Thanks so much friend! I’m a scientist, but also a passionate person, so sometimes I let my feelings get ahead of my reason. Both are important, for sure, but if I get new information or perspective, I really want to consider it as if it came from a genuine place, even if it’s from some rando on the internet. If it’s not a fact, I’ll express as much, but if I was wrong, I want to own it.
Thanks for your kind words, it means a lot! Happy Day of the Dead to you too!
This guy gets it ^^^
Respectfully disagree, but I see your point and the logic you derived it from. I just think that this view is reductive and follows an argument from authority bias. Your point that he should have taken the animal to a wildlife rehabilitation center is valid, but I think that after caring for a creature for seven years, your argument sorta loses merit. Perhaps the species isn’t domesticated, but that individual creature formed a relationship with that man, and someone made the decision to snitch on him apropos of nothing. When strangers tried to forcefully remove this bonded animal, it made the decision any animal would to defend itself. I can’t talk too much about the rabies testing post bite, because the logic there is sound, but the rest of the logic isn’t.
Not exactly related, but maybe if people weren’t so indoctrinated to consider wild animals as simply beasts to be avoided, instead of living creatures that are a part of our environment that we have a relationship with, then we wouldn’t lack the empathy to protect their habitats and their role in our environment. I don’t advise people to go and capture animals as pets, and I don’t think that what this mans decision over 7 years ago was the best one, but he made that decision and formed a bond with a creature that was taken from him on account of some anon Karen. That’s fucked. Period.
I think you’re right, my point was that they’d then feel the same pain, but an equal but different pain still probably gets the point across. Thanks for pointing that out
“Only I can bully my little brother!”
The raccoon angle is new information to me, and adds a large factor that I will consider. I still believe that the outcome is tragic, that the laws should be different so as to prevent these tragedies. We’ve been encroaching on these species’ habitats and while some have the opinion that “nature” is separate from human life, and would argue that we should separate ourselves from the natural world and not engage with it, I argue that that is precisely the problem. We’re not separate from nature or “the wild”, and we can’t pretend that ignoring them does anything. Ultimately, they will not ignore us, because we’re here, and we’re an intrinsic part of their environments.
Furthermore, I find your argument a bit two-faced. Intervention and engagement is okay if they’re pests or have a 0.0006% (rough figure based on actual calculations) chance of having rabies, but that’s it, huh? How would you respond if this was a pest in your home? I assume you’d alert animal control or an exterminator, and wash your hands of it once they were out of your hair, regardless of the outcome.
All of that being said, the presence of the raccoon complicates things enough for me to say that I think this was an unavoidable outcome given the animal control system, but still it should’ve been handled differently and just because this is “normal” doesn’t mean that it isn’t short in the morality department.