Cat and baby deer play together (video) - interspecies relationships

The first thing I think about when I see video above - this sweet vignette of an example of an interspecies relationship - is the sport hunting of deer. Why do people find this relationship as shown in the video so charming (and it is) while at the same time allowing deer to be hunted in such large numbers in America? 

Note: videos on this site are typically made by people other than me and held on YouTube servers or the servers of other businesses (not the server storing this website). Sometimes the videos are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened I apologise but I have no control over it.

In the video we see the deer as a sentient being enjoying a friendship with a black domestic cat on a sunny day on a lawn. And yet millions of people revert to Neanderthal-like instinctive behaviour when they enjoy gunning down deer. What kind of pleasure is that? How can humankind be so schizophrenic in their attitude towards animals and animal welfare?

Cat and baby deer play together (video) - interspecies relationships.

There are some fantastic interspecies relationships and it might surprise people as to the sorts of animals who form friendships. Sometimes you think they might be impractical such as the friendship between a dog and a crow but they are there on the Internet for all to see. Different species forming friendships. 

The largest and most successful interspecies friendship, or perhaps relationship because they aren't always friends, is the human-to-cat relationship and the human-to-dog (master-servant relationship). We sometimes forget that this is an interspecies relationship and a remarkable one. 

The trouble is, as so often happens with humankind's behaviour, it has gone wrong. That's not to say that there are not very many great things about the human-to-cat relationship but there are far too many bad things too.

Think about all the feral cats in the world. There are more feral cats in the world than there are domestic cats and every single one of them should not exist. They would not exist if people were doing a better job of cat caretaking. Feral cats are a symbol of failure for humankind in the human-to-cat relationship. 

The same goes for dogs, by the way. And think of all the domestic cats in shelters who have been abandoned. They too are a symbol of failure and not a failure of the cat but of the human. People are in charge of this relationship. It is the responsibility of people to ensure that it works but the failure rate is far, far too high.

And, in eating cat and dog meat, humankind has ruinously broken the unwritten contract between companion animal and human. That was not part of the deal when the first cats and dogs were domesticated. The deal was that the domesticated wildcat would become a companion and initially a working animal for the humans in their lives. That was the extent of it. To eat cat meat is a total perversion and distortion of the relationship. Shame on humankind for doing it. Shame on humankind for declawing cats. That, too, was never in the unwritten contract.

It totally bemuses me how veterinarians in America can justify the declawing of cats and even promote it by providing discount services sometimes. American veterinarians have totally and catastrophically lost their moral bearings. They have totally ignored their solemn oath. It is a worthless oath, utterly worthless, shame on American veterinarians for declawing cats in the millions. In causing such pain, relentlessly on this never-ending treadmill of agony for domestic cats and kittens, all for the convenience of cat owners who are risk-averse to being scratched from time to time. Shame on them too.

These are the bad elements of the human-to-cat relationship, a beautiful interspecies relationship which should be far better managed by humankind.