Nature is way way more vicious than most people think or believe. Rape, infanticide, necrophilia, cannibalism, etc. Are not entirely uncommon out in nature. It's a vicious race for survival and procreation and anything goes. Raccoons are the same.
And, in particular, the animals that tend to give effective resistance to the humans' program of "hey I'm gonna trap / shoot / poison you or destroy your home because you're inconveniencing me", tend to get demonized as these crazy murder beasts when they'd probably be much happier living in the woods and doing their thing.
Human farmer eating chickens: Look, he went back to the land, so charming
Raccoon eating farmer's chickens: HE IS THE DEVIL
Animals do not exist in a moral universe. Humans do. And yet, somehow, when a conflict between them escalates, the animals are always the ones being psychopaths.
Nature gets brutal sometimes. One of my dogs once killed another dog, but she's always been a total sweetheart to me.
Raccoons are cute, curious, critters with thumbs. They like to wash their food. They're adorable!
But they are also wild creatures that will bite when scared and can carry dangerous diseases.
Nature gets brutal.
Was it a smaller dog that was eating your dogs food or that surprised your dog?
She was named Beta, a yellow lab who was housed with a yorkshire terrier, constantly yapping and nipping at her.
Eventually she snapped.
At the time the owner was pregnant so there was no way they could take the risk.
My wife and I adopted her because we already had another dog from the litter, her sister Violet. We renamed her to Veda.
Never had a problem. She growls softly when her lines are crossed but is otherwise a perfectly snuggly girl. Getting on in years but still with us.
Animals can't be evil. They're amoral. They don't philosophize, they don't feel guilt; they don't comprehend life in the same way that we do. Both cruelty and mercy are human constructs. All animals can do is try to guarantee survival for themselves and their offspring. They've all evolved into a specific niche, and these behaviors you deride are just instincts that have successfully ensured the survival of their ancestors, and so were passed on. If you can't handle the idea that animals in general sometimes kill to survive, get a plant
We're animals. Like all social animals we have behavioral norms and individuals who violate them in circumstances that benefit them.
Many animals display empathy, both in their behavior and neurology. Many animals understand, remember and display reciprocity. Many animals mourn. Many animals show strong evidence of forming assessments of individuals from other species.
Our actions are determined by the sum total of our genetics, experience and social expectations, same as any other social animal.
And still some animals prefer only select few others and only some humans . They are capable of affection as we can see with dog and their owners or dogs and their kids . I think they do feel sadness, happyness, love etc. Atleast a version of it so I don't think all they are capable of is survival instinct .
They can do those things because they've been beneficial. Cats domesticated themselves because living with humans makes them safer. Their meows are cute, because that makes us want to protect them. They are absolutely capable of love, but they're still animals
They can do those things because they’ve been beneficial
That describes human behavior just as well.
You're right in this, and your other comment, but if OP isn't ready for "sometimes animals eat each other in nature," I don't think they're ready for the complexities of what it means to be human, and the fact that we are also animals, but have some unique behaviors
I agree with you pretty much everything you said, I just think that drawing a strong distinction between any one species and every other one mischaracterizes the situation. Evil is a human construct that applies as poorly to human behaviour as to the behaviour of every other animal, for the same reasons.
If you'll excuse me simplifying your point, "They're animals of course they do that, evil doesn't come into it" is not quite as accurate as "We're all animals, evil doesn't come into it", to my mind at least. Because OP didn't just misunderstand an aspect of non-human animals, they misunderstood an aspect of how life works.
But not a Venus flytrap. Or a pitcher plant. Or rafflesia. Or...
A Venus flytrap doesn't kill to survive. It hugs to death, and then since the body is there it just makes sure it doesn't go to waste. Big difference.
My dog definitely seems to feel guilt, what is your source?
What we perceive as "guilt" from domestic dogs is generally classified as a fear/submission display. It's anthropomorphizing. Not saying that dogs don't have feelings. They absolutely do. Guilt and shame, however, are likely not in their pallette.
Maybe stop anthropomorphizing animals with human concepts like morality and just accept them for as they are?
Animals lack morality. Raccoons would hunt humans for fun and food if they were capable.
I saw a video of a lady trying to help baby raccoons that had fallen through an open window climb up and get to their mother. The mother attacked her. They don't know our intent. They just see a threat to their babies. That's not evil. That's just nature and animals. The lady was pissed that it tried to get her when she was trying to help, which is understandable. But I don't think she thought, "oh you evil piece of shit." More like, "I wish you knew I was trying to help."
If you have chickens, you will automatically dislike raccoons.
