feeding insects to injured wildlife-karmic debt?
smudge
australia New
HI, I have a huge dilemma which is causing my hubby and I considerable pain and consternation. Our home and yard have always been 'kill free' zones., our pets are always locked up at night to protect both them and the nocturnal wildlife, we never use insect sprays. We'll save a fly trapped in a web and carefully remove the web with tweezers. We humanely trap rats which get into our ceiling (we are rural) and place them away in a safe area. A problem has arisen where we have two injured animals-a baby water dragon which we saved literally from the jaws of death, (one of our cats) and the second a lovely little green tree frog. The lizard is a hatchling and is now doing well as his wounds have healed. The frog was accidentally harmed when he got himself underneath our car. His back leg is quite badly damaged and we feel some responsibility. Now the dilemma comes from the need to feed these animals LIVE insects. We have to some degree reconciled karmically with feeding the lizard, because the insects are simply placed in its aquarium, and it is left up to the little guy to catch its own food. But unfortunately, the frog was not eating, and if left, would have died. And so we have had to make a decision as to whether we had the right to intervene and save the frog- by force feeding it to save its life. It has been so hard, not to save the frog, but it meant that we had to either feed it the live insect, OR kill the insect immediately prior to giving it to the frog. I just could not feed a live insect to the frog so I left it to my hubby to kill some meal worms, and a cockroach yesterday, and I cried all day. I did manage to feed them to the frog, but have felt shattered over it. Now today we have to do it all over again. I am deeply troubled by having to choose between the lives of all these wonderful creatures we normally respect and cherish. Any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated. As a matter of note, a)frogs are carnivorous, they do not eat fruit/veg. Their prey must be alive. b)because the frogs do not always chew their food, we had read it is best to kill the insect prior to feeding as the stomach acid may be horrific for the insect swallowed alive. Help!
Comments
Hi @smudge.
Sorry if I sound flippant but I reckon you're over thinking this.
You're obviously a sensitive soul but that is causing you far too much pain in what should be a simple case of making a decision and moving on......life is far too short to stress over the life of a frog or insect.
Whatever you do, say a quick little metta chant / recitation and move on. Seriously!
Good luck.
Hi @smudge,
Have you built or provided a wheel chair for the frog? You could wheel him around a suitable catchment area, then he would be responsible for his meals. Or perhaps carry him to an insect rich environment. Perhaps he could be placed near webs where you have previously intervened and possibly caused karmic 'spider good will and ahimsa'? Perhaps a Jain forum could help?
Be very interested in your solution. Good luck.
You cannot control how nature designed these animals to eat. If you are going to take on their care, then you need to duplicate their natural environment as much as possible. Another possible option is to find an animal rehabber who will get them well and then release them. They are able to do so without the animals becoming reliant on humans, whereas if you do so you might well end up with "pets" that cannot be released and you will forever be responsible for them. If you intend to keep them make sure you know what to expect when they are full grown as many species of water dragons can get quite large and they need very tall, vertical enclosures to be happy.
Anyhow, whether they are in your care or in the wild, they will eat the same things. All we can do is our best, which you are already doing. Remember what makes sense in the natural world is not often the same thing that makes sense to our human emotions, and attempting to apply our emotions to a wild animal situation may not be the best thing for them. It's hard to know where that line is. So, we do our best.
@smudge I admire the sentiment and your dedication to non-violence... hugs and metta to you
I had an experience once when working for a short period of time as a veterinary clinic receptionist (I was filling in for a friend, while she went on holiday) I met a lady who brought in a very sick looking cat. She was thin, listless, had dull eyes and was both lethargic and weak. It took the vet around 15 minutes to finally establish that the diet the owner was giving her - fully vegan - was killing the cat.
The owner found it enormously difficult to reconcile her own morals, with the needs of her pet, and reluctantly, she agreed to give the cat up to the vet, rather than do it more harm by adhering to her own principles, which she refused to compromise.
Within a day, and on a correct and balanced diet, the cat had altered her composure and behaviour completely. She needed about a solid month's care, but even after one day, the difference was completely obvious.
Animals are animals. They have specific needs, and as @karasti points out, you cannot change their natural behaviour to comply or sit well with your own morals.
To do so, would actually be more cruel - and incidentally, I personally believe it to have been very wrong to rescue flies from webs.
You save the fly - which by all and any standards is a harmful, disease-carrying pest - and deprive the spider - known commonly as 'the Gardener's friend' - of a meal, thereby condemning it to starve.
So what benefit are you actually creating?
Do you see what I mean?
Nature primarily plays the winner/loser game, according to the 'survival of the fittest' principle. Those who can, will survive. Those that can't will die, and provide food for other organisms, whatever they may be.
It seems cruel to us, but our eyes and minds are clouded by morals, principles and sensitivity, some of which is misplaced.
Oh and by the way? They all die anyway, in the end.
This may seem blunt and cruel, but honestly, it is one thing to regard life as sacred and precious - which unarguably, it is.
It is quite another to bend the situation to our liking, simply because there is a desire to save things, and avoid the inevitable, which we find distasteful and unable to face.
We used to have a pond, which every year gave us an abundance of frogspawn, some of which got eaten by the fish. The tadpoles which hatched had a further survival ordeal to face, but we always ended up with a goodly quantity of tiny sweet little frogs - a number of which sadly, would perish because basking in the sun for a little too long, their feet would dry and stick to the stones, and they became unable to move.
I would come home each evening and find two or three tiny, desiccated little bodies stuck to the stones.
Sad? yes.
But others survived to fight another day, grow - and eat the snalis, slugs and other pests in the garden.
That's what's known as Life.
And hard as it may be to hear it - I think you need to toughen up a little, because everything goes through life and encounters suffering at some point - and tragic though it may be, you can neither save them all, or change it.
I cannot add a lot to what has been said, but just would like to consider the question of why we are advised by the precepts to avoid killing in the first place.
It has seemed to me that a significant part of the reason is that thoughtless taking of life, whether careless or deliberate, enhances and solidifies our sense of possessing a solid, separate self, distinct and apart from other beings.
Life feeds upon life, and our biological existence demands that we, also, feed upon life or die ourselves - but to do so needlessly, without thought, compassion, without sadness and without mindfulness is wrong action.
On the other hand, to follow the precept rigidly and absolutely is not only impossible, but seems also to overlook the purpose and intent of that precept and doesn't seem to me to be mindful practice.
I think Thich Nhat Hanh's book - Thundering Silence, the Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake - might be relevant here - " ... how to see reality clearly without becoming stuck in notions and ideologies, however noble they may be."
It would seem that you are already experiencing a karmic debt of sorts....
Avoid becoming an extremist ...
@smudge what would you say is 'your' middle way ?