Did This Science Teacher Go Too Far With This Demonstration?

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^ agreed

I hope you'll never become a teacher who specializes on the subject of war. Also, I wonder if anyone here who encourages these kind of activities will be reincarnated as rabbits in the next lifetime. I'm just kidding you guys.

I have a bunny, and that's really scary...even if it is natural.

What, you're afraid I'll stage a mock battle of Gettysburg using armys of bunnies, complete with little blue and grey uniforms and silly slouch-caps between their ears, and Cappybarras hauling casons with rabbit-proportional artillery, and swords and functioning firearms?

That would be AWESOME!! !

Two great tastes that taste great together.

I agree. I assume attendance at that demonstration was not compulsory.

I must admit I found that a grimly fascinating clip. I was transfixed!
Now if I were to see a clip that showed me where my Sunday roast came from, I'd probably find it even worse. Maybe that says something about the comforts of modern, city life.

Still, we all know nature can be cruel! I don't know if it's too healthy to want to give it a helping hand, and then stand around and gawp at it. I mean - what next? Bear baiting?

Btw, the most exciting thing I ever did in biology glass was cultivate snot in a petri dish.

This thread reminds me of a joke

----------------------

A little girl goes into a pet shop.

"I'd like a rabbit please", she says.

"Certainly. Would you like a a black one or a white one or a brown one?" Asks the man in the pet shop.

So the little girl says, "I don't think my pet python gives a s*** what colour it is."

Bear baiting (in which trained fighting dogs attack a restrained bear) has nothing to do with anything that happens in nature. Snakes, like all living things, must eat to stay alive. All snakes are completely carnivorous.

However, most snakes (captive and wild) prefer to eat in privacy. The noisy crowd was probably stressful for the snake. A stressful eating experience can cause a snake to regurgitate its prey later on, which would be a waste.

The snake was not given a helping hand. The teacher moved it in order to give the crowd a better view, not to make its job easier. The way in which the teacher handled the rabbit was for the snake's safety. Rodents can and do injure reptiles, even large ones, prior to being seized and subdued.

Fair enough. I don’t think I expressed myself too well. I was kind of just thinking out loud.
I guess I meant to comment less in terms of what is natural than in terms of what is necessary.
If you work in an abbatoir, you will necessarily see things that many other people will find disturbing.
If your pet snake needs to eat, it is not particularly necessary to have a class of schoolkids stand around and watch. The audience are thus there for their own entertainment.

And, ok, I admit I was not in the least bit disturbed by the video. Much as I like bunny rabbits, there’s something a bit comical about seeing a big, ugly python swallow one whole.

Now, though – here is a deep, philosophical question. Take the following situation – not entirely analogous, but similar.

You have a pet cat. Every day it brings a dead bird into the house.
Now you could lock your cat in the house to spare the birds in the garden. But that would be cruel on the cat. Best to just leave it be. By doing so, you know it is going to continue killing birds.
Now, what if instead of letting it outside, you bring a live bird inside, hold it down, let the cat attack it, and then film the whole thing for your whole entertainment.
(And no, I’ve never done this.)
Is that healthy behaviour for a human being?

I don’t mean to be po-faced here. Just throwing a few questions out there ...

Of course, there are several factors that affect our reactions to such thing - e.g., how large are the animals (x-axis), how cute and fluffy are they (y-axis) and how closely related to humans are they (z-axis)?

"Ok class, let's see what happens when we throw this other rabbit through the woodchipper."

"You have a pet cat. Every day it brings a dead bird into the house.
Now you could lock your cat in the house to spare the birds in the garden. But that would be cruel on the cat. Best to just leave it be. By doing so, you know it is going to continue killing birds.
Now, what if instead of letting it outside, you bring a live bird inside, hold it down, let the cat attack it, and then film the whole thing for your whole entertainment.
(And no, I’ve never done this.)
Is that healthy behaviour for a human being? "

This brings up the whole question of the morality of the way that humans detain/imprison animals for our own purposes. It is arrogant to suppose our wants are greater than their rights.

Dog fights? Cock fights? As EvilKimEvil pointed out, bear baiting? Those are cruel. A snake eating a rabbit isn't, it's natural. It's the way things work.

Snakes prefer live animals. Pet snakes will get fed with live animals, or they die. Wild snakes will continue to eat rabbits as shown in the video, or they die.

What I find a bit odd is the fact that a science teacher fed the sanke during class, and filmed it. It does look like a self-promoting act.

When I was in high school, our bio lab teacher would kill guinea pigs, rats, pidgeons in class and tell us to dissect them. That was unnecessary (and cruel) for a whole lot of reasons, IMO.

Actually, most pet snakes are fed dead animals (killed in a controlled manner, frozen, then thawed). This is safer for the snake. It is healthy, and it has no effect on longevity.

More info here:

http://www.anapsid.org/prekill.html

You learn something new every day Thanks for the info.

Not really the same. Most cats eat cat food without problem. Birds are not needed for their survival. Also, most cats adjust nicely to indoor living--- they don't NEED to go out to be happy or to survive. Specially designed toys can serve the purpose of stimulating a cat's predatory skills.
I believe, if cats NEEDED live prey to survive as pets--- there'd be alot LESS cats kept as pets.