
Snowshoe hares found to routinely feast on their own dead - wellokthen
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/adorable-snowshoe-hares-found-to-routinely-feast-on-their-own-dead-study
======
jcoffland
I had a traumatic experience as a child. My family went to visit some friends.
They thought my brother and I would like to see their new baby rabbits. We
were sent out to the backyard on our own. When we got to the cage all the
babies were dead. The adult rabbits had chewed off their heads. I'm now 42 and
I can still see the bloody baby rabbit carcasses.

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PhasmaFelis
My understanding is that damn near anything (at least among mammals) will eat
meat if they can get it in bite-sized bits. Ruminants may not have the teeth
to tear chunks off a carcass, but they'll crunch up baby birds given the
opportunity.

Someone else has already done all the hard work of converting plant matter
into the stuff that meat is made of, so it's high-density protein with very
little metabolic cost. Even an herbivore would be foolish to pass that up.

~~~
burfog
I find it astonishing that the disease risk doesn't lead to a strong aversion
to having contact with other animals for any purpose other than reproduction.
This is especially true for cannibalism.

In the wild, antibiotics are not provided. Worms can get in the heart, lungs,
and brain. Even external parasites are risky. Disease means death.

The situation is slightly more understandable with some of the dedicated meat
eaters. Vultures for example, have unusually strong stomach acid to deal with
the infectious agents. Snowshoe hares and ruminants don't have that.

~~~
dtech
Clearly the evolutionary (survival and procreation) benefit of getting the
easy protein is greater than the risk of acquiring a disease.

Your point is probably valid for cannibalism, which is why it's rare, and even
rarer outside of young. The latter not yet having had an opportunity to
acquire disease.

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oedenfield
And mother rabbits will eat any babies of theirs that die during birth. Is
this news?

~~~
ironic_ali
It is to me.

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salimmadjd
OT - two weeks ago I was snowshoeing in the Assiniboine park (border of
Alberta and BC) for photography and saw their fresh tracks. At first I thought
it might be a wolf. Their front paws were as big a my hand - Photo:

[https://twitter.com/salimmadjd/status/1084260050615455744](https://twitter.com/salimmadjd/status/1084260050615455744)

~~~
nickpsecurity
Down here (more toward Texas), we have "jack rabbits" that are the size of
some kids if you hold them across your chest. Huge. Look them up in DuckDuckGo
images.

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eecc
It’s just protein, if the alternative is to die there’s no question

~~~
ohiovr
Mad rabbit disease!

~~~
Gibbon1
Rabbititis!

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aquarin
Reminds me of Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.

~~~
heyjudy
_I warned you_

[https://youtu.be/XcxKIJTb3Hg](https://youtu.be/XcxKIJTb3Hg)

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mcv
By pure coincidence I had a similar discussion with my friends yesterday. One
claimed that even the most carnivorous animals (sharks, he claimed) eat some
vegetables (up to 20%, though that sounds like a lot to me). Wolves apparently
like to eat the stomach of their prey first, which in the case of usually
herbivorous prey, is likely to contain a herbivorous diet. I read before that
deer like to eat the occasional bird.

If true, it seems like there are no true carnivores and herbivores: everybody
is omnivorous to some extent. It's just what you get the majority of your diet
from.

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shasheene
The broader point is that animals thought to be purely herbivores are in
actual fact 'opportunistic omnivores': they'll supplement their diets with
animal biomass (including bones) if given an opportunity. This is especially
common animals that are unable to get complete nutrition or caloric intake
from their existing diet.

Another interesting concept is 'placentophagy' (mammals being observed eating
their own placentas post pregnancy).

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joe_the_user
On the one hand, this doesn't mean that it would be beneficial for a herbivore
to eat meat all the time - clearly, they evolved a mostly herbivorous diet
that meat provides a protean supplement to.

On the other hand, it does show that a voluntarily purely vegetarian diet is
an artificial human creation. Yet, humans impose all sorts of artificial
strictures on themselves and live to tell the tale.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
> On the other hand, it does show that a voluntarily purely vegetarian diet is
> an artificial human creation.

That's an odd comparison. For the hare, if the choice is "starve in the middle
of winter" or "eat meat", it's not surprising they eat meat. I think to say
that a "voluntarily purely vegetarian diet is a purely human creation" is true
not because of the vegetarian part, but because of the "voluntary" part. Most
humans have the luxury of being able to choose a large part of their diets,
while many wild animals are usually in a constant state of semi-starvation.

