Some of my own Thots in both Reply to your Post, and Others in this Thread.

Much as I Like / Love - Cats / Animals, and though I am Gentle and the Like,-

I'm of the View that in this Situation, He had the Cat and Other Animals Killed, in the Context and Reason of, the Overwhelming Imperatives of the Survival Situation.

Some of my Main Thoughts from Reading this Thread so Far, are;-

I Recall Reading once that Captain Cook, Ailing and Dying on one of his Voyages, (Deep in the Southern Pacific Antarctic Ocean), was Saved and eventually Revived!, Only by being Fed the Meat of their Beloved Little Dog! They were Critically Short on Other such Food, at the Time. Upon Sufficient Revival, Captain Cook asked how this was Done. And someone had to Reply that it was Due to his own Beloved Dog! The Captain Understood. Sure, I'm Sure he Regretted that it Had to be so! And that He'd Wished it could have somehow been Different! But he Readily Understood. This is the *Only* Thing which in that Situation, -Saved Captain Cook's Life!

A Cat or Other Animal *is* Food.

And a Cat or Other Animal Takes Up or Uses Food! Valuable, Limited, Food! Which you just may Not be Able to Spare!

On Expendability, Even People are, Rightly andor Wrongly, Expendable in certain Genuine "Lifeboat Situations". What of when our Soldiers have to Make a Raid in Vietnam or in Iraq? Or in the D-Day Invasion, when it Took X Number of Men getting Lost, Before their Bangalore Torpedo was Finally Able to Blow the Obstacle Wire? What is the Neccessary Choice involved in Triage All About? It's Totally Unfortunate and Regrettable! But What Else in these No Choice Situations would you Really Do? In Such Life or Death Situations, Sometimes such Choices are Unavoidable, and just Can't be Helped! People and/or Animals *Factually* are Expendable, in These Such Situations Only! The Only "Alternative" is to be Entirely Nobly Humane!, Never so Expendably Sacrifice One of your Number in such Situations. And End Up Having More or even All Die!, as a Result! One is Making *More* People Expendable!, by that Very Thinking and Process! And Unlike with the Earlier Expendability I speak of here, -These Extra Losses now!, are Unneccessary! This is Like Forest Fire Fighters Never Lighting a Neccessary Backfire! Out of "Ethically Ironic" of Justifications.

We Are to Have and Retain our Humanity as Far as All Possible! But Such Hard, Inescapable, Life or Death Choice Situations!, Sometimes will just Not Allow!, What's *Normally* the Most Noble and Humane of Preferences and Choices! I Don't Mean to Sound so Coldly Brutal. And I Don't Pretend or Claim that I'd Always be my Most Brave or Noble in Life myself! But These sorts of Tough Choices in Such Situations!, are just What They Are! In Short, It's just the Way it All Round Is!

It's somewhat similar to What Trump says on his commercial for his New Show, paraphrasing, -"It's Nothing Personal!, -It's just Business!" In this case, the Unfortunate Life or Death, Rational Judgement Call, "Business" of Such a Decision and Choice! There is a Certain Area of Similarity. And this commercial of his is one of the Things that Came to Mind, on my Reading this Thread.

People in Survival Situations *Don't* just Make such Decisions Lightly! This is No Time to Indulge any sort of a Suggested, Cold Blooded, Animal Killing Bloodlust! Do we Really Think that Shackleton was Entertaining any of 1,001 Niceties or Other Topics in Life?!, There in His and His Men's Survival Situation?! No!, His Thoughts were in Relation to that Latter!, Survival, Extrication, and Living Alone! Any Thoughts of Anything Else, were in Relation to That! -Of How They Bore on That! To just Cold Bloodedly Kill an Animal Purely to Do Such!, Had to be the Farthest Thing from!, and Most Non-Existant Thing In!, his Mind! Let's Remember to be "Survival Real"!, for a Moment here!

