Honestly this video was one of the few instances where I have zero problem with human interference. Even if most would say not to I back you up brother 🙏🏻 no place for sexual harassment in any species 🤜🏻 awesome video as always Donny!
That would’ve been a net loss for the species if the male seriously injured the female. If it was 2 different species then maybe interference wouldn’t be warranted, but here I don’t see why not. Maybe there’s something im missing tho.
Get this man a Discovery documentary this instant. That was absolutely incredible behavior footage, to document an interaction like that with diurnal desert lizards and to film it so well is unbelievably difficult, you killed it Donny. I think intervening here is a perfectly valid move, especially because she was already gravid. Really tight episode, you are leveling up immensely.
Thanks so much! Can’t wait until I have some real high quality filming equipment and discovery channel won’t be able to ignore me any longer. I’ll keep the lizards warm here for you guys!
I think the point you made about the male not needing food is important. Things that are critical to survival shouldnt be interfered with, and i believe you wouldnt have stopped him if you came across him eating a smaller lizard. But here the female couldve died for literally no reason (male wouldnt have been able to mate anyways) if you hadnt done something. There is always context and grey areas to “rules”. Good job man I love your content
Thanks so much! Glad other people support the decision I made. If the male were eating another lizard I wouldn’t have interfered even though I may have sympathized with the victim. But seeing a lizard die for no reason is something I can’t get behind. So glad you like the content!
I’ve definitely been wanting to do something with them, they really are much harder to find now but I still have a few spots where I’ll be able to film them. In Texas it’s actually illegal to handle them and I find a lot more there, hopefully we find a way to bring more of them back
Same here! I was a bit worried this was some AI made garbo but no! It's legit! I saw Tier Zoo post under one video too which reassured me this channel is on the up and up.
Who says that people shouldn't interfere with animals in the wild? Like, who made that a rule? Why shouldn't you interfere? Look, imagine the male lizard is trying to kill and eat the female. You're there, observing, perhaps documenting. For the sake of documenting, you could say that you're not going to interfere, and you let nature run its course. Why? Well, because you're trying to document the event how it occurs in the wild, even if the observer (i.e. you) weren't there to witness it. That's the reason then. You could even say that you just want to see what happens, for your own learning (without documenting it for others to see). Fair enough. You could, however, also argue that you're not interfering; not because you're documenting the event, but because you shouldn't interfere with nature, in general, as a rule. And because if you help the female; you're depriving the male of his meal, and he could potentially starve and die. But unlike the aforementioned reason; this, to me at least, sounds like absolute nonsense. That's because the argument here is that you're trying to prevent starvation, and so you let the predator do its thing, because if you interfere; it could die. If it's a matter of life and death, however, then what's more imminently fatal: missing a meal, or getting killed and eaten? A silly question, but that's the point. If you help the female, the male has to look for a meal elsewhere, but the female doesn't die. Dying was your reason for not interfering, right? But then you're ok with the prey dying. This never made much sense to me. And sure, you can't be there to help every single prey item the lizard attacks, but that's alright. The dilemma can only pertain to incidental situations, when you happen to be present. If it's immoral to interfere and prevent the predator from killing its prey, then you're saying it's moral conduct on your part to stand by and watch the prey get killed and consumed. Another problem with this, is this idea of "interfering with nature". You're part and parcel of nature. You're not some extraterrestrial visitor. If a hawk swoops down and kills the male lizard, then that's a natural event. One natural organism is interfering with another's attack on a third. If a sudden flood occurs, and both lizards are swept away, and they both drown in the gushing water, then a naturally occurring phenomenon interfered with another. There is no difference between a bird interfering with the lizard's attack or an atmospheric event interfering with its attack, and a human witness deciding to interfere with the event. In fact, there are cases in which NOT interfering might be considered immoral on your part, or at the very least wrong, or problematic. What if your neighbor's small dog escapes out of the yard, and it's suddenly attacked by a hawk or a coyote or whatever? You're there, witnessing it. What do you do? Not interfere, because you do not want the predator to potentially starve? Tell that to your neighbor and see how they react to your self-imposed impotence. In case of this specific event; a male lizard endangering the life of a PREGNANT female lizard: it's perfectly fine to interfere. Sure, you can film it, and show the reality of what happens in the wild, because it's educational, but then end her struggle and help the little girl. Nothing wrong with that. If you consider this a moral dilemma.. get real. It's not. It's an easy decision to make, and if you want to attach a moral judgement to it, then helping the female inclines more towards moral than immoral, especially since the male wasn't trying to consume her. Apologies for the paragraphs, but I just wanted to add to that (specific, and rather peculiar) discussion. Peace!
