How do big animals such as Lion, Tiger, Bears, Elephants, etc be “friends” with humans.
In: Other
“Friends” is not a good word to use.
What we consider friendship is a very human idea. Even between people you know, they will have very different ideas of what it means to be a friend.
It’s the same thing with animals. We don’t know what’s really going on in their heads. Sure, most of them understand being social with another creature. Playing, grooming, resting and trusting it.
But ultimately that’s part of the animal’s psychology- or behaviour, if you don’t want to go so far and suggest they have a mind- that we shouldn’t be trying to map onto human behaviour.
Maybe they see us as sources of food. Weak creatures that are fun to play with. Members of their social group, whatever that means for their species.
But we can’t really tell what they really “think” of us. All we know is what we can observe. There’s always a chance that we got it wrong. It’s like how sometimes you thought you were friends with someone because of how they were treating you, but they saw it differently. That problem is even harder with animals.
If you’re curious, you should consider studying zoology.
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