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

[FanofLeaves]

Was just picking up a few bits in M&S and there was a girl about 8 years old or so swinging one of those butterfly net thingies off her arm. On closer inspection I saw she had one in there (not the ones you send away for, although that would be bad enough, one that had obviously been procured organically)

Her mum was busy looking at something so I said to the girl ‘oh! What a pretty butterfly. That’s a large white. I except you’re going to let it go after you’ve finished your shopping, aren’t you?’

The mum came over beaming presumably ready to hear a comment about what a fun summer holiday activity this all is, and said ‘no, we’ll take it home, keep it for a few days and observe it. It flew straight into the net so we had this ready to pop it straight into!’

‘I said ‘well I’m sure it would have been preferred to be observed in nature, where it was, not caught in a net and taken round the shops. Don’t you think it’s a bit cruel?’

Anyway she was visibly annoyed, and said ‘it’s fine. My children are learning about nature! We know what it eats!’

Anyway she steered her child away from me and said some people are just very joyless and bitter.

Yeah I know I probably sound like a busy body but I can’t bear it when parents tell their kids it’s ok to just take stuff out of nature for their own amusement. Why is it ok to do this? It’s so Victorian, to capture a creature to just look at it, no thought for the poor thing at all. Don’t get me started on why they still sell butterfly nets 😭

Eating it???

One fewer fucking cabbage white to destroy my vegetables. Good luck to her.

I think you can eat meat and still like and respect animals and nature. I know the ideal situation is to be vegetarian or vegan, but it’s not feasible for many people. You can still respect animals though.

My brother actually raised his children with the rule "You kill it, you eat it". It definitely prevented the unnecessary torment of small creatures.

She's comparing it to the production of beef, pork, chicken for human consumption, as a vegan sees it.

The vegan argument is ridiculous. I'm a meat eater but still think it's wrong for people to keep birds in cages, pull legs of spiders or keep a butterfly in a jar.

You don't need to be arsey, the point stands that if you're happy for animals to be used and kept in less than great conditions for you to have eggs and dairy it is by nature hypocritical for you to kick off about a butterfly in a net. I'm not a vegan, it's not "vegan logic" that's just logic, isn't it?

Because butterflies are pretty they get special dispensation. And you get to feel good for telling off a kid in a store (and kudos for naming the shop lest we think you were slumming it in ASDA).

I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you probably didn't need to actively go up to someone to try and catch them out and see what they were doing with it.

Yes, but if you go around pointing out how terrible that person is for doing X they will turn around and say "why are you doing Y". Pulling the legs off spiders is wrong but objectively it it far worse for the environment and the world's animals to eat meat or use animal products like eggs and dairy.

There are a strange type of vegan (not all) who I swear really don't give a fuck about animals, they just want people to see them as different and somehow more progressive than the rest of us.

Well, I hate seeing crabs jammed into buckets for children’s fun, even if they are released, but I’ve never gone up to kids crabbing and lectured them about it.

Totally agree. Well done for saying something. Doesn't matter how long it would normally live for, it should be flying around free not kept in a prison for some horrible child's entertainment.

That is an unhinged statement. The poster is clearly making the point that all animals are valuable, so it's hypocritical to choose certain ones to look after. The point being that it makes you think about your own choices. Why is MN so weird about veganism?

Oh the vegans arrived, preaching on electronic devices that many are made with animal products in their component manufacture and also the rare-earth elements extraction process that kills and harms many animals and destroys vast swaths of biodiversity and habitats is suddenly lost on them.

The very use and consumption of power to support online platforms and online forums such as MN, that produce vasts amounts of CO2e that harms all life on earth is also forgotten by them.

How about those vegans stick to reducing their own harm on animals and start preaching less 🙄

My DD is a bug/insect rescuer. So far she have saved three bees and two lady bugs. She is so proud of herself. She looks in the garden after raining if some have fell in water and take them out before they die.
Not that I am very bothered, but I like her approach.

As much as you didn't like it, it is not for you to give a lecture to a child with a butterfly. As much as you like nature we are messing with it in far more dangerous ways.
It wasn't your place to tell anything. I'm one of the ones that thinks that yes, you were a busy body in this particular interaction.

My son used to be like this, from an early age I was all "oh look at this/that, aren't they lovely?" My world came crashing down when in the park one day he "pointed" out a Ladybird with his squashy fingers 😂The levels of restraint not to be visually like Munch's "The Scream"

I was in M&S so I said M&S. if it was Asda I’d have said it was that 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’d have said the same thing if it was any insect in there to be honest, not just because butterflies are pretty.

And where does it end really if you can’t make any kind of stand against the destruction of nature or wildlife if you still consume animal products? Like another poster said, should all employees of animal welfare charities resign unless vegan? Should I go outside and kick down my bug hotel, screw those guys, I’m not vegan so who cares right? I’ll stop my donations to the horse rescue charity while I’m at it, because I ate scrambled eggs for breakfast. It’s absolutely ludicrous to say you only earn the privilege of caring for living creatures if you have nothing to do with the consumption of them, because you’re left with a teeny tiny minority of people who will do fuck all except feel superior to non-vegans for their life choices. Now I know that’s not all vegans but certainly those types always seem to pop up on here.

So you’re a vegan who doesn’t actually do anything useful other than feel smug and superior?

Okaaay. 👍

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.

Im afraid of butterflies but not as much as moths

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

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

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

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

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.

🤣🤣 I forgot about him.