i get your point, but let me play the devil's advocate for a second. first, this rule doesn't apply to dogs, I would say. And yes, we are fruit and in a sense, part of nature, but we are also in a sense, superior to it, in fact we've been manipulating nature to our will for millennia, just look at the funky dogs we have, or at the beautiful, convenient and tasty fruit. That's humans performing genetic selection for you, or what some people would call "playing god". But returning to the matter at hand, I would also say that the rule is kind of a rule of thumb, which is to say, when in doubt (that is in most cases when dealing with wild animals) just don't interfere. But if you were certainly sure 100% and, if asked, you could prove that your intervention would cause more good than harm to the animals and to their habitat in general, I think no one could and would stop you from doing it. The problem is, it's very hard to be 100% sure. How can you be sure that that meal wasn't crucial for the male, or it could be that cannibalism is normal for this species and it's the way they avoid overpopulation, and how can you be sure that you're not having a human bias and you're not applying your own moral judgment? So when in doubt, let them be
@@aPlanetaryCitizen I get your point, but let me play my own advocate for a second. How to be sure the male isn't starving? If it doesn't look emaciated, it's very unlikely that this was the one meal that meant living or dying (for him). In fact, any predator on the verge of starving is hardly capable of hunting prey. This little bugger was holding on to the female like he was an MMA fighter. She tried, but couldn't get out of his embrace. Doesn't look like the fellow's about to die of starvation. But let me share a personal experience with you. This happened years ago. I had a dog. I also had a nest of blackbirds in my garden in the backyard. A male and female had 5 chicks. They come out of the nest and they run around in the garden. They can't fly yet, but they're quite active. It's fun to watch them. My dog doesn't harm them. So this then happens.. One morning, I count 4 young birds, as opposed to 5. I think nothing of it. Perhaps one left the garden somehow, or managed to fly over a fense. The next morning, however, there's only 3 birds, and the morning thereafter, only 2. When there's only 1 bird left the day after that, I really want to know what's going on, right? Where are they? What's happening to the little blackbirds? So that night, I leave my bedroom window open, and it works. In the middle of the night, I hear the last remaining bird squeaking. Immediately, I jump up out of bed, I run downstairs, switch on the lights, and I let my dog go outside, because he'll locate the bird much faster than I can. So I find the little bird on the ground, and a hedgehog is eating it alive. I had no idea that a hedgehog would pin down a little baby bird, yank its feathers out and just start eating it. There's no dilemma. No rule of not interfering. I immediately chase the hedgehog away. He can go f off. My dog chases it out of the backyard, apparently the same way it got in. The little bird is in shock. Plucked naked, bleeding, one of its wings clearly broken, and some of it gnawed off. It's not a pleasant sight. I take it in my hand, quickly find a sharp blade, and I kill the bird. I had to do it. I couldn't save it, but I also couldn't let it die slowly and in agony, and so I did it quickly. I'm not proud of it, but I think it was the right decision in that moment. Now, I could've let the hedgehog finish eating the bird, but that thought never even entered my mind. Was it starving? Hell no. The fellow looked fat to me. It had eaten the other chicks the nights before. It wouldn't starve to death by missing this meal. But it's the end of the blackbirds' little family. Blackbirds aren't really doing that well in urban areas, and these birds had been living in my garden. You grow attached to them. I didn't harm the hedgehog, but I couldn't let it eat up the last of the birds like that. What would you do? Stand there with the flashlight, just observing the bird squealing in pain and panick? Would you "let them be"? I'd consider you quite ruthless if you did. You never look at hedgehogs the same way after that, lol. Hedgehogs in abundance, by the way; you see them all the time where I live.
@@XaeeD I would do exactly the same as you did of course. But I think it's still kind of a special situation: you know the place and you know how well or not the animals are coping with that habitat. And it was happening in your backyard, which i'm sure we can agree on it being a less "natural" place than a forest or something... So I think it's ok to make the call and act accordingly. But let's say you're in africa and you can stop a lioness from killing a baby elephant. What would you do? Some animals only have a successful hunt once a month, and the lioness is likely to having some offspring somewhere that needs feeding. Of course, elephants are few and each one is precious, but would you feel comfortable making such a choice?
@@aPlanetaryCitizen "But let's say you're in africa and you can stop a lioness from killing a baby elephant. What would you do?" Sorry, didn't get any notifications for this. Erm.. no, I don't think I would stop the lion. I wasn't really saying that you 'should' be interfering. I was just questioning this idea that you must not interfere. That's not the same as saying that, everytime you 'can' interfere, you 'should'. It's optional, in the sense that you either do or you don't. I just reject the idea that you never should, as a rule, because I don't acknowledge that as an actual rule. Doesn't mean I'm going around trying to prevent predators from feeding, lol. Anyway, it's been a good conversation! Thanks for your input and feedback.
