Harmony and Conflict in the Living World - Alexander F. Skutch [46]
Exploitation of Animals by Animals
The exploitation of animals by animals has many aspects. Frequently the animals that are eaten are so different from their eaters that we do not think of this act as predation. Although the robin swallowing earthworms and the warbler catching insects are technically predators, we do not ordinarily place them in this category, to which we spontaneously assign the larger and fiercer carnivoreslions and wolves, eagles and falconsthat strike down, rend, and devour creatures of blood as red and warm as their own. The distinction we make between animals that devour creatures very different from themselves and those that prey upon animals in the same zoological class, or as highly evolved, as themselves has a valid foundation in the effects of their activities upon the animals themselves and upon the human onlooker. Although many people delight in the spectacle of violence and bloodshed of every sort (so long as they are not themselves hurt by it), the sensitive onlooker is shocked and
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distressed by the sight of a hawk seizing a piteously crying bird or a Cheetah tearing the vitals from a living antelope; but we are not so affected by a bird devouring a caterpillar. Our sympathy is not aroused by the insect or spider in the bill of a bird as it is by a songbird in the talons of a falcon or a mammal eviscerated by the fangs of another mammal.
As far as we can tell, predation by animals upon others much lower in the evolutionary scale does not have the same psychic effects upon either predator or prey as does predation upon birds and mammals. It is above all such predation that has burdened animals with their secondary nature and all the distressing attributes of the armature (chapter 3ferocity, anger, hatred, fear, suspicion, callousness, and similar psychic states). Although predation by warm-blooded animals upon warm-blooded animals appears to be the chief cause of this lamentable development, carnivorous reptilessnakes, crocodilians, monitor lizardshave contributed substantially to it. The human species, long a hunter of large animals and probably through long ages a frequent victim of the larger predatory mammals and reptiles, has been more heavily infected by these disturbing passions than has any other animal, possibly because our minds are more active and our emotions stronger. Only because we have hands to wield weapons have we managed to survive without protruding fangs, claws, horns, or similar organic growths, offensive or defensive, which the struggle between predator and prey has imposed upon creatures involved in it; and without a thick hide or protective carapace.
This rapid survey of the exploitation of animals by animals would be incomplete if we failed to mention the exploitation of females by males who fight among themselves for the females but contribute nothing to their offspring beyond a minuscule sperm. The psychic effects of such fighting and uncaring fatherhood are in some animals almost as unfortunate as those arising from predation. Even among men who in the present age mostly support and protect their children, an exploitative attitude toward the childbearing sex persists in the guise of machismo or male chauvinism, which today is combatted by women seeking gender equality.
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The exploitation of animals by a great variety of small parasites, internal and external, has been a major cause of suffering and death, but its psychic effects have been very different from that caused by large predators. We cannot fear or hate a protozoon or fluke that we have never seen (and probably do not know about) as we fear and hate a man-eating tiger or a shark. Fear of disease tends to be more persistent but less paralyzingly intense than terror in the imminent presence of a huge ravening beast.
Cooperation among Plants
Turning