Or is it a learned trait?
Ah. You have touched on a very important point. Is it learned? Were we taught that harming others and animals is wrong?
Yes.
Perhaps we all start out as perfect psychopaths, and are taught slowly, every day, to become something else.
Psychopaths? I don't know if it is that far. But as children we are taught to not hit others (as one example) or hit the dog (as another example)... eg.. Pat the dog gently.. don't pull on its tail.. etc.
That is all learned. Children, as toddlers especially, are violent little beasts and yes, we do teach them to be more gentle and not be as violent.
If you were raised in the woods by wolves, would you feel sympathy and compassion for the animals that you've learned to kill and eat?
Ah. But there is the distinction. Wolves, for example, kill to eat or to defend their territory. They normally do not kill for fun in the manner that this girl was killing those dogs, systematically and repeatedly. She did not just throw one puppy in that river. There were quite a few in there and she looked like she was having fun doing it and it seemed quite like an exhibition - doing it for the camera almost. But you bring up an interesting point. Wolves are wild animals that do kill. And yet, they feel compassion for some young children and allow them to live in their pack and offer them protection. And children are not exactly the same species as wolves or wild dogs for that matter.
Several years ago, there was shock in the media (following shock from marine biologists) because dolphins had been filmed "murdering" other marine life, as well as their own young. It left many baffled as dolphins were meant to be fun and peaceful animals. That they are in fact killing for fun (Some were seen and filmed tossing baby dolphins and baby porpoises up in the air between dolphins for up to 30 minutes) was a bit of a shock. Not what we expected to see from "
Flipper".
When tell-tale teeth-marks were identified, the dolphin - the mammal classified as one of the world's most intelligent, sensitive and sociable creatures - became the official suspect.
Confirmation of the murders came by way of two shocking films shot by holidaymakers.
The first was initially believed to show a dolphin fishing for salmon - until closer examination revealed a relentless attack on a porpoise, its body spinning round with such force that its back was broken and its soft tissue shattered.
Marine experts now believe that these displays of attacks on non-rival, non-predatory, peace-loving porpoises and, more shockingly, of dolphin infanticide, may have always taken place.
It is only now, with dolphins' more human-friendly behaviour taking them closer to tourist boats and beaches, that the violence is being witnessed first hand. Until the shocking realisation, dolphin-watchers in America had believed they were watching the mammals at play with their young.
Four years ago, members of Scots charity the Cetacean Research and Rescue Unit discovered a lifeless porpoise near the harbour at Whitehills, near Banff.
The team described the mammals' injuries as "perhaps the worst example of inter-specific aggression any of us had ever seen. This young female had literally had the life beaten out of her."
Inspection showed multiple lacerations and puncture wounds all over the body which could not have been caused by any other attacker than a bottle-nosed dolphin.
(Source)
But our belief that dolphins are peaceful animals has to come from somewhere. They are normally friendly and social creatures, except when the go on "murderous" rampages against other marine mammals and their own young for fun.
Quite interesting, isn't it? Wolves, the animal viewed as being violent by most, do sho compassion and help protect the young of other animal species (human children for example) while dolphins, the supposedly more peaceful and friendly animals, torture and kill other marine mammals and their own young for pure fun. Young teenage girls are not meant to be psycho's who take a bucket of live puppies to the river and throw each puppy into the river while being filmed by a friend as she does it. Yet there she was and there was the friend filming the whole thing and then posting it on the net. Are all teenage girls like that? No. As with the dolphins, such behaviour has only been observed in two areas of the world. And her behaviour is not something that we have seen in teenage girls around the world, at least to our knowledge.
No idea.
Maybe she, like the young dolphins who kill for fun and pleasure, are showing off (with it being filmed and posted online for fame).
Or maybe she's just a psychopath.
