruction of predators results in nothing but more human destruction of prey with a profit motive attached, governmental and private.
 
#4 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Capstan View Post

I have to be honest: why do people bother trying to save endangered predators from extinction? If the big cats vanished, would that be so bad?
Well that depends, do we still want to have functioning ecosystems? Without big predators the WHOLE THING falls apart.
 
#5 ·
Bookmarked, will write and/or make calls when I can. Here's an idea: could they set up an artificial lure system like they do in Greyhound dog races and training? Not that I'm a fan of that "sport" but a fast moving lure, possibly with food attached to it could be another way to train these cats to chase and hunt more effectively than having a domesticated rabbit walk right up to them.
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by RabbitLuvr View Post

Thank you for writing! You should suggest the "lure" system to them, it certainly sounds like a viable option to me.

I don't have any desire for wild predators to be forced into extinction, but if the purpose of teaching these particular animals to hunt, or to keep them hunting during rehab, then having their dinner walk right up to them is not going to help the animals at all.

Obviously, I would also like them to stop using live rabbits as food.
No problem, thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. Will definitely suggest the use of lures instead. I agree with you completely, what they're doing seems ineffective and I'm also very much against live feeding.
 
#9 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by sorrowthepig View Post

That depends on how many more days of hunting season(s) and planned mass killings of prey animals by wildlife agencies you'd like to introduce into the calendar.
None. I'm against killing.

Quote:
Human destruction of predators results in nothing but more human destruction of prey with a profit motive attached, governmental and private.
I'm not for destroying anything, but I question saving animals we can't possibly live with, unless they're kept in isolation, on protected reserves, which will grow smaller and smaller with time, and will be no better than glorified zoos, where we maintain flocks for them to kill. Is that the idea: to keep predators as pets?
 
#10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Capstan View Post

None. I'm against killing.

I'm not for destroying anything, but I question saving animals we can't possibly live with, unless they're kept in isolation, on protected reserves, which will grow smaller and smaller with time, and will be no better than glorified zoos, where we maintain flocks for them to kill. Is that the idea: to keep predators as pets?
I don't think the idea is to keep predators as pets, no. They're trying to reintroduce these bobcats into the wild.

And we HAVE to make an attempt to save large predators and keep reserves of land still wild, otherwise we may as well just kill every other animal as well right now. Without big cats and other predators you can kiss prey animals like deer, buffalo, elk, moose, antelope, zebras, etc. etc. etc. goodbye, and that in turn will be disasterous for a number of other smallers species of plants and animals.
 
#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Werewolf Girl View Post

Well that depends, do we still want to have functioning ecosystems? Without big predators the WHOLE THING falls apart.
And you know this, because...? I know of no such rule. If they survive, fine, but I expect the world can adapt to living without them. There's nothing in nature that says we HAVE to have big predators. If anyone is opposed to feeding them live bait, in order to help them, then why help them, just so they can kill more animals?
 
#12 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chocolate Mouse View Post

That would depend on how much do you care about prey animals either being mass culled or the overpopulation of them starving to death.
Who can say? Maybe being culled or starving to death is better than being eaten alive. Turning predators loose on prey animals seems as cruel as anything else.
 
#13 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Capstan View Post

And you know this, because...? I know of no such rule. If they survive, fine, but I expect the world can adapt to living without them. There's nothing in nature that says we HAVE to have big predators. If anyone is opposed to feeding them live bait, in order to help them, then why help them, just so they can kill more animals?
I know this because I know how ecosystems work, you can't take a huge piece out of the equation and expect balance to be maintained. Destroying large predators will mean that prey populations will explode to unsustainable levels. Without predators to thin them out grazing animals will devour all the food available to them and mass starvation and disease will follow, which will affect all the other plants and animals in the ecosystem too. Everything is connected.

This is already happening in areas where people have killed all the wolves and cougars and deer populations are exploding as a result, then you get a bunch of hunters going out and slaughtering all the deer they can find in the name of being "humane"
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Capstan View Post

Who can say? Maybe being culled or starving to death is better than being eaten alive. Turning predators loose on prey animals seems as cruel as anything else.
You would rather have people going out and killing deer with guns or letting them slowly starve to death? Really? And see a bunch of other species of plants and animals go extinct too? Oh my.
 
