Fish suddenly eats tankmate

Why is the photographer filming at this particular moment, anyway?

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Let’s not even get into Three’s Company…

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How is fish eating other fish - as they would as God intended - animal cruelty?

Though I agree it needs a bigger tank. It is at least properly aerated.

He has a webcam with the click baity title “See these wet, slippery mama’s go at it!”

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Looks like catfish was a little weighted down after that meal.

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The little fish was definitely acting freaked out. A housemate had a similar experience with his hamsters.

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It’s a fish eat fish world, man.

Sounds like you’ve been run over by the Bambi syndrome.

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I don’t see the sense of setting up this scenario when there’s no need for it. Would you give your own dog or cat live animals?

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Who’s driving the tank now!?

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Tank Girl.

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OH man, I straight up murdered a poor bambi with my car a few weeks ago. Just ran right into me!

If my cat went after a mouse or my dog a rabbit I wouldn’t stop it.

Never own reptiles or tarantulas. You have to feed them life crickets or meal worms and rats or mice for the snakes.

I’ve heard hamsters will kill and eat other hamsters… I’ve seen a squirrel much on a mouse and deer eat birds. And fish eat ducklings. Herbivores will grab a protein snack if they can.

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It looked like hamster A killed hamster B to get at all the food pellets B had been hogging and storing in his cheek pouches. So not so much opportunictic carnivore as pissed off murderous herbivore.

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Oh, they most certainly will!

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One fish eating the another fish isn’t animal cruelty. Putting fish in a tank that is too small for them with nothing of interest in an attempt to get one fish to eat another is. Think of it this way, if two dogs happen get in a fight a dog park, that is just dogs being dogs. If, however, you starve and beat the dogs and then put them in a small pit, that is dog fighting and a crime.

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it just gets deeper

In my experience, it’s usually City Kids trying to reconcile their curated animal experiences (zoos, petting farms, the 'I once met a guy who met a farmer’ syndrome) trying to understand behavior that isn’t well-known outside of those people (Farm Kids) who had continual and relentless exposure to the actual real-world behavior of animals.

You can give the animals the most ideal conditions, but some animals are just dicks.

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Not exactly a fair parallel to the city kid/country kid scenario, as what we have here is two animals in far too small a cage for the express purpose of having one eat the other recorded on video for other people to vicariously enjoy.

edited when I hit return too early –
Not sure where the value judgment of dick comes into play here. Being a dick implies doing something in order to enjoy the suffering of another. AFAIK it’s mostly people who do this. Animals don’t tend to make value judgments.

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I didn’t know Wikipedia had a “charismatic megafauna” entry - thanks!

We used that phrase all the time back when I worked for a natural history thinktank. :slight_smile:

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(raises hand) It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even watch award winning nature programming any more. I realize that animals have to eat to survive and all that, but it doesn’t mean I have to enjoy watching it.

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The way God’s intentions are usually presented, there’s a little bit of room to run, and something to hide behind. This has more of a cock-fight vibe.

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I disagree on cruelty as I am willing to bet he put the large goldfish in there specifically to feed to the gulper cat.

It’s no more cruel than putting a mouse in a snake’s tank.

While the tank itself is definitely too small for the cat as a standard home (and particularly barren), it is possible this was a holding tank and not a permanent residence. It may have been isolated while being treated for any number of issues or just here while a new home is being prepared.

Just a thought as to what may be going on.

(for clarification, my father was a fish breeder for 30 years. Our entire basement was around 50 various tanks for breeding cichlids, tetras, and various other tropical fishes. We also have 4 house tanks)

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