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AIBU?

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Original poster

to be cross with friends son who has hacked up dead pidgeon

110 replies

FoJo · 27/06/2009 20:30

We live in a lovely street with lots of children aged 5 - 11. Earlier in the afternoon we spotted a dead pidgeon in the gutter opposite, not mauled, just lying there. DH said he'd move it 'later' and put it in bin but he forgot. Later on I was looking out of the window and saw 2 10 year old boys who live in street by it. One videoing on his phone while the other hacked it up with a stick, there are now feathers and gunk all over. I should have told him to stop straight away but for some reason didnt. I eventually opened the door and asked if he was going to clear it up and needless to say he went a bit pink and said it had already been like that (it hadnt!) He;s a really nice boy but Its now really bugging me and dh that this horrible mess is opposite our house. Do we snitch on him to his parents (our friends) or just bite the bullet and clear it up ourselves? I can understand the morbid curiosity that made him do it, just annoyed at the aftermath being left in the street!

OP posts:
hercules1 · 27/06/2009 23:26

Honestly, I wouldn't. I would have thought gross but "disturbed", no.

LupusinaLlamasuit · 27/06/2009 23:27

Yes, it is unlikely they will turn into a psycho mass-murderer.

Yes, dead bodies are cut up in lots of other circumstances.

But almost all those other circumstances have some justification that is defended by a practical or moral need. And carefully controlled.

Pigeons are indeed not children. Thanks for that, I'd never have known. But really, are animals not afforded some moral dignity? Or are they just neutral for us to do with what we will?

Not on my moral compass.

SolidGoldBrass · 27/06/2009 23:27

There is a huge difference between hurting/killing something that's alive and chopping up or messing about with something that is dead (that you didn;t kill). What makes a person a potential psychopath (or an actual one) is the wish or intent to cause harm and suffering. You can't harm something that's dead. A degree of curiousity about bodies and how they function and what 'dead' means is perfectly healthy.

hercules1 · 27/06/2009 23:27

Like the "mightn't be psychos". Of course they're bloody not!

Nancy66 · 27/06/2009 23:28

they were prodding it with sticks - not dissecting it with surgical instruments.

hercules1 · 27/06/2009 23:28

You did the comparison to children, I just used your example

LupusinaLlamasuit · 27/06/2009 23:29

'You can't harm something that's dead'

I'm not sure the parents of the Alder Hey scandal would agree.

hercules1 · 27/06/2009 23:29

Lupus - I'll say it again, you can't compare pidgeons to people.

LupusinaLlamasuit · 27/06/2009 23:30

Yeah but hercules, you see the pigeon and the child as entirely different on the moral scale. I see them as on a continuum. right back.

LupusinaLlamasuit · 27/06/2009 23:30

Cross posts.

Why not?

hercules1 · 27/06/2009 23:31

Then we'll never agree! .

Lissya · 27/06/2009 23:31

I can just about buy "boys will be boys" however they should certainly clean up the mess they've made and maybe it'll make them think twice about doing it again in the future. Definitely tell their parents - why should you or anyone else have to clean up their mess?

It's not the nicest behaviour and I wouldn't personally encourage or condone it if I had a 10yo boy. Mainly because even dead animals should be treated with respect as, to some idiots out there, there isn't much of a jump between pulling a dead animal to bits and tormenting a live vulnerable animal.

hercules1 · 27/06/2009 23:32

I expect a fox will take the body during the night.

BananaFruitBat · 27/06/2009 23:33

It's the level of violence implied (I don't know as I wasn't there) that is making me feel uncomfortable. A dead animal is going to take a hell of a lot of force to get chopped up with a stick. And filming it as well suggests that they are going to be watching it/showing it at some later stage.

I can't believe that's normal, and I don't know any blokes who did anything like that as kids.

hercules1 · 27/06/2009 23:36

Well, for one thing mobile phones werent around then.
It's normal for children to film a lot of what they do on phones. THey were doing something they had probably never done before and so filmed it.

Lissya · 27/06/2009 23:37

Solidgold: x posts, "What makes a person a potential psychopath (or an actual one) is the wish or intent to cause harm and suffering. You can't harm something that's dead".

I'm not sure of the definition of psychopath but there was a wish and intent to cause harm. You can't make something suffer that's already dead, but you can harm it.

Anyway, like I said - the behaviour shows lack of respect which can (not necessarily will, but can) degenerate into worse behaviour. ie killing something to pull it apart if there isn't a convenient dead one to hand.

hercules1 · 27/06/2009 23:38

I really do think you are overanalysing this. It was a couple of kids poking a stick at a dead bird.

MeAndMyMonkey · 27/06/2009 23:39

Oh I know you cannot actually hurt an animal that's dead, but honestly, where does being a sicko start? It's vile and icky behaaviour, and I just hate the 'it's a boy thing' excuse, That's all.
Still waiting for my shrink

hercules1 · 27/06/2009 23:40

I havent used the it's a boy thing as an excuse. I think being a sicko starts with a lot more than this tbh.

LupusinaLlamasuit · 27/06/2009 23:41

Perhaps I am unduly influenced by my childhood memory of a bunch of boys in an urban park who were screaming with joy as they smashed a large rock onto the shell of a tortoise to splatter open its insides.

It really was Lord of the Flies.

I was horrified.

I would not think it OK to justify the random destruction of any ex-living thing's body. Jeez, I tell my kids not to randomly pull leaves off trees because they need to have a bit of respect for nature

But we don't know the context. And I would accept a curious need to explore biology. But this can be done in so many controlled circumstances. As BananaFruitBat said, it sounds violent. And only the context would explain it.

I would want to know if it were my son, so I could discuss why he needed to do it and so we could discuss why pigeons do have some moral rights in death

Lissya · 27/06/2009 23:42

If poking at it with a stick was all they were doing Hercules, then the bird wouldn't have different enough to notice.

OP said "feathers and gunk", more than poking in my book**on sale in all bad bookshops

hercules1 · 27/06/2009 23:42

Lupus - if it were my child I'd talk to them too about why it was not appropriate although I wouldnt do the moral rights in death of a pidgeon. I would say respect for all things though.

Lissya · 27/06/2009 23:44

Agree Lupusina.

SolidGoldBrass · 27/06/2009 23:46

ONce anything is dead, it's beyond being harmed. It's just litter.

As to the Alder Hey scandal, well personally I never got what all the fuss was about with that, either. But then I'm leaving my carcass to Gunter Von Hagen anyway.

Nancy66 · 27/06/2009 23:49

Unless the OP picked the bird up and turned it over and had a good look she really can't say how battered it already was.

most dead pigeons are either killed by cats or hit by cars and would probably already have a few bits hanging off.

Not sure how you can compare dead children who had their organs stolen without parental consent to vermin by the roadside.