[operatorequals]

I find this social behavior amazing. And I'm very surprised that humans are capable of it. This is a behavior often recognised in animals that are in captivity.

Personal experience is with some finches. Finches refuse to hatch their fertilised eggs by breaking them, if they were forced to mate in a cage. I was a breeder for a brief while.

[api]

Perhaps certain modern societies are a bit like zoos in which we have placed ourselves on exhibit.

[lolc]

Haha yes modernity does compare[0] to zoos. We're self-domesticating.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Zoo_(book)

[majos]

Do you have a third-party source for this? Never heard of this behavior.

[glbrew]

It's called infanticide and it's very common throughout nature. Just recently a lion in a German zoo ate her newborn cubs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide_(zoology)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/08/europe/germany-lioness-eats-c...

[majos]

Good point. But parent comment described infanticide by finches as a response to captivity, as if they were deliberately preventing offspring from growing up in captivity. In contrast, the "motives" given in the Wiki article are either 1. sexual conflict (e.g. offspring of a rival male), or 2. resource scarcity.

The CNN article seems more similar, even as the zoo is very careful not to say the behavior is caused by captivity.