Trish Tipton  wrote:
>
> One thing I actually saw in person, was a mother bear tear apart her own
> cub and eat it.  We were on a camping/scoping trip.  Our guide and us
> were watching a mother bear and her cub in the stream fishing..... then
> out of the blue, the mother attacked her cub, tore it into shreds and ate
> it.  It was very disturbing yet, fascinating.  The guide stated the
> mother bears will do this if the cub is ill.

I've read that the largest contributors to bear cub mortality are
male bears who kill any cub they can.  This is no doubt the reason
that mother bears have the reputation they do.

I've also read an account of a mother brown bear that died while
foraging with her two cubs.  The cubs lost no time in eating her.

However, I don't think any of these cases should be taken as
a guide to human behavior, although we certainly have ample
evidence of cannibalism in ancient and modern history.  Bears
are solitary predators and are not good comparisons.

I think that most people probably would not completely condemn
those who are forced to eat the already dead in order to survive
an emergency situation (ex plane crash in the Andes).  However,
these cases are far rarer than most examples of human cannibalism:
the intentional killing of a person for the purposes of eating them.

This thread was started (in a trolling manner, I suspect) asking if
the later, I assume, would be "ok" if legal.  Well, I direct the
curious
to the movie "Motel Hell" in which our main character Farmer
Vincent ("It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's
fritters!") muses on the karmic potential of such acts.  He comes
to the conclusion he's doing the world a favor (Hey, the world's
overpopulated and there's a hunger problem, right?)

However, on a more pragmatic note, it should be remembered
that all pack hunting predators have extensive social behavoral
systems that act to defuse hostilities without resorting to physical
violence.  Just having the weapons to be a predator means that you
can do serious damage to opponents of your own kind and they
can do the same to you.  If you need to live in groups, you have
to get along, and that generally means not trying to chow down
on a neighbor.

Julie
(Now, where *did* I put that bottle of chianti?)