If Shackleton Didn't Want to Bother with the Animal, -Then *Why* Didn't he Want to Bother Himself with the Animal? Let's Ask ourselves That. Refer to the Paragraph(s) Before this one, for the Answer.

What Maggot has said here about the Benefit of 20 / 20 Hindsight certainly Applies here! It's so Easy to 20 / 20 or Monday Morning Quarterback here! And I Don't Think we can "De-Justify" Shackleton's Unfortunate but Neccessary Decision, -Even in Hindsight!

Even if Neccessary as I'm Sure it was, -They'd Have to Later Eat the Cat, Dog, and Three Pups. May as Well. And They Absolutely Needed To! Which I Think is a Foregone Conclusion that they Did.

I've Seen in either This or Another Shackleton Progran Lately, that it Involved More than just Those particular Animals. That it had eventually Gotten to the Point, Where They had to kill Many of their Sled Dogs as well. The Same Unfortunate Circumstances! The Same Regrettable but Neccessary Reasoning!

Thank God that a Great Many Ordinary Life Situations are Not Life or Death Survival as This One was. To just Kill Cats or Any Other Animals in Pure Cold Blood, Outside of Such Neccessary Situations, (Humane Livestock Slaughters and Such Excepted), is just Wrong, Unjustifiable, and Inexcuseable!

It's More Humane, to Quick Kill an Animal in a Shackleton Situation, than to just Let it Slowly Starve. And Along with Unneccessary Others of you to Boot!

Shackleton's "Not Wanting to Bother" with the Cat, Goes Back to the Cat's Presence Equaling a Taking Up of Part of the Valuable, Limited, Remaining Food Supply! Not Pure Out Not Wanting to Bother Per Se! What would you Do?, Really! -If you Didn't Have Any Access to Any Other Food!, For Thousands of Miles Around! Other than your Animals, and What Little Food as you Do have with you? It's Easy to Talk and Make After the Fact Judgements from Up here in Europe or the U.S.A.! But What would Any of us!, in a Real No Food Situation, -Really Do?!

I Guess the Same can Go for "Lifeboating" and Cannibalization Decisions. Here I would Think we Shud Still Go by our Moral and Ethical Compass. And Do Cannibalization Only After someone has Naturally Passed On. Perhaps even if that Means More in the Party may First Die by Other Natural Causes, within the Survival Situation. Than Otherwise. I Hate to say it, but an Animal at least in this way, is Less and Different!

And Finally, I think of my Own Two Cats, as I Think these Situational Thoughts, and Write This. What They might Think and Feel!, if They ever Knew that I Thought This! In such Real, Push Comes to Shove!, Life or Death, Survival Situation! But That Still Doesn't Change these Situational Realities there One Bit!

Shackleton Unfortunately Still Had to Do What he Still Had to Do!, -There in His Real Make It or Break It!, Life or Death, Survival Call and Situation! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]Craig[/email]

I Prefer What Bountyhunter has said, I Entirely Echo and Agree with his View in This Situation. But even if the Cat was Not Eaten, and Wasted Foodwise in that Respect!, This Still Saved and Stretched Later Food Supplies! That the Cat would Later Have Eaten! To Do so for Food Preservation Purposes is in the Dire Situation both Sound, and Imperatively Called For, as well.

In the Situation, This shud have been Combined with Eating It as Bounty has said.

Further, I Think to Have Sentimentally and Respectfully Buried It, After Having to Neccessarily kill It!, Shows a NON Cold Bloodedness in This! And NOT it's Brutal and Cold Blooded Opposite! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]Craig[/email]

Whoa DUDE... by any chance do you belong to P.E.T.A.???

O.K. I moved this to the campfire, in hopes it won't turn into a er, cat fight. Doug and I both own cats. I now turn the issue over to Piewacket Kavanaugh, resident ETS forum administrator assistant. Meow. The cat was a ship's cat. This honourable position being one of neccessity to control rats. I believe the presence of the dogs was almost a death sentence under those trying conditions. A .455 short Webley was much more preferable to prolonged suffering or a violent end. Meow.

