This is a weird question, but I got to be me . . .

Do you remember the Disney nature movies, where they show a scene of a rabbit in the snow hopping around looking for food or playing around, only to encounter a predator like a fox?

The narrator, many times Rex Allen, described what the rabbit was doing.

". . . the snowshoe rabbit has extra furry paws for getting around easier on the snow . . . Hey, Look Out, Mr. Rabbit, here comes Mr. Fox and he sure looks hungry!" (Music gets louder and frantic).

The film showed a chase in progress, many times in slow motion, of the rabbit evading the fox, dodging from side to side. The chase ended two ways:

1) the rabbit running away in triumph, while a thoroughly pissed off, tired fox panted away, looking at a meal escaping, promising more work for the fox ("Better luck next time, Mr. Fox," tells the narrator).

OR

2) (Music fades to dramatic fade) the fox captured and pinned the rabbit down, the rabbit's rear legs flailing, after which the fox was seen loping away with a limp body between its jaws. ("Mother Nature at work", relates narrator)

Who were you rooting for? The fox or the rabbit? I see two scenarios happening minutes later . . .

Scenario 1:

Rabbit: (arriving at it's burrow, speaking to it's family inside) . . . whoa what a day! Bleeping fox nearly had me that time. If it wasn't for that slick patch of ice, he would have had me.

Fox: (arriving at it's den, speaking to it's family inside) . . . hi kids . . . sorry, no food this time, looks like another hungry night. But Dad, I'm so HUNGRY. . . if I don't get a meal soon . . .

OR

Scenario 2:

Rabbit: (rabbits burrow, little bunnies hopping around confused . . . "Momma? "Momma?" Where is momma?)

Fox: (inside den) oh yeah. . . who's the man, who's the man. We are going to eat today.

Who do you root for?

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001

Answers

I always root for the underdog - in this case - the rabbit. Can't stand the thought of being chased to get ate. What a horrible way to die. Oh - my stomach twirls just thinking of the fear. And besides, don't fox eat more than meat?

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001

Yep, those nature movies always get me too, no matter who I want to succeed, someone is going to go hungry or get eaten!!! Real Catch- 22!!!

I wonder what the Dali Lama's answer would be, this is a Buddhist's dilemma for sure, what is the correct answer? I suspect there is none!

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001

I am well aware that carnivores have to eat another animal, usually by catching and killing it. I look at it as the natural order, things in balance, and I can accept it as just how things are. However, I have a tender heart. So, if they're showing it on TV, I don't want to SEE an animal killed. If it appears to be one of the realistic programs, where the lion is actually going to be killing that gazelle, I just flip the channel. Head it the sand? Yes, I guess, but it's how I cope with it.

During an infestation of mice in my house, I became quite inured to the sight of a dead mouse presented to me by my (now deceased) most excellent mouser cat. I think we can get used to a lot. I just choose not to get used to watching animals killing each other.

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001

Hey...if the fox misses the rabbit, the fox's babies go hungry and possibly die. If the fox catches the rabbit, the rabbit's babies definitely die...BUT how many more rabbits are born in comparison to foxes?? The problem with Disney movies is that too many human emotions are attached to them. Mother Nature is really very fair!!!

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001

Okay, I purposely did NOT read the above answers (in order to not be influenced by them). I ALWAYS root for the rabbit. I sometimes rescue the prey caught by my own beloved predators....often a little mouse or something else I've sworn to eradicate from my farm. I'm just a hypocrite with a sentimental heart...sorry foxes...stop by for some leftovers....

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2001

I remember thos movies! I always rooted for the prey. But in the nature shows its not so personalised so you just observe, I find, and see how nature works. Its just the way things are.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2001

Fox. Lots more bunnies than foxes; faster reproduction rate, yadda yadda. Not to mention that if the fox is eating the rabbits, they aren't eating my garden; and he isn't eating my chickens. And I never liked that mouthy little Thumper in Bambi anyhow! Bambi - the greatest anti-hunting movie of all time! The only Disney movie my former FIL wouldn't allow in the house. How did I get from that to this? Must be lack of O2 to my brain - still laughing at Julie's Christmas Cookie story!

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2001

Since I think we're talkin feelings here, not logic so much, I know I always rooted for the bunny. Biggest reason is I cannot stand violence in any form, very squeamish, and I do not wanna actually personally watch it in nature either. When we used to process our own chickens, I could do everything except that killin part. Just couldnt do it. Tried really hard, but always chickened out. Sorry. In fact I've gotten worse over the years; last time I went fishing I wasnt able to cut the heads off the fish. Sad, I know. I'm sure if I had no one to help me, or was starving and had no choice I would have enough incentive. I wouldnt, like, become a veggie or something, cuz I dont believe in that on principle. I'd just need to buck up and KILL!!

I did hit a gopher over the head with a shovel a couple times though.....come to think of it.....I almost enjoyed it! I hated those dang gophers SO much; they ate every single thing I ever planted on this 20 Acre place we had before we bought the farm. Sandy soil, they were in gopher heaven. I couldnt grow nothin there,and what I could they destroyed. Hated em!

This place here has almost no open land, but what little bit of lawn there is has been ovetaken with moles! Havent really done anything about it yet.... All squishy to walk on...

Anyway, yesterday my daughter tells me she fished a critter out of the pool.....what kind of critter,dear? Well, three guesses what it was! I cant believe my ears! You saved a mole's life??!! Coudnt help it, Mom, it was so cute! Turns out it was just a baby one..........dont tell her, but I probably would've done the same silly thing.

Peace,

Reminds me a bit of something that happened yesterday......The little bit of open land we have here is overcome with moles

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2001

That's funny about the mole EM, my husband STILL 15 years later says it is all my fault we have so many moles. He claims they are all ancestors of the cute one I didn't let him kill when I found it's nest under a bucket. Funny, never really thought about this question before. I guess I am weird, just kind of enjoy nature just the way it is and love it all. I will admit I make a big deal out of praising my cat for all the little moles and voles that she leaves for me at the milkroom door.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2001

EM, you need more cats!!! Our barn cats have great fun catching and killing the moles around here, even the dogs join in the "Great Mole Hunts" here this mild fall this year. They, the dogs, go out in the hayfields and start digging, great clouds of loose grass and dirt sailing up in the air! They usually are successful, and they eat them, unlike the cats, who leave them dead on my doorstep "for me to eat" as a present!

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2001

Re: Moles

Take a stick of Juicy Fruit gum and roll it up into a cylinder starting at the short end (wear gloves). Drop a piece of gum at each mole hill and push it down into the tunnel with a stick. Moles eat the gum and it gums up their innard and they die.

If you don't want to kill them, just want them to relocate; I've had folks tell me to bury glass bottles half way in the ground in the runs; the wind blowing across the tops of the bottles is supposed to make a noise they don't like. I've also heard of using childrens pinwheels stuck in the ground to set up vibrations that they don't like. Supposedly, they won't cross a barrier row of daffodils either. (That's I-ther, BTW!)

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2001

I always wait until the contest is over and which ever one won, is the one that I was for. I just hate to be wrong. Of course, I have seen the fox get the rabbit and I say "way to go" and then the prey gets away, but I knew all along that the rabbit was just teasing the fox and I was talking to the rabbit.

I'd really like to see the rabbit whip a little fox butt sometime. You know, a few judo lessons?

I sure hope this isn't a personality test!

Wildman, (rooting for the moles)

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001