To think you don’t catch a butterfly and take it round M&S

Hmmm, I saw someone with a pack of emotional support poodles in Lidl once 🤣

Yes, you are unreasonable to upset a child and their parent over your personal beliefs what is wrong. You can only intervene if people are doing something illegal/explicitly prohibited like capturing endangered species. It is not illegal in the UK to capture or keep animals, indeed I assume you don't confront every single fisherman, dog owner, pest control worker you meet.

I agree. It is equally shocking you can buy an ex-live chicken for less in a supermarket. If it makes you feel better I once had Peruvian neighbours who got banned from Pets at Home - it turns out you can only buy so many Guinea Pigs in a year before they start asking questions.

I agree with you. Fine to have a quick look, but needs to be released asap.

I remember growing up & the (bold) boys would go to our shops & ask for empty containers, like the ones you'd get Apple drops or those kind of sweets in from behind the counter & they'd then go & catch mostly Bumble Bees.. to what end??

That said my sister & later I used to "rescue" snails from our rhubarb patch & put them "safely" into a cardboard box so..

She also used to capture Tadpoles

I never really understand why some people get so upset about some animals but not others. A butterfly in a net outrange. Millions of enslaved dogs no issue at all. It almost like the opposite of rabbits where if they are wild it is fine to shoot and eat them but shoot a rabbit from Pets at Home and you are a heartless killer.

Appalling behaviour from the parent to allow this, cruel.

I would probably have thought the same thing op, although I don’t think I would have said anything. It does seem daft to take the poor thing into M&S. Hardly in its best interests. We did have one of those
butterfly hatching things once, but let it go as as soon as it was ready. I would never let my kids catch one in the wild and stick it in a net to carry around.

You wouldn’t get this nonsense in Lidl

This makes no sense. So only vegans can have views on cruelty to animals, yet you wouldn't have said anything?

Vegans don't have a monopoly on wanting to help and protect animals.

They live for a least a few weeks, and some can live for up to a year. Some species hibernate and migrate etc.

They're dickheads for taking it home to 'observe' it though. They won't be able to observe it doing much at all if it's stuck in a jar in their house, and the whole time it's in their house it won't be fulfilling its role as a pollinator in the ecosystem.

I think it’s a good things that the child has been told. Clearly the mother is too thick to parent.

YANBU. This parent has shit for brains.

I wouldn’t let my children capture one and carry it about but I wouldn’t say anything to a random child either.
It’s not the child’s fault, we’re a society that encourages keeping animals for entertainment.

Feel free to do all those things but if the little girl had come up to you and said " do you know free range means nothing to the actual birds" you'd be be on here complaining about angry vegan children ruining your scrambled eggs. Do you see why it's relevant? I bet you'd be the first to whine about someone ruining your shopping experience by handing out leaflets about the dairy industry or how chickens are kept

I’m glad you said something OP - hopefully it will make them think twice before doing that again. Horrible to capture the creature and remove it from its natural habitat for your own amusement.

Yes, I think you were being a busybody, you must be very bored indeed. It's got nothing to do with you, you should have minded your own business. I'm sure there are a lot of things that most people and you would perceive as "unethical " which I'm sure you'll turn a blind eye to. If it was a 16-17 year old youth who was doing that with a bunch of his mates I wonder if you would have said something. For the sake of argument you probably would say that you would have said something, but i doubt it. I don't think it's great that you were trying to pick on a 8 year old girl , albeit with fake niceties in the guise of "trying to educate". You're lucky you picked on one of the good ones , would have been great if you picked on one whose mum would have told you to eff off. You can't make the world a better place by picking on a 8 year old. I think you should parent your own child /ren (if you have any) and let others parent theirs. You somehow feel so great that you have picked on a 8 year old that you should come on mumsnet to gloat about it. Shame on you.

YABU. Life will go easier if you don't worry about little things over which you have absolutely no control.

Am I the only one wondering what Colin the Caterpillar thought?

but no, you shouldn’t take a trapped butterfly around m&s

Catching, taking a photo and then releasing, OK, not as described.

Im afraid of butterflies but not as much as moths

Rescuing insects from drowning where by they are in danger and would likely suffer is not comparable to some one deliberately capturing a living free animal that is in no danger and preventing it completing its life cycle as nature intended.

That little girl carrying it around in a net is actively making it suffer and most likely and potentially killing it, what exactly is she or her mother going to learn from trapping such creatures exactly? apart from trapping it and watching it die.

Butterflies like that usually produce most of their eggs early in their early stages and they are not looking for food they are looking to reproduce before they die in their short life span in that form. carrying it round in a net to suffer is certainly not learning any ecology.