Are some animals evil?

[Hermit]

An estimated 275 million prey are killed by domestic cats of which 55 million are birds in Britain alone.

Yes, that's a lot of birds - when seen in isolation. The number is dwarfed by the number of birds either killed or prevented from breeding by deforestation alone.

[Brian Peacock]

'Evil' implies wilful intent to do harm. I don't think any animals apart from some of the higher primates, of which we are a notable species, can be considered evil by this measure.

Sure, animals do harm to each other by predation, or by out-competing others for resources, etc, but no giraffe wilfully intends to eat more shoots than they need so that other giraffes will starve, nor go on a rampage on a Friday night looking to kick the head off a lion for shits and giggles.

That a cat toys with a mouse is all part of the cat's evolved heritage as a predator - its honing and maintaining certain skills, in exactly the same way, say, orcas sometimes toy with seals.


Just because a domesticated cat doesn't have to hunt for food, having successfully trained humans to do their bidding over countless millennia, doesn't stop it being a predator.

The Jahovah Witness's have this strange notion that in the Garden of Eden all the animals of the Earth were vegetarian. Only after Eve nagged Adam to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge was evil brought into the world and the animals turned on each other for munchies. Doesn't stop the JW's enjoying a bacon sandwich though.