• krooklochurm@lemmy.ca
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            22 hours ago

            I don’t know why people are so defensive about the fact that cats enjoy killing things for pleasure. They love seeing things in pain. They love watching them die slowly.

            • ContriteErudite@lemmy.world
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              19 hours ago

              You shouldn’t anthropomorphize animal behavior by misinterpreting their instincts for human emotions. Feral and tame cats of all kinds will play with their food to hone hunting skills. Dogs will ravage and eviscerate other animals as play. Hamsters will eat their offspring under circumstances where it would mean the parent has a better chance to survive without them.

              Cats do not “love seeing things in pain” for the same reason that dogs don’t “love” seeing a toy rabbit torn to shreds: both behaviors are rooted in their hunting instincts. True sadism (hurting or killing another being for no reason other than pleasure) has only been observed in animal groups that also possess higher-ordered cognitive and social traits, such as cetaceans and apes.

      • affenlehrer@feddit.org
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        1 day ago

        Have you seen their genitalia? They kind of have to. Besides that I’ve seen very cute and happy looking duck couples.

        • ComfortableRaspberry@feddit.org
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          1 day ago

          Afaik it evolved like that for better raping. At least that’s what our biology teacher told us, after we had to watch a video about duck mating.

          There are also no real couples. Most of the time several males try to get it on with the same duck and it’s not rare that their object of desire drowns because they can’t wait their turn. Nature is fucked up.

          • Wren@lemmy.today
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            1 day ago

            Ducks have diverse mating habits, like humans. They don’t have to rape, but they will when there’s overcrowding, males outcompete females, and/or they live in an urban environment where females lack the strength and space to escape.

            Otherwise, most species of ducks form seasonal pair bonds with new mates each year. Some come back to the same mate each year, which isn’t quite the same as monogamy since they don’t stick together when not fucking and rearing young. A few ducks will mate for life, and a lot of larger waterfowl, like geese and swans, are monogamous.

            • ComfortableRaspberry@feddit.org
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              1 day ago

              Thanks for the additional insights!

              I knew at least the part about swans. There was a huge pair of swans treating the small town they chose to live in as their personal garden and terrorizing people in traffic (pedestrians but people in cars as well). They were horrible but also treated like a holy cow, nobody was allowed to touch them and the official stance of the town was to let them be. So from time to time there were swan caused traffic jams and children knew to avoid them.

              • Wren@lemmy.today
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                13 hours ago

                I haven’t even met them and I love those birds. Reminds me of Canada Gooses, the source of deep respect and utter annoyance as our avian fellow countrymen.

                One of my BFFs is an environmental scientist who loves ducks, which means get loaded with duck facts that spill over onto others.