I'm willing to grant that animals are capable to some degree of wanting at all. It's a perfectly reasonable assumption. How do you feel about mercy killings?

I'm willing to grant that animals are capable to some degree of wanting at all. It's a perfectly reasonable assumption. How do you feel about mercy killings? If you find a deer in the woods that's got a gangrenous leg and is laying on the ground, I would argue that it is my obligation -- my moral responsibility -- to cut its throat or pith it, if I can. We are part of nature. We constitute "letting nature take its course", and those options are a whole lot better than getting eaten alive by a coyote.