#15 ·
This article is about wolves, but I think it does a great job of explaining why you can't just shoot all the large predators in an ecosystem and expect everything to be hunky dory.

http://www.wolvesandhumans.org/artic...carnivores.htm

Quote:
With no natural predators to keep them on the move and prevent over-browsing of one area, deer have contributed to the failure of the natural process of regeneration of woodland by nibbling tree shoots and destroying saplings. Complete exclusion of deer is not necessarily the answer. Our native forests evolved with browsing herbivores keeping the more vigorous understorey plants in check and allowing slower growing plant to compete. When these browsers are excluded, for example by deer fencing in forest regeneration schemes, the understorey that grows back is dominated by the faster growing species and diversity is much lower than in the original forest. Seed germination is also affected by the lack of wild boar to disturb the ground. Berry bearing shrubs rely on a certain amount of 'pruning' by browsing deer to promote denser shoot growth and abundant berry production, but over-browsing will also reduce berry crops.
Thus, forest biodiversity and productivity benefits from the presence of deer and wild boar, but relies on the presence of predators to prevent overgrazing. In Britain, hunting can be argued to have replaced the pressure of natural predators, but the pursuit of economic gain rather than ecological benefit has meant that deer numbers remain high and there is very little forest regeneration.
Examples of how predators can regulate the impact of herbivores on vegetation can be found in the USA. Shortly after wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, biologists noted that willow growth along streams and rivers began making a recovery, after years of over-browsing by elk. Beavers began to re-colonise areas of the park where willow was recovering, in turn creating wetland habitat for a number of other specialist species of plants, insects, amphibians and birds. This effect is known as a trophic cascade, where a change affecting one species higher up the food chain indirectly affects those lower down. Another example of a trophic cascade that has occurred in Yellowstone is the availability of carcasses to other species, from ravens, magpies, eagles, coyotes and small mammals and birds, down to beetles and flies.
The presence of large carnivores then, can influence the flora and fauna of an ecosystem and help to keep it in a more natural and diverse state than areas where there are no predators.
So you see when you kill off large predators they aren't the only creatures hurt by it, the damage goes all the way down the food chain to smaller mammals, birds and insects who all depend on the food carnivores indirectly provide. Without that balance the results would be catastrophic.
 
#16 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Werewolf Girl View Post

I know this because I know how ecosystems work, you can't take a huge piece out of the equation and expect balance to be maintained. Destroying large predators will mean that prey populations will explode to unsustainable levels. Without predators to thin them out grazing animals will devour all the food available to them and mass starvation and disease will follow, which will affect all the other plants and animals in the ecosystem too. Everything is connected.
Hypothetical: let's take human hunters and other killer humans out of the equation. Can the earth develop an ecosystem, where grazing animals can maintain a harmonious balance with the rest of the world, without having to be weeded? I ask this, because everything you've said is based on observations of either the past or present. Can planet earth sustain a population of both people and animals, where neither has to kill? Just curious.

Quote:
This is already happening in areas where people have killed all the wolves and cougars and deer populations are exploding as a result, then you get a bunch of hunters going out and slaughtering all the deer they can find in the name of being "humane"
Then we should stop the hunters, since they're the problem.
 
#17 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Capstan View Post

Hypothetical: let's take human hunters and other killer humans out of the equation. Can the earth develop an ecosystem, where grazing animals can maintain a harmonious balance with the rest of the world, without having to be weeded? I ask this, because everything you've said is based on observations of either the past or present. Can planet earth sustain a population of both people and animals, where neither has to kill? Just curious.
I can't say for sure, but there definitely isn't much evidence for it. Maybe if grazing animals became super intelligent and learned how to use birth control and learned how to replant all the food they were eating. Also, many animals would still go extinct because they indirectly depend on carnivores for food. No predators would mean no scavengers either, and that includes a truly giant list of animals and insects.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Capstan View Post

Then we should stop the hunters, since they're the problem.
No, the hunters are just part of the problem. Stop them and you still have the mass extinctions from starvation/disease.
 
#18 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Werewolf Girl View Post

I can't say for sure, but there definitely isn't much evidence for it. Maybe if grazing animals became super intelligent and learned how to use birth control and learned how to replant all the food they were eating. Also, many animals would still go extinct because they indirectly depend on carnivores for food. No predators would mean no scavengers either, and that includes a truly giant list of animals and insects.
The question is, must the future be as the past has been? Can the future, with humane stewardship, develop a less savage nature, or are we "destined" to live with whatever nature dictates? People are changing nature; the question is, can we change it to a gentler one?

Quote:
No, the hunters are just part of the problem. Stop them and you still have the mass extinctions from starvation/disease.
You seem to be suggesting we labor to return the world to some point in the past. Is this right?
 
#20 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Capstan View Post

The question is, must the future be as the past has been? Can the future, with humane stewardship, develop a less savage nature, or are we "destined" to live with whatever nature dictates? People are changing nature; the question is, can we change it to a gentler one?

You seem to be suggesting we labor to return the world to some point in the past. Is this right?
Well, historically speaking humans meddling with nature hasn't ended well. And considering how complex a single ecosystem is and how interconnected all life is reworking the entire planet to make every creature herbivorous would pretty much mean getting rid of all the animals we have and starting from scratch, that sounds like a scary idea to me. Do we ethically have the right to doom billions of creatures to extinction?

