Yes, researchers have stopped saying they kill for fun because it gives the wrong impression to people who can’t understand that words can have multiple meanings and connotations. However when an animal is not killing for food, or defense, or practice, or any other definable reason, “fun” would be an acceptable label. They do not have to shout HELL YEAH BROTHER and put on sunglasses while doing it to call it that. Would you be more comfortable calling it “killing for the hell of it”?
Again, the article you linked suggests that they typically overkill, which is to say they kill more than they need. Like a person putting too much food on their plate. Not for fun.
“Eyes bigger than their stomach” is not the only reason bears will kill more than they can eat. Bears have been recorded killing a fuckload of prey without consuming any of it, in a manner that was not fully explained by adaptive foraging models (https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/30/1/202/5142956?login=false). If they don’t touch it, cache it, or come back for it later they didn’t kill for food; it’s prey, so they’re not killing in self-defense. Additionally, straight-up surplus killing like that was noted as a feature of some individual bears’ predation style. Or put another way, it was noted in “SOME bears”. Which happens to be the exact qualifier I used.
So again: if you don’t want to use “fun” as a synonym for “no practical reason”, give me an alternative word, but quit incorrecting me.
Yes, researchers have stopped saying they kill for fun because it gives the wrong impression to people who can’t understand that words can have multiple meanings and connotations. However when an animal is not killing for food, or defense, or practice, or any other definable reason, “fun” would be an acceptable label. They do not have to shout HELL YEAH BROTHER and put on sunglasses while doing it to call it that. Would you be more comfortable calling it “killing for the hell of it”?
Again, the article you linked suggests that they typically overkill, which is to say they kill more than they need. Like a person putting too much food on their plate. Not for fun.
“Eyes bigger than their stomach” is not the only reason bears will kill more than they can eat. Bears have been recorded killing a fuckload of prey without consuming any of it, in a manner that was not fully explained by adaptive foraging models (https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/30/1/202/5142956?login=false). If they don’t touch it, cache it, or come back for it later they didn’t kill for food; it’s prey, so they’re not killing in self-defense. Additionally, straight-up surplus killing like that was noted as a feature of some individual bears’ predation style. Or put another way, it was noted in “SOME bears”. Which happens to be the exact qualifier I used.
So again: if you don’t want to use “fun” as a synonym for “no practical reason”, give me an alternative word, but quit incorrecting me.