Letters to the Editor
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The myth of "tooth and claw"
Contrary to the ridiculous nature programs on TV, with dramatic music surrounding every kill, nature really does have a lot of cooperation and long stretches when even lions and tigers and bears are laying around. And as someone noted earlier, animals kill for food, and for honing and maintaining skills, not for sex, fun, or profit. In captivity weasels will kill every single mouse you drop in their cage. That's because they're small and have a very high metabolic rate--they cache food during times of excellent hunting because in times of limited hunting, they would starve even if they missed just a couple of days without food. But even a captive weasel with a sudden, inexplicably unnatural food supply doesn't have a distorted killer instinct the way it is in, say, a man who on one single day shoots 70 pheasants and an undisclosed number of Mallards, and on another day shoots his friend in the face and then expects the friend to apologize to him.
There is at least as much romanticism about the brutality of nature as there is about the mythical "peaceable kingdom." If you want to see nature in action, you'll find it as easily in a chickadee flock, which typically includes dozens of other species all moving about in a cooperative band, sharing resources and defending themselves by vigilance and knowing when they SHOULD "cut and run," knowing predators are always about, but the more time and resources they spend focused on engaging rather than eluding those predators, the less time and resources they have to spend on feeding, singing, raising young, and living their lives.