Many people say it’s bad to interfere with nature whether helping animals in distress or feeding them because they will end up depending on humans. If we share the space and humans will be around animals, why is it seen as bad? Over time would it be possible to more than coexist with animals?
In: Biology
Because most humans are bad at knowing how to help animals, or determining when animals need help. It’s cliche, but remember that family that put a baby Buffalo in their car because he “looked cold?” When animals become dependent on humans for food, they put themselves and us in danger. A bear, raccoon, coyote, or squirrel who knows humans as a source of food might attack if it isn’t getting food. The author of the book Hatchet, in a different book, even described a situation where a juvenile deer stomped a baby to death for this reason.
The majority of us who live in cities, suburbs, and even farms (oh yes, some of the people I know who are least respectful of wild nature are farm dwellers) are absolute fucking dogshit at knowing what wild animals need. We are only used to catering to the needs of human beings and perhaps livestock, *maybe* domestic dogs and cats (though IMO, most pet owners are middling at absolute best at that). Wild animals aren’t people. They aren’t dogs. They don’t have the same needs as us, or domestic animals. There are wild horses not far from me and they get sick all the time because people try to give them things like apples and old pumpkins because “tHaTs WhAt HoRsiEs EaT,” but they aren’t supposed to be eating a nonstop diet of things that are supposed to be *treats* for *domestic* horses.
And we also tend to pick and choose which animals we feel “deserve” help. We tend to coddle animals we think of as cute, and kill animals we think are scary or gross. The ecosystem functions the way it does, not based on what random suburbanites arbitrarily think is cute, scary, or gross. But the ecosystem needs predators and scavengers and slimy bugs to function. When we killed all the “bad scary” wolves, it fucked up the “cute pretty” deer population in ways that isn’t just pesky for humans, it’s bad for the deer.
It’s just not good for animals or people.
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