[eatitraw]

> Should they be imprisoned?

No, because other animals don't have mental capacity to truly understand the consequences of their action.

That said, I've never really seen a consistent argument against _protecting_ prey animals from lions (and letting lions die out).

[freehunter]

>That said, I've never really seen a consistent argument against _protecting_ prey animals from lions (and letting lions die out).

You might begin your research into this subject with reading about the reintroduction of wolves into various locations where they had been eliminated. The prey populations always fare better when there are predators around them. Without the pressure of predators to balance the population, deer and beaver and other prey animals tend to over-populate, which results in damage to the environment (over-grazing) and then eventually starvation of the prey animals.

The deer are either going to be killed by a wolf, killed by a human, or killed by disease and starvation. At least the first two options don't also cause extensive damage to the environment before they happen.

https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduc...

[jpindar]

When deer don't have predators (of whatever species) they overpopulate and die of starvation or of running in front of vehicles.

I'm not convinced that dying of starvation is better than a sudden death. The vehicle accidents harm humans as well as the deer. The hungry deer damage crops and gardens.

I think the overpopulation also causes the spread of parasites (ticks etc.) which carry disease.

[Rainymood]

>No, because other animals don't have mental capacity to truly understand the consequences of their action.

A lion knows full well that it survives another month when it kills a wildebeest and that it can feed it cubs. What more is there to "truly" understand?

[freehunter]

When a mentally capable human kills another human, they do so with the understanding that killing that human will cause other humans to grieve the death of that human, and will remove that human's productivity from the world. They've made that connection and have decided to end that human's life anyway, so they are held responsible for the outcome of that. This is why people who are mentally incapable of understanding this are not punished the same way as people who are mentally capable.

A lion is not, to the best of our understanding, capable of understanding that killing another animal will cause grief to that other animal's family. If that other animal's family is even capable of understanding and/or grieving their death. And then we'd have to prove the killing was done with malicious intent, because just merely being responsible for someone's death, even as a human, is not immediately a criminal offense.

But it's a silly argument anyway because humans are often not prosecuted for the death of non-human animals, especially when that non-human animal is killed for food. So the idea that we would prosecute a lion for killing and eating an antelope is laughable when we don't prosecute a farmer for killing a cow for food.

[xigma]

Prey animals must have a right to get eaten by predators, just as the predator must have the right to prey on them. They both have evolved to balance each other out, after all.

Alternatively, prey animals would have to have the right to birth control, whereas predators would require a food program. Both would need to be provided by humans, of course, which would inevitably lead to an animal welfare state.

[rb808]

Nice, the mental health defense. The river forgot to take its meds that week sir.