Nope. Not a PETA member. I am merely an animal lover. Those people are animal fanatics.

Rationnaly (intellectually ?), I have to agree with "Piewacket"...


But love (for a human being or an animal) is not rational; so, emotionally, being a cat person myself, I understand some of Craig position.

Just from reading these posts (I have not read the book), It seems the situation asked for that decision : Shackelton was not sure to be able to save the men, so saving the cat was certainly out of question. And that seems to be a "gentler" death for that cat, that what could have happened. And he could (should ?) have asked the dead cat to be fed to the men or remaining dogs...
Could he have said that man : "keep the cat, but both of you will live on your food share" ? I don't think so... too complicated a situation afterwards

Well, maybe I should discuss with my own cat and see what she thinks about that kind of situation : we are isolated and starving ; which one of us will die first and be food for the other .... ??? ....
I guess for most of us on this forum, that's not even a question ... and certainly not one, when sitting in front of a keyboard, with food (human- and cat-) in the cupboard...
but ... ouch... that could be kind of a deep one.... why do we live and so forth ...what is the exact situation, any hope for one or the other, etc...
aïe ... Craig, help me to get out of it ...

We are judging an event from a very different time. I can turn on the T.V. and watch helicopters, emergency units and personel turned out to rescue horses, dogs, even wild elk and moose. My Grandfather's generation would be incredulous to these efforts. I can still remember watching a horse shot for a relatively minor injury. But it was unserviceable and that was the economics of the day. Lest we assume those times were totally brutal, walk an older city. Enjoy the many mature trees and water fountains. How wise the city fathers were to think of our future enjoyment. Sorry, these were sheer neccessities for the benefit of the horses that moved people and goods. Past generations had a different view to livestock and pets. But, they didn't create the Dantesque horrors of factory farming, laboratory testing and other monstrosities that make their actions pale.

I totally agree with you, in both posts.

I just wanted to say that I don't see MY cat as an "animal" anylonger ... it's part of the family !

How many people died, by returning in their burning house, to try to save their beloved one, be it their baby or their pet dog ?

The relationship changes everything...

And nowadays, the only relation most (city) people have with animals is a very close one with their pet cat/dog/... and no longer a "working tool" relation as you described.

I remember reading an old Russian story about a wedding party with the bride, groom, and fathers of both coming home after the wedding in a rural location.

It was wintertime at night and they were traveling by horse drawn sleigh back to the city. As they started traveling through the woods, a pack of wolves began pursuing the sleigh. Seeing that the pack was about to overtake them, the father of the groom jumped off the sleigh sacrficing himself in the hopes of saving the others. Some of the pack stopped to kill and feed on him while the rest of the pack kept after the sleigh. The father of the bride jumped off the sleigh in hopes of saving his daughter and new son-in-law, and part of the pack killed him and started feeding on him while two of the wolves continued after the sleigh. The sleigh was heavy, and the horses were tired, and the two remaining wolves were gaining on the bride and groom. The groom tired from the chase, despondent over the loss of his father, and realizing there was only one way to throw off the wolves summoned his last bit of strength and threw his bride off the sleigh and continued on his way to the city.

The morales:

None of us know for sure what we are truly capable of until a situation arises.

Our heritage does not guarantee our actions.

And damn few of us are as good as our fathers.

By the way, in the Russian of those days, if his own relatives had not killed the groom to put him out of the families shame and misery, the relatives of the bride would have.

Bountyhunter

To all you animal lovers, I have to say that in a survival situation that had diverse survivors (as opposed to the men who were all of the same group on that ill-fated expedition.), you would probably be thrown out of the group without supplies or psk's, but with your cat or dog, or you would be killed for threatening the the survival of your group.

The survivors of the Peruvain air crash ate the bodies of their dead to live. Those that did not, died. If your choice is death for the love of your pet, so be it, but do not expect others in your group to respect your pets life.

Bountyhunter