What are your feelings on cute natural animals ?

Question

Hi Folks,

First off I love all critters natural to the UK, so apart from being bitten by bugs, having half a toe missing thanks to a shark nip to see if I was tasty in foreign climes > I hear things like "Oh, fox cubs, aren't they so nice"

My Neices and nephew didn't think so, when one came out of the woods, into their garden and eat the pet rabbits

Sad for them to find a bundle of fluff & bones

Also my mum is a bit peed off with non-domestic grey squirels digging up her flowering bulbs, having a bite, then leaving them scattered.,and destroying her fine lawn with holes to bury a nut

It seems that Brits do not recognise vermin if they look "cute"

What do you reckon ?

Bob, with not cute looking freshly caught fish from my boat tonight, "as they are are not cute" !

Bob

Answer 1

They may be cute now,

but how good will they taste on the plate?

Answer 2

I agree especially people who will insist on feeding pigeons they are a blight on my town centre - and if they were rats no one would want to feed them but you see people sitting down eating a sandwich and throwing half of it to the pigeons!  And they're not even cute.  Squirrels are OK imo but they did basically commit genocide on our own native red squirrel population!  And they can be a nuisance.

Answer 3

I dont think of any animal being vermin, cute or not. They're just trying to survive, they're not trying to upset little children or your mum

Answer 4

All animals, cute and furry, ugly and fur less need to eat my friend. I agree it was not nice for you family to lose their rabbit and especially for the rabbit, but the fox and all other animals only do what comes natural to them, in order to survive. (Unlike people who hunt, kill for fun). These animals don't know any better. Just like when you had your toe taken, you knew sharks were in the water, your choice to go into the water. It is, after all the sharks place/home not ours! Be thankful you came out with only a toe missing!!

Answer 5

Well, I live in Michigan in the USA, and think all our natural animals are kinda cute too, especially the rabbits, birds, possum, woodchucks, deer, and other occasional visitors to our yard. They eat out of my vegetable garden, so we plant twice as much so we can all enjoy....they all need food in the winter, so save some corn, buy seeds, and make peanut butter birdseed treats for them. They fill our yard with beauty, and we protect our domestic cats, dogs and rabbit with good strong housing, supervision, and we can all live together very well.

The upside of all these extra critters is that the birds love to eat any bugs that might have come in the garden, so we don't have to use pesticides. Fertilizer comes from our super cute bunny Boo Radley, and the dogs even help pull weeds, plant and keep the trees "fertilized". Sure, we have lost a few trees to deer eating them, but we just plant more. I can't seem to get any pink bulb flowers to grow because something enjoys eating them, so I plant different flowers instead. The bees keep everything pollinated, so why would we not want them? We did have an infestation of woodchucks, 13 one year, and they managed to destroy the foundation of a 120 year old barn, but we live trapped them and let them live in a large natural preserve. Live and let live is our motto.

I never understood people who feed birds, but shoo away anything else that shows up...or only want certain kinds of birds. Its like they are prejudiced against plain birds or squirrels. My inlaws have squirrels, and their yard is pretty. The squirrels are their entertainment half the time....they are like watching monkeys!  

There are certain kinds of bulb flowers  that you can plant that ward off other animals, I cannot think of the name of them, but most bulb catalogs have them. And they work by just making the ground taste kind of gross or smell bad or something, and the squirrels, moles and mice will go somewhere else.

We lived in the woods once, and had a lynx attack one of our dogs right in front of us. That was very scary, but after that we leash walked the dogs, and never had a problem. Just respect that they are here too, and were for a long time before we were, and live with them.

P.S., I even think cows and pigs and chickens are cute...and we are those silly humane society types who are always taking in foster animals, so its pretty hard to get me to not like something. Animals are generally nicer and more responsible than a good share of people.

Answer 6

I group animals int two categories. Those catogories are NOT cute or ugly. the two categories are:

1. things I can eat

2. things that will eat me.

so, in summation my feelings on cute natural animals is;

they are delicious with gravy and bread.

Answer 7

Good question Bob,

                                     like most people I love to watch young animals and birds  and think how cute it is only when they upset our cosy little life style that we think not so cute now !

The pleasure I have watching them outweighs all that though after all we do have the brains to outwit them and it is only occasionally that sad things like your niece's and nephew rabbits get caught I bet you made sure that never happens again.  I have had great pleasure watching a vixen bring her cubs to drink from my pond and play in the garden.

so cute as they are they all are wild creatures and and nature is wonderful awe inspiring but not necessarily cute

Answer 8

Living in harmony with nature is a lot easier than taming it,,vermin comes in all shapes and sizes,most of which is human,