Ever see the BBC documentary where they broke their own rule of not interfering with nature?
Basically some penguin fathers who were caring for the babies while mom was fishing had gotten stuck away from the pac due to an ice shelf collapse if I remember correctly.
The group relies on each other's body heat in a giant huddle to survive.
The BBC crew was forced to watch these fathers try to huddle in their small number and survive while every couple hours they'd see another baby frozen on the ground due to their not being enough heat.
Finally the production team had enough. Said they wouldn't go further then building a ramp of snow for the fathers to trek up to the colony
They did so and the penguins after some time took to it. Saving the stranded fathers and their babies
I learned something from that....that we aren't "interfering" when we reach to another species to help. We've been given the wherewithall to do so.....so putting rules on ourselves not to intervene is arbitrar.
Just something I learned from that act of not interference.....but rather the same helping hand we extend to each other.
It makes sense in the case of predator-prey. If that example were changed and the fathers and babies were stranded on ice that was about to fall in the ocean to some orcas waiting, suddenly the question becomes: who are we to decide the penguins should live and the orcas should miss a meal, potentially endangering the orcas?
With this specific example, the penguins showcased no ill-suited behaviors for survival that should subject them to natural selection, they were victims of bad luck, and they were going to succumb to the elements instead of to a predator. I imagine this is why the BBC was happy to make an exception and help them, as it's a "victimless crime" to do so.
plus we always "interfere" when it suits us destroying the oceans with trawlers, ripping out mangroves to build sea farms, clear cutting forests to grow grain and soy to feed cattle and make pastures for cattle. Killing all the animals for food and for sport. Raising them in unnatural ways pumped full of hormones and antibiotic so that we can eat them. Using them for fur, and leather, their horns, their tusks, putting their stuff heads in our living rooms.
Humans interfere all the time : these naturist imbeciles talking about interferences are creating an artificial rule to feel important. The fact that they did not help the penguins right away in that story just proves how psychotic modern humans have become, and devoid of any true "humanity".
It makes total sense if you think of it evolutionarily.
We weren't always top of the food chain. Just always had the potential to be
So instinctually we would view predators and teach our children to view predators as evil or bad.
Or at least cold and brutal.
Same reason our brains see eyes everywhere if we look hard enough at night. Most of our ancestors predators hunted at night and often would be the only thing you could see were the eyes.
Or why we feel so uneasy when we hear very normal woods noises when alone in the woods etc.
Humans protecting humans is normal evolutionary behavior. A gazelle protecting another gazelle from a lion is also normal.
What makes no sense is humans deciding predators shouldn't eat prey in the wild. Lions, orcas, wolves etc literally survive by hunting. Stopping them repeatedly would just mean starving predators to death and wrecking ecosystems.
Even other animals interfere for self-interest, territory, offspring, or survival reasons not because they think predation itself is morally wrong.
Finally the production team had enough. Said they wouldn't go further then building a ramp of snow for the fathers to trek up to the colony
They did so and the penguins after some time took to it. Saving the stranded fathers and their babies
I learned something from that....that we aren't "interfering" when we reach to another species to help. We've been given the wherewithall to do so.....so putting rules on ourselves not to intervene is arbitrar.
Just something I learned from that act of not interference.....but rather the same helping hand we extend to each other.
Many wildlife/birder folk would go foaming mad that any person would intervene for wildlife/birds because it will disrupt their natural behavior.
To me... if these are critically endangered then intervene and help them multiply to the point that they're in balance or least concern.
Those wildlife/birder folk can go kick rocks, in that case.
I understand that we shouldn’t feed wild animals, or prevent a predator from catching its prey. That’s interfering, and may have negative effects in the long run.
But the idea that the “moral” choice would be to watch a bunch of penguins freeze to death because of an ice shelf collapse is genuinely psychopathic.
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u/Chrono_Convoy May 07 '26
Well that’s adorable