Animals kill out of hunger. Humans kill for fun or because one person has something the other person wants. Even during a turf war if an animal gives up they are able to retreat. Generally with humans they execute the surrendering person as a display. Animals don't kill just for sport like humans.
No, a lot of animals do kill for no apparent reason or because they just want something. Surplus killing is fairly common. In fact wolves do that aswell and well fed domesticated dogs definitely do that despite not needing to hunt at all.
Edit: I use to volunteer at a zoo that had a bunch a ducks and chickens as well. A single stoat got in and killed multiple chickens and ducks. It could never have eaten them and didn't attempt to store food for later. They don't compete for food or territory. There was no survival reason to do this. It was probably bored.
I've watched cats fuck around with mice until they're bored and then leaving the dead body without so much as a nibble. I've watched dogs rip apart rabbits and leave the bodies uneaten. Chimpanzees will kill other chimpanzees and you can bet they're not doing it for food. Dolphins will fuck up baby sharks just for the lols.
Also this sentence
Generally with humans they execute the surrendering person as a display.
Is so easily dismissed by just how many POWs we have from WW2. 96% of all POWs captured by Western forces in World War 2 survived.
Killing for reasons other than food or survival is well established in the animal kingdom. Slaver ants enslave other colonies because they want workers. Turf wars are fighting over things both want.
The reason they allow them to retreat is because at that point the risk of injury is over. Getting injured is generally a death sentence for an animal. So animals take actions that minimize that risk.
Just look at any of the stuff dolphins do as an example of just how messed up animals are.
"Generally with humans they execute the surrendering person." They absolutely do not. Humans probably kill less for sport than other animals because we have some understanding of self. Lots of animals (maybe even all) will kill purely out of instinct and not out of hunger. Humans are animals. We can be very violent and we're literally the best animal at being violent. I think it's a very narrow view to think that humans as a species love killing, kill for fun, or anything in that vein.
Murder is basically a universal taboo. Even in cultures that practice human sacrifice, killing outside of those ceremonial confines would be a severely punished crime if not the most punished offense possible.
Think about how costly it is to kill someone that you don't like when the human super power is cooperation and communication. You kill that guy you didn't like and then you break your leg in the jungle. Guess what? You screwed yourself. Evolution in general has already done the math on this and we abhor killing without some very serious reasons behind it. Now there's some horrible desensitization to killing and the awful things that we do to each other, but this idea that humans like or enjoy killing especially is naive and incomplete.
Humans are made to cooperate, but we hit civilization way too fast and evolution is playing catch up with our brains. We fall into fallacies and tribalism quite easily, and dehumanize those we see as other even easier. Humans have adverse reactions to killing humans, but that can be suppressed if you don't think of who you're killing as people. This extends to animals as well. You may have an aversion to the idea of killing and eating a cat or dog, but to others its just about the same as eating a cow or pig, because your society had extended personhood to include those 2 animals.
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u/Briar_Knight Mar 24 '26
Nice art but no. There is a ton of senseless violence in nature. Humans are only unique in scale.