I cordially disagree. I counter argue that anthropomorphizing of animals is fundamentally flawed. What understanding are you talking about? That with understanding the wild animal will not kill and maim randomly? As per other comments it seems evidence is against this reasoning.
Highly experienced trainers who understand very well their animals end up dead. I think it is quite a high grounded statement to call professional zoo-keepers and related professionals lazy.
The only understanding i can see is that having wild animals as pets should be banned as they normally are in most jurisdictions.
>Highly experienced trainers who understand very well their animals end up dead.
Humans who understand other humans also get killed by humans - at rates other animals will never match.
In the ballpark of ~20,000 murders are committed every year in the US, yet even though there are 90 million dogs in that same country, only about 30 to 50 people are killed by dogs.
It would be pointless comparing the number of fatal bear attacks, because the numbers per year are usually 0-2, and usually by wild animals, not ones in captivity.
At the end of the day the most dangerous thing to a human is another human. No other animal comes remotely close.
This is because we make the right decision to not live in close proximity to lions, tigers, bears, apes and all the other menagerie of dangerous creatures we share Earth with.
> "...only about 30 to 50 people are killed by dogs"
It's not a coincidence that this number is low. We keep domestic cats and dogs as pets precisely because their propensity and - in some cases - ability to kill us is low. If bears were as commonly kept as household pets as dogs you would see a completely different result.
What is the point being made here? Humans are liable for themselves and their actions - animals are not. It ultimately doesn't matter if an animal has a justification for its actions; being unable to take responsibility for them, from a human perspective, is the biggest separator between human and animal behaviour.
Animals are liable for their actions. The punishment is usually death by lethal injection or firing squad.
The stronger argument is that animals aren't as aware as humans which actions will have consequences. Animals do have customs about what's okay and what's not, but they often don't align with human society's laws.
It's "ignorance of the law is no excuse" taken to an extreme.
I don't really agree. While humans can and do punish animals, it doesn't follow that the animal itself is liable for its own actions. In pretty much all cases, the owner of the animal is the one liable - and animals without owners are liable to nobody. An animal without an owner might still be killed - for example, if it is a danger to people - but I don't think you can call that just punishment.
For another argument, consider that if you went into the woods and were mauled by a bear, nobody who found your body would feel the need to confront the bear and hold it responsible. The bear would not need to be convicted in order to be acted against.
> being unable to take responsibility for them, from a human perspective, is the biggest separator between human and animal behaviour.
That is true, but also not related to what your GP was talking about IMHO.
I understood their comment as coming from a perspective of either "you should fear what you can't understand/explain - and you can't really understand animals" or "it's their nature to be violent, it doesn't matter whether you understand them", either of which I think is flawed.
You made a much better point.
I just have a habit of picking at reasoning even if I agree with the conclusion. Sometimes you end up with a more concise and to the point argument at the end of that, and in this case it came from you!
I wonder how much religion factors into the belief that humans are a fundamentally different category.
Abrahamic religions certanly rely on this idea. No idea about others.
I think it is more fundamental to human nature than can be explained by religion. Just hang around in tech circles and listen to them talk about other people and you'll see they consider themselves to be in some fundamentally different category from the rest of humanity.
Highly experienced trainers who understand very well their animals end up dead. I think it is quite a high grounded statement to call professional zoo-keepers and related professionals lazy.
The only understanding i can see is that having wild animals as pets should be banned as they normally are in most jurisdictions.