[Sportsgirl]

The highest thing up on the food chain I'll eat is fish. Very rarely, when offered.

I did meet a mountain lion here once, fifty yards from my home. I was coming home at night and had to resist the urge to get out of my car and shake hands. Unbelievably beautiful. I've rolled around in the snow, playing with (tame) wolfs. There is 'medicine' in these things. These animals are teachers.

If you kill an animal for pleasure you're lower than an animal, which only kills out of need.

[Willie Bee]

Pretty good discussion, sort of a shame it's in the NFL Forum.

I will agree with you about the "medicine," DH, but not that animals "only kill out of need." That's generally true, and if you want to classify 'need' as the 'need for territorial supremacy,' it's pretty spot on. Like I said before, one of my grandfathers taught me to hunt and respect nature and the animals in it. He ran Herefords and goats on a bit more than six sections near the Nueces River in SW Texas, and one day we were out in the pickup checking on the cattle when the pickup truck came to a screeching halt and he hollered for me to grab my gun (a single-shot Savage .22 Magnum/.410 Over-Under) and follow him. I was certain he had seen a big buck or a javelina or something like that, and was one horrified 12-year-old boy when I realized we were going to shoot dogs! I refused, just couldn't do it.

These dogs were from town a couple miles up the road and they were running in a heat pack and killing goats for no other reason than to, well, kill them. They would also take down young calves in the spring, and they would rarely, rarely eat what they killed and it was nothing to do with territorial rights.

We have a big Maine Coon cat right now who is a 'vegetarian.' No kidding, he'll eat the crunchy food that is flavored or cut with meat products, but he won't eat canned food or fresh fish that I catch like the other cats. Big ol' cat a bit more than 19 pounds and it just eats crunchy food and has destroyed, literally eaten away a couple of catnip plants in our garden. But he will still kill lizards, mice, grass snakes and birds with regularity. He even managed to get a young squirrel once time that I know of. He never eats them, never brings them to the door and drops them like other cats have done. It's just sport to him, that's the only explanation I can think of.

[Dark Horse]

I have a veggie cat like that too. He likes chips the best. A hot flavor sends him sprinting for the water fountain.

[Red Man Spit]

Good luck on yer picks and yer hunt!