Preserved Topic: Blood Sport (Page 1 of 1)

Watching a repeat of a program about elephant seals, I am once again reminded that humans are not the first or only animals to 'play' with their food.

Killer Whales play with their prey for anything up to half an hour, observably torturing a seal unto death. Even after death, they continue to flip and throw the hapless creature's body back and forth as though tossing a toy. I shan't presume that they 'enjoy' it; it may serve as a lesson to their young in how to properly catch such a quick-moving prey, but they do it regardless of the age of their company.

Having seen a cat doing something quite similar, I can't help thinking that it must be in our blood to enjoy blood sports. That seems like a bit of a generalisation - but as a race, we've shown just as much interest in animals as sport as much as food.

Hunting is an important part of our past, and a popular part of modern society, and blood sport is as rife today as it ever was.

If I didn't live in a society where my meat comes pre-killed and packaged, I think I'd happily adapt to killing and preparing my own meat. There seems more honour in hunting than slaughter.

I'm not saying that I'm for things like Fox Hunting or Bull Fighting (for instance), but I can see that some things aren't necessarily a purely human trait. In all truth, I find a lot of blood sports distasteful and unappealing - but I'm not about to start waving placards and marching through London.

What are your thoughts? Can you give any other interesting examples of 'killing for fun' behaviour in the animal kingdom? What about other so-called 'human traits' - do they have parallels in the animal kingdom?

Please, as much as you can, try posting exerpts from any links you include - it makes it more interesting.

Well, I tried finding some links about the Flavian Amphitheater, better known as the Roman Colosseum, but I couldn't find anything that showed the true blood-lust that went on in the arena (sorry WH.). I guess I will just have to tell you what I have read in books, watched in documentations, and heard from my Latin teacher. The truly disgusting part about all this is that the Romans went to these "games" for fun, and loved watching people get eaten or a sliced jugular vein.
The Colosseum was an emense battle field. It was originally made for ludi in general (races, games, plays, and fights), but was later popularized for the gladiatorial combats that went on inside the great arches. The combats ranged from 1 on 1 to a whole army of 100 or more gladiators fighting at the same time. The amphitheater was very versitlie ring of death and destruction. It had sand to sop up the spilled blood, and at one time there were so many "games" going on in the amphitheater that the main import to Rome was sand for the Colosseum. There were many underground caverns that allowed animals to devour slaves that were unruly. It also became a way for Nero (I think) to kill unwanted Jews and Christians I can't remember the exact number that were killed, but it was in the 100,000s.
More about the Colosseum and ancient blood -lust to come.

Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you, rebuke a wise man and he will love you.

But did the animals enjoy it?

==I don't believe it! Somebody stole my sig!!==

Gideon - I think you'll be hardpressed to find someone who doesn't know the basics of the gladiatorial concept. Not sure how that relates to the question at hand, except to further expand on the general thought that spawned it perhaps....

WH - as far as I'm concerned, it is just part of the fact that we are still animals regardless of the trappings of "civilization" we conjure up...

Many of the evil traits that people constantly seem so shocked to observe in humanity (and particularly "modern" humanity) are nothing more than simple animal instinct.

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White Hawk said:

But did the animals enjoy it?

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Well, here is an interesting fact that isn't common knowledge. The animals that were starved were too scared to eat in front of a crowd, so the Romans got themselves a trainer. The animals were actually trained by a specific trainer whose sole job was to train the animals to kill. What the audience didn't know was that the animals that were actually trained to kill numbered only about 10% to 15% of the animals let loose. These select animals, mostly lions and tigers and other large predators were often trained by catching and eating a slave in the public spuare.
DL-44, yes, it was expanding on the topic of how blood thirsty the Roman mob could become. The only thing is about your theory of how people are just animals, and why a mob cheers at something like an animal slaughtering a small group of defensless Christians, is that not all people like it. Most people have a certain amount of blood lust in them, but not all. Do children have a bloodlust? Do they like to kill their meat before they eat it? I hope not, because if that was the case then we would be a more savage and bloodthirsty people. No, if you have seen an infant, all they do is look in wonder at everything, and they are innocent. If they are bloodthirsty, how could they be innocent? Anyway, that leads me to think that the bloodlust in people is learned, not born. If that is true, then what a sad society the Romans had where they were teaching their children to lust after blood! I firmly believe that you can't predict all aspects of a human being, they are always going to surprise you. You may say,"people are easy to predict", but you might be fooled, it happens to everyone at some point.
I don't know about you, but my instinct doesn't tell me to go and kill, rape, steal, lie, cheat, or disobey. At least, if it does, I have a control over it, because I am not doing those things. Maybe that is what sets us appart from the animal kingdom? We can control our instincts, we can decide to not give in to our lusts. I would consider that a difference.

Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you, rebuke a wise man and he will love you.

[ quote=White Hawk] Can you give any other interesting examples of 'killing for fun' behaviour in the animal kingdom? What about other so-called 'human traits' - do they have parallels in the animal kingdom?
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There is apparently a community of bottle-nosed dolphins living in Scotland who have been observed by scientists to have "murderous and aggressive tendancies" due to the amount of dead porpoises that wash up on the shore every year. One theory is that the porpoises, bearing teeth marks and severe internal injuries are interfering with the dolphins' echo-location system - and thus being bumped-off at a rate of 10 -20 a year.

In Florida, researchers have noted that play sessions between young siblings are quite blatently sexual - breaking a human taboo and an animal one (natural selection - the natural instinct not to in-breed) by committing acts of incest - the only purpose of which seems to be pleasure.

Western Australia, scientists having observed groups of non-related males (males generally travel in pairs of same-sex siblings) colluding to abduct females from thier nursing groups (female dolphins travel in groups of 4 and raise their young collectively) and take them off to deeper water to mate, in an apparent gang rape.

While we theorise that dolphins are the most intelligent mammals other than ourselves we seem concerned that they are now developing an interest in some of our 'nastier', previously perculiar tendencies. Whilst I would not regard the Scottish dolphins as murderers for them simply defending their main 'sense' for detecting preditor and prey (it is a basic animal and human instinct to defend that which you deem essential to survive) we would regard thier other actions as being disturbing in both the human and animal kingdom.

Whereas we normally regard some of our more depraved and amoral behaviour as an aspect of 'the human condition' (ie. it is brought about due to our intelligence) and that animals work solely on basic instincts of protection of themselves, their food and thier young it seems evident that this is no longer true.

On the subject of fox hunting. I try not to be too passionate in either direction. I understand (on my animal side) the thrill of the chase, the immense amount of tradition and history linked to it and also the need to cull foxes in farming areas to protect farmer's livestock and livelyhood.
On the otherside I also feel there must be some better way to do things. I do not believe for a moment that the foxes do not experience fear or pain - as far as I am concerned that is an excuse used only by those who convince themselves to believe it so vehermently that they can shout it over anyone elses opinion and make themselves feel better. I have seen many animals in fear, pain and a range of other emotions and I doubt that foxes have a nervous system so altered that it renders that animal devoid of these emotions - if anyone has any medical and scientific proof on the contrary I would be more than happy to enter into a discussion on this.
I also think the actions of many of much of the anti-hunting establishement do them no favours. The many attacks on horses, dogs and hunters show them to have none of the great regard for life that they seem to be so passionatley fighting for. To damage an animal or a human being for the sake of your beliefs (be it your beliefs in hertiage and history or beliefs in the right to life) is wrong. It's not an animal instinct it is a human instinct, one born out of the assumption that the human race is all-powerful and also indestructable and a view which I feel we will be forced to change before the end of the centuary. To kill or harm an animal or human to protect your livelyhood is another matter entirely and, although it is not clear-cut, can be understood. I just wish there was another way of culling the animals but sadly any idea I ever suggest to a hunting person (they should know if it would work) is shot down in flames. I am not sure wether this is because they will not even entertain any other idea other than hunting or whether the ideas really wont work and that there really is no other solution.

