Human Superiority And Its Effect On Animals

So some of you may have heard about the alligator that killed a young child near Disney World in Florida, reading an article on it made me pretty angry about an issue that society seems to disregard completely.
I was reading this article, and while it's not a good thing that a kid was killed, it's just as bad that the general public doesn't object to the kinds of things like killing FIVE alligators simply because they were in the area where the child was attacked. Why were they killed? To check their bodies and see if any of them match the alligator that may have killed the boy.

What the hell? So five animal lives aren't even comparable to a human one? There is something I like to call the human superiority mindset. The idea that we, humans with lives, are more important than animals with their own lives.
No.
We are all worth the same, we are all one life each. The alligator that killed the kid was doing what nature instinctually trained him to do, and now he's either been summarily executed or will be.

If they aren't 100% sure any of the five alligators they murdered are the culprit, they'll go back out and keep killing more.

If an owner fails to keep their dog from roaming free, and that dog attacks someone, the animal might be put down unless the owner fights for and accepts a fine (a fine is acceptable). This happened to a family friend years ago when he failed to keep his pit bull, named Buster, from escaping their fence and killing a neighbor's dog. This is what instinct told him to do, and he didn't understand the moral concepts that we do, but they were still going to kill him until his owner took a monthly/yearly (can't remember which) fine and agreed to keep him restricted more.

Why do we impose our own laws and moral standings on animals that follow natural instinct? And then kill them when they don't follow our way? Human superiority.


Feel free to discuss animal rights.

 

As long as the Furries are safe then I don't really care what animals get shot

 

I like how you're sad about random alligators dying and not an actual HUMAN who died

 

Furry = you care if they get shot
Furry = human = animal
Animal = you don't care if they get shot
Furry = you don't care if they get shot
You care if they get shot /= you don't care if they get shot

Your equation just doesn't make any sense, man.

And there it is in action.

 

Why is that? Because you're a human? Would you still feel that way if you were a different species?

 

But we're not another species so who gives?

 

First of all, an animal brain couldn't even comprehend what human superiority means.

 

We don't ignore bullied victims just because we aren't being bullied ourselves.

Neither do most human brains, to be honest. But it doesn't change the fact that they shouldn't be killed so nonchalantly, even if they don't understand why we're doing it or that it might be happening so widespread. A life is a life.

 

Well that's because the victims are other humans. Not an alligator that killed a 2 year old child

 

An alligator that doesn't understand human moral systems, never lived in a society where religions were introduced, etc.
The alligator did nothing wrong, it lived the way it was supposed to. Yes, a human child was killed, but that is no reason to treat the alligator like it purposely intended on murdering someone. It was just trying to live its life the only way it's meant to live it.
Would you wish the pain of being killed on yourself? No. Would you wish the pain of being killed on someone else? Hopefully not. There's no reason to wish it on an animal either, especially since it doesn't understand our morals and therefore doesn't actually intend to be evil.

 

Interesting subject of discussion, and I can relate to your perspective.

However aren't alligators in the US hunted down and killed on a regular basis? The article says nothing about whether the alligators are within the season's quota or not, but I assume they are, as alot are killed during one season.
Alligators are killed for both the skin and meat. Eventho what might seem to be the hunters' prime motive may be questionable, I doubt they'd trash the alligators after having caught them, and I believe there were secondary motives involved.

Arguably it's like killing the regular cow or sheep in my opinion.

 

I would assume that isn't the reason since they said they plan on getting more if none of the five alligators match the offender. I'd think that they wouldn't have essentially said they'll stop when they find the alligator in question if they were going to just keep killing them anyway. But you bring up an interesting point about it being a secondary motive.
Also, I don't know if you are allowed to hunt on Disney's property since it's a family friendly theme park but I could be wrong on that.

 

I have no idea why they would not do much though. This pisses me off so much.

 

Well first off I'm gonna state that it's pretty stupid to kill alligators to check if there's a child in them because, lets face it, if he is in there he's already f*cking dead. Unless the kid is found wandering about the amusement park the next day it's pretty damn safe to assume he's been eaten. If anything, this is just another case of 'didn't watch your kid in the vicinity of dangerous animals,' and should be treated as such. Same with the gorilla in Cincinnati the other day. Sorry but your kid is dead and even if you can save him are you really going to kill off another living being to do so?
As a furry I'm pretty sure you can imagine where I'd stand on this. I don't think it's fair that we treat animals as though they don't matter- because they certainly do, and we don't like it when they treat us like that. Sure you may want to save the kid's life in this type of situation but why harm more animals than needed in the process? The kid should be proclaimed dead unless he's found googoo-gahgahing where you last saw him. It's pointless and has a toll on the wildlife we claim to respect.

That's the mindset of somebody who puts themselves above all others, and it's pretty dangerous to think in such a way. We shouldn't disregard other opinions simply because they don't directly effect is in a negative matter.
If we were to kill off all the bees because "who gives," then we's have a pretty major problem considering they play a huge role in feeding us and keeping us from running out of oxygen. You may not realize it with that type of thinking, but nature is at an equilibrium and if we disrupt it we've got a problem.

I really think you guys should take what ThreeAreFour is saying into consideration because he's got some really great points that should not be overlooked.

 

They found the kid's body and he wasn't eaten.

Are they still going to kill the alligators? If so, that's pretty ridiculous. How does killing the alligator that killed the kid help at all? It's pointless. Even if they hadn't found the kids body. What's the point? They would be retrieving the chewed up and half digested remains of a two year old, I don't think that would make the family much happier.

As for the human superiority thing, it's like a religion debate- nobody ever wins the discussion lol

 

I am aware of the bee example considering I saw The Bee Movie numerous times. I don't mean let's kill other animals off for no good reason. What I mean is, is that like in the instance of the gorilla it was the only logical thing to do. Tranquilize wouldn't have worked because it takes more than one shot and it would piss the fudge out of the gorilla who can pop a watermelon with no effort. Just like ThreeAreFour said, the animals don't know better. Well us humans are raised to protect another one of us rather than saving an animal. And that's exactly every other animal's thought too

 

I don't know why but that made me laugh.
inb4 bee movie script meme

 

They were never killing alligators to find his body. They found it beforehand, they're just trying to kill the alligator now if they haven't already.

In that specific instance, maybe that is all they could have done, but really that gorilla shouldn't have been there. That isn't its natural habitat and I can assure you that it didn't want to be there, humans just forced it to live out its life in its little cage until they killed it.

 

But they were Disney Alligators