That crow escaped an even more grisly fate.
I’m in the camp that thinks the bear though “free lunch”, then changed his mind. Sorry bears (or any predators) don’t do benevolent things for animals they can eat.
The rest of the murder are going cray-cray.
Just 'cause the bear was interested in the crow and dropped it after it pecked her nose doesn’t mean she was intending to eat it.
It may very well have meant playing-with-it-to-death but who’s gonna spend any more time on that slimy, pecky thing when you can eat apples and carrots instead.
Except the bear - a creature notorious for its great strength, particularly in its jaws - picks up an incredibly fragile animal by the wing, using its mouth, and does so gently enough to leave the bird completely unharmed.
Why be gentle if you want to eat the crow? And if it changed its mind, why drag the bird up instead of biting it, then dropping it back in the water?
Humans are predators, yet we do benevolent things for animals we can eat. Our pet dogs and cats are predators, yet they are capable of the exact same thing. Et cetera.
I mean, sure… you can always find an example of an individual within a predator species that is literally never altruistic, but to suggest that being a predator precludes the very possibility of altruism is absurd.
Bears aren’t stupid, vicious brutes. They’re actually quite intelligent, social, and sensitive creatures at times.
An act of kindness. Most of us have been taught that only a human is capable of doing such a thing and that becomes our reality.
The bear appears to flinch just before dropping the crow on the ground. Looks to me like the crow pecked or clawed it somewhere sensitive and the bear decided it probably wasn’t work the trouble seeing how it gets fed daily anyway.
Here’s a video of a lioness adopting a baby antelope. (With inevitably tragic results, since a lioness can’t really care for an antelope properly, but still.) There’s plenty of videos on the internets of cats and dogs being best friends with birds, rabbits, rats, mice, and all sorts of things that they’d normally eat.
Animals, especially mammals, are not biological robots. They’re smarter and more emotionally complex than you think.
(That said, in this particular case it’s just as likely that the bear was neither hungry nor benevolent, just bored.)
and i think most animals know better than to piss off the crows.
Ever since the bear walking on two legs thing I’ve been trying to remember the name of a science fiction story. It’s a short story told from the perspective of a space-going sentient bear species. The twist is they describe themselves as people and describe humans as grub-like (or maybe hairless mole-like) for most of the story. Until near the end when they say something that makes it obvious they’re talking about Earth and humans. I’m pretty sure it’s an older story. Anyone recognize it?
I’m with Glitch on this one. Being a member of a predatory species doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re always a lean mean killing machine. Bears are very curious and intelligent, and the ones in captivity tend to be bored shitless (trust me on this one, I’ve worked in a professional veterinary capacity with a few zoos).
I’m betting that the bear (again, bored shitless) saw the crow, and thought “hmm… I’ll fish it out and see what happens.” “hmm… it’s just sitting there. BOOOOORRRING!”.
Note that the bear doesn’t fish it out and try to groom it dry or anything like that that could be considered caretaking, it just fishes it out, watches it briefly, then walks off. I’d bet this isn’t “altruism” as much as it is “a good act done for selfish reasons” (to alleviate boredom).
I’ll posit a third possibility.
“Hey, you’re not a fish!”
I know I do.
The way I see it (usual caveats about opinions stand) the bear swats the crow hard against the stone, a lot like I imagine a bear in the wild would catch a salmon. The bear only leaves the bird alone after being pecked on the nose.
Also, the assumption that the crow is fine is exactly that, just an assumption.
Personally - I think the bear saw what could be live food, tried his luck, got pecked on the nose and decided the cold beef and carrots just feet away were probably less hassle.
Crows are the only birds I’ve ever seen drowned.
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