And if I'm suggesting anything it's that humans shouldn't play God and mess with the lives of other sentient beings. I don't see the natural world as something to fight against or overcome.

Also, this is really really getting off topic. On topic: I am planning to write a letter about the rabbits, lures are a much better idea from a practical and ethical standpoint.
 
#22 ·
Great discussion here,

As someone who has done wildlife rehab and ensured that bobcats, raptors etc can hunt prior to returning to the wild, using live domestic bunnies IS ridiculous for many of the reasons already stated here.

When I did rehab years ago, we started by training with a lure (dead rat on a string). As the FINAL stage of their training and just prior to release to the wild we would use a wild rat trapped from the barn in a very large enclosure with many hiding places where it would be as close to what this animal would experience in the wild. It is in the animal's best interest to ensure they can actually catch prey prior to release or you could be releasing an animal to the wild that will slowly starve to death.

There are organizations that will provide support for wildlife rehabilitators on the best practices for preparing animals to live again in the wild. National Wildlife Rehabilitator Association at http://www.nwrawildlife.org/home.asp and International Wildlife Rehabilitation Counsel at http://theiwrc.org/

Instead of attacking them, lets help connect them to the resources they need to make better decisions. It sounds to me like they just didn't think this through but probably didn't mean to be cruel. They need to learn from other rehabbers who have more experience and can share actual stories of what works and doesn't.
 
#23 ·
For what it is worth, here are some sources of information on predation, ecosystems and the intricate roles that are played by each niche.

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Predation

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/gl...ecosystem.html

It is often that people speak from the heart and wish for a world of pure compassion and unending life. Those are very admirable goals and reducing suffering for all life is an important part of a good life that we all should strive for. But it is equally important and essential to realize that life is about balance and cycles. Life and death are entwined and necessary to each other. To make important wildlife management decisions based on our desire for a compassionate perfect world without accepting the reality of the world as it is, is counterproductive to our goal of reducing suffering and supporting Mother Earths overall health and wellbeing.

Without predators the herbivores would eat all the plants and then die of starvation and disease. While this is simplified, it makes the point that the concept of no predators maybe appealing, it is not practical in a healthy balanced environment. The Earth seeks balance and part of that balance involves the death and consumption of organisms so that other organisms may live. Predators prey on the sick, weak and infirm. They kill quickly and consume their prey with the purpose of self survival. Without predators, the prey species would suffer from other ailments and issues such as starvation. As an overall species, they would be denied the ability to have only most adapted and strongest carry their traits to the next generation thus producing even better adapted future generations of that species that have an even better chance of a happy, full life in the wild.

This should not be confused with humans who kill the strong, healthy and beautiful for sport and whimsy often only gathering a trophy and sometimes just the choicest bits of flesh. This results in the species having less of some of its best traits in future generations. When humans attempt to control ecosystem balance, we cause horrific changes because we manage not for the good of the whole but for our own selfish purposes. I fully support balanced healthy ecosystems that allow all life to live in harmony with the understanding that natural harmony involves consumption and each new generation having traits that help that species survive in the present conditions.

I'm not sure we should strive so much for a return to the past, but it is essential and necessary that we return to some kind of balance that is not dependent on humans to maintain or oversee it. Because of generations of mans arrogant and ignorant resource management decisions, we have severely altered our environments. We now produce food in factory farm conditions that are beyond cruel and inhumane. We alter plants at a genetic level to suit our whim for round red tomatoes that will sit on the shelf of our grocery for weeks sometimes months instead of relishing the goodness of a fresh tomato from the garden that is only a few days off the vine. A list of the many ways we, as a species, rape and destroy the Earth is long and shameful. It would take a lifetime to record every indiscretion. It is these human made atrocities that we should oppose, not the predators who make up an important thread in the fabric of life on Earth.

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. ~Elwyn Brooks White, Essays of E.B. White, 1977
 
#24 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Capstan View Post

I have to be honest: why do people bother trying to save endangered predators from extinction? If the big cats vanished, would that be so bad?
Why should humanity get to decide which animals get to live and which get to die?
 
#26 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by River View Post

You know, i dont see anything wrong with them feeding them live bunnies. They have to feed 'em meat anyway, might as well let them hunt it.
Well, the issue with domesticated rabbits is they aren't hunting them. The rabbits are coming right up to them and getting eaten as surely as if they were a plate of already dead meat.

I think with baited lures they would get more practice chasing things and it would be less cruel. The live animal scenario would make more sense to me if it was a wild rat like syzygy mentioned.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top