Either way I understand the feelings of the moderate majority on both sides and I feel we will have to find an effective culling method to replace hunting before we outlaw it - othewise we will just create another problem out of the one we think we have solved (just like the thousands of mink wandering the New Forest killing all our endangered little water voles)

"If you think life's fair you still believe in the tooth fairy"

(Edited by Whizz on 09-22-2004 13:13)

There was a movie made a number of years ago called The Ghost and the Darkness about a legend of man-eating lions in Tsavo where they speculated about lions hunting humans for sport.

According to this article the movie is not totally accurate (go figure) but they do say that lions eating humans is learned behavior, and passed down through the generations... Which is interesting.

As intelligent as humans are, and as facile as our brains are, it is interesting to watch the scientific community collecting more and more data about animal intelligence. As we learn more about animal behavior, it becomes clearer that there is usually an active thought process behind it - that animal behavior is not entirely instictive.

Cats of all sizes play with their food until it is dead, and if they are not actually hungry at the time, they seem to feel no remorse for the killing of it.

That dolphin stuff is interesting, a quick google turns up the following:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n3_v154/ai_21003387
http://www.susanscott.net/OceanWatch1998/aug03-98.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/dolphinbehavior070799_chat.html

Hunting is something that was, up until fairly recently in history, a major part of human existence. There is a great deal of excitement in tracking, chasing and finally killing an animal, especially if it is bigger and stronger than those doing the hunting. Just because we can buy our meat pre-killed and pre-packaged doesn't seem to take away the need for the excitment that comes from the hunt. There are people who thrive on it.

In a lot of fox hunting these days, the dogs are trained not to actually attack the fox, and the hunt is just to find it, not kill it. There is still an adrenaline rush in the tracking and chasing... Think about thrill-seeking people. Many will say that they only feel "alive" when they've done something death-defying or exciting. It's the adrenaline rush and the subsequent endorphin release that they are going for. Nature's drug: endorphins. Certainly most mammals have a similar glandular function?

Perhaps it's not the anticipation of the sight of blood that causes the behavior, bu the memory of the neurochemical response that makes a person or animal seek it out over and over... Hormones make one do strange things...

(Edited by bodhi23 on 09-22-2004 16:10)

[twit]double-post deleted (sorry)[/twit]

(Edited by White Hawk on 09-23-2004 00:01)

Ooh! This is all good stuff.

By the way - hello Whizz, and welcome to the Ozone Asylum. I'm looking forward to the fact that you can't actually physically throw things at me in here when we're arguing!
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You know what? I didn't even think of the whole 'humans influencing animals' aspect of this. I've been given something to think about...

==I don't believe it! Somebody stole my sig!!==

It has just occured to me while reading one of your links, Bodhi, that it could be possible that the reasons the scientists in Scotland gave to the attacks on the porpoises, ie. that the porpoises had in some way interfered with the dolphins' echo-location, may just be humans automatically explaining the dolphin's actions as animal insinct.
The more I hear about the dolphns' behaviour the more it occurs to me that the dolphins' may just be killing for the sake of killing, or even worse, obtaining pleasure from the kill.
This makes hormones the most likely culprit in my opiinion - they enjoy sex , the thrill of the chase and killling.

Hmmmmm

"If you think life's fair you still believe in the tooth fairy"

(Edited by Whizz on 09-23-2004 00:29)

How could humans NOT be influencing animal behavior? It's one of the things that both Jane Goodall and Diane Fosse worried the most about - human interaction with the Chimpanzees or Mountain Gorillas would cause their natural behavior to change irrevocably. There is no way to study animals without interfering, except perhaps to do it remotely - which is difficult and expensive.

Chimps, BTW, exhibit murderous tendancies as well. It was one of Jane Goodall's first discoveries. There was a group of Chimps that would routinely attack her main study group and try to kill as many of them as they could. This group also exhibited the first known Chimpanzee instances of cannibalism - and it was not just limited to males and babies, females were just as likely to be the target... this activity was going on when Ms. Goodall began studying the groups, and did not appear to slack off during the years she continued to be there.