Comment Give fish to them (Score 4, Insightful) 69
The point at which some environmentalism reveals itself as misanthropy is where "don't feed the animals" is commanded because it's "unnatural." This stance overlooks that humans are a part of nature, not separate from it. Barring legitimate safety concerns, like habituating bears to human sites, there is nothing inherently wrong with developing relationships, even co-dependencies and forms of partial domestication, with wild animals. Such interactions can represent a form of interspecies mutualism, a concept well-documented in biology, where different species form beneficial partnerships. History, too, offers examples of co-evolution, such as the relationship between humans and the ancestors of domestic dogs.
The argument that animals "don't understand what humans are like" is paternalistic. They understand what they like and, as the orca study suggests, are capable of initiating interaction based on their own complex social logics. To deny them this agency is to deny their intelligence and autonomy. They can choose to interact or not, to the limits of their abilities; let them make that choice. This aligns with philosophical arguments for animal autonomy, which posit that sentient beings with preferences should have those preferences respected.
The appeal to "naturalness" is a flawed premise in the Anthropocene, an epoch defined by human alteration of all ecosystems. There is no longer a "pure" nature to which we can defer. The insistence on a hands-off policy often stems from a puritanical, almost religious, reverence for a "Sacred" nature that must remain untouched by humanity. This view secretly frames humans as a blight, a contamination from which the world must be cordoned off. It is a philosophy of alienation, not of responsible cohabitation.
The fear that a friendly whale, offering fish as a gesture of friendship, might suddenly attack boats is not just unfounded; it actively dismisses the animal's observed intent. It is a projection of human fears onto a situation that the animals themselves are defining as peaceful. This is not to ignore all risks, but to challenge a risk-averse dogma that precludes the possibility of positive, unprecedented relationships. The real debate should be about fostering a more nuanced ethic of interaction, one that respects animal agency and acknowledges our shared and entangled future on this planet, rather than one that capitulates to a deep-seated misanthropy that ultimately desires a world with fewer people in it.