If given the opportunity, raccoons will get into a coop and kill all chickens. It won't eat the chickens. It will just kill them.
why? beef with dinosaurs or something??
I'm going with that.
Capybaras. Animals aren't evil but if you're trying to think of a chill animal that does no wrong by human standards, it's capybaras.
Like many other mammels male raccoon will kill offspring of other males to speed up the mating availibility of female raccoons.
If they weren't up to no good, why would they wear masks?
No but seriously they will straight-up murder chickens for the fun of feeling the hens' necks snap under their fingers.
My dad had been feeding raccoons and squirrels but the raccoon was still hungry one day and killed and ate the slowest squirrel. I wouldn't call it evil though. Nature is metal as some people say.
One of my friends keeps chickens in a small coop surrounded by chicken wire. A while back some raccoons killed most of his chickens by pulling pieces of them through the small holes in the wire fence. A few years after the incident I was visiting my friend. While we were hanging out in the backyard I stepped on a dessicated chicken wing...
When they are in Kill Mode they are absolutely vicious. They'd reach through the fence and pull the chickens' heads off.
Are raccoons evil? Absolutely not. Like humans, some individual animals may engage in anti-social activities (be assholes) but, with a few exceptions, non-human animals do not engage in things from a long-term perspective that is required to develop philosophy, culture, ethics, and morality. Another requirement is likely possessing Theory of the Mind; an understanding that other beings have their own mental states (intention, desires, knowledge, etc.). Few non-human animals have been demonstrated to have this ability and frequently, the evidence suggests that it is also not an ability present in all members of the species.
So, the TL;DR is: No and very few animals could have the capacity to be "evil".
So, what are they?
Cute, inquisitive, intelligent, clever, and, yes, fairly dangerous. Raccoons have sharp teeth and claws that can do serious damage to humans and houses, and they can be very deadly to cats and dogs. For canines, it's generally smaller breeds that are at risk but, in some places, like Western Washington state, populations of raccoons have been observed hunting in packs to take down larger dogs.
Why did I mention houses? Well, raccoons are intelligent and understand enough to get themselves into trouble and cause serious property damage. There are multiple accounts of people feeding local raccoons then, after coming home from a vacation, discovering that the raccoons that they had been feeding had pulled shingles off the roof and damaged the building's sheathing in an attempt to get the food that had been suddenly cut-off.
Additionally, raccoons can carry rather dangerous infectious diseases. On the viral side, they are a major vector of the rabies virus as well as distemper. For bacteria, they have been shown to be vector of listeria and leptospirosis. They also can carry a number of parasites, including acting as the primary host for Baylisascaris procyonis, which is a particularly resilient roundworm (eggs can survive 20% bleach solution) that can cause encephalitis in humans.
Trash pandas are awesome but, best enjoyed from a safe distance.
They technically are able to flip you off.
Ah that's a plus .
A Raccoon would ask are humans evil for treating the world and nature as their privately owned land to do whatever they want without regards to other habitants.
No. They are not.
What the others said, animals aren't "evil". But I'm curious now, what did hamsters do?
Eat their young when they are in a confined space that appears to not support the population.
In a sense, we make them eat their young by putting them in cages and breeding them.
But it is behavior learned in the wild - keep alive only the babies you can actually support, or else everyone dies.
Eating their young seems to be their first response to any form of stress actually
I used to work in a pet store.
There were two white with black spot "teddy bear" hamsters that had "wet tail"(diarrhea) and they were being kept in the back together while they were given antibiotics to get them well so they could be sold. They had it when they came in, unfortunately very common for factory farm raised hamsters.
After a day or two of them being there I came in to open for the day and give them their meds. I flipped over the plastic igloo they were nesting in and there was only one there. I closed the store the previous night and had given them their meds, I knew there was two in there 12 hours prior. I was standing there looking at the 5 gallon aquarium they were in and was trying to think through the early morning brain fog as a bloody hamster face poked out from under the singular fur ball.
I then understood that the one hamster has eaten the other and hollowed it out to make a cow pattern meat igloo out of its sickly cage mate. Hamsters may be cute, but they will upcycle a friend into eco-friendly housing and a midnight snack. They are adorable monsters and we pretend they aren't and give them to kids in brightly colored habitats, as if they are different than Gacy in a clown costume.
I know I shouldn't but I laughed. Thanks, I'll now keep thinking about this every time a kid says they want a cute hamster.
Eat their own kids
Honestly, Skunks, and maybe Possums. They are omnivores, so there is a certain amount of "will kill and eat other living things" but generally they have chill vibes and prefer to eat roots and garbage.
Raccoons aren't necessarily evil, but they are definitely chaotic little shit bastards.
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