~~~
skookumchuck
Food security for humans was first achieved by the US around 1800.

~~~
adventured
It's unfortunate you're being downvoted, because you are broadly correct. The
US was the first country to achieve a sustained, structural food surplus
nationally. By 1920 it was saving millions of Russians from starvation via its
immense food surplus. Millions of Europeans fled their homes over decades to
come to the US because of food scarcity and starvation back home. During most
of the 19th century starvation was still a common problem across nearly all of
continental Europe. All the way back to the late 18th century, the British
soldiers and Hessian mercenaries that were raping and pillaging their way
across the colonies couldn't believe the general prosperity that New
Englanders were enjoying (such that they had any cause to be rebelling; see
the book 1776 by McCullough). Until the last 40 years, the US had typically
been far wealthier and with a far greater national food surplus than most of
Europe. Even now, the US GDP per capita is typically 50-60% higher than the EU
GDP per capita. The Irish, Germans and Italians that fled Europe to the US did
so because of extraordinary poverty and famine. The standard of poor in the US
today is greater than 10x higher than the floor on poverty in Europe, which
you see in countries like Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria, etc.

"Irish, German, and Scandinavian immigrants arriving during the 1840s and
1850s made up the second wave of European immigration, fleeing famine,
religious persecution, and political conflicts."

[https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/european-
immigrants-...](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/european-immigrants-
united-states)

~~~
skookumchuck
You can also see this in height statistics - US heights increased steadily
from 1800-1900.

------
ComputerGuru
Jared Diamond (without explicitly naming sources) claims that cannibalism in
humans (with the specific example of Polynesian peoples) arose from the lack
of plant-based protein (they had no native cereals with non-negligible protein
components) such as wheat, barley, or quinoa; and that this element was shared
between most societies with cannibalistic histories.

~~~
tnzn
Cant provide sources because I lost my written notes but Diamond's claims are
often based off of cherry picking and iirc there are a lot of canibalistic
societies which don't back this claim up. This is a hammer and nail issue. He
wanted to push his environmental determinism everywhere and a bit tol far.

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klyrs
Reminds me of one of my favorite urban animal experiences. There was a
squirrel atop a nearby wall, and I had a little bit of trouble resolving its
outline. It was holding onto the rear half of another squirrel, so the body
outline was all confused. Processing further, I see that my little friend had
a very bloody face. After we make momentary eye contact, it nonchalantly goes
back to eating its lunch.

Squirrels are so cute! Who _doesn 't_ love eating cute animals? Even cute
animals agree!

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Svoka
Anthropomorphization is bad. Reminds me group selection studies, where
scientists expected animals to self regulate and reduce amount of breeding in
bad conditions, while in fact it just caused cannibalism.

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mtnGoat
Might as well get protein where they can.

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heyjudy
Mandatory killer rabbit:

[https://youtu.be/XcxKIJTb3Hg](https://youtu.be/XcxKIJTb3Hg)

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devereaux
If it's alive kill it!

If it's dead, cook it!

If it's cooked, eat it!

(unless you are a rabbit: several steps become optional)

~~~
devereaux
Downvote if you want, but I find that what my grandparents taught me is in a
funny way still appropriate here :)

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randyrand
Humans generally do the same when they’re starving.

~~~
adventured
Fortunately humans always have a choice and don't function by strict instinct:

[https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/08/the-scientists-who-
sta...](https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/08/the-scientists-who-starved-to-
death.html)

~~~
8bitsrule
Always ... except for those who are lost at sea, or are victims of wilderness
plane crashes, of course. And then there's vengeance, but I digress...

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swampthinker
Only the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch can stop them!

~~~
escherplex
Only if they can count to three.

~~~
wyldfire
Five is right out.

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_pRwn_
so Monty Python was right after all ...

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exabrial
Oh, it's just a harmless little bunny, I told you....

