Watch Out for Cats

A few weeks back my friend Bugsy was telling me about a pond nearby that is man-made and stocked with some fish. Apparently, putting fish in a water-filled hole in your backyard attracts heron. The heron that have come scoping out this new fish pond are from the other side of the tracks, or clouds, whatever the bad type of birds are on the other side of. These birds murder fish. The pond owners started finding their fish dead, stabbed right through. I'm not sure if they saw the birds doing it or not, but that's the story being relayed (I apologize for not checking my facts on this story, but given the possible danger, I think it best that I keep myself under the radar. You might wonder if it is good for me to be blogging about it then, but don't worry, birds don't read blogs). So the fish are dead. The birds are killing the fish and not eating them. This means that birds are murderers.
At this point in the story that Bugsy was giving me, I wondered out loud, "I thought humans were the only animals that murdered." We laughed and that was that. But then it wasn't that. It became a serious discussion about murderous animals. It seems on first consideration that animals typically only kill when they need to defend themselves or their young, or when they want to eat something. Humans kill for those reasons, but some, possibly defective ones, kill for other reasons, such as anger or injured pride. Based on the brain structure of animals, when compared to humans, it doesn't seem like they have injured pride, or even pride at all (have you ever seen them eat? or not wear clothes? no pride). So animals should only kill for "legitimate" reasons, right? Why are these birds killing fish then? It makes no sense. Especially since I've never seen heron around here before, they must be taking a long flight to get here, and then they just kill the fish and leave them lying around. Horrible. Anyway, we tried to come up with other animals that killed for more than just food or defense. Cats.
Cats will kill squirrels, birds, rodents, anything small and weak, like themselves. Then they will take the corpses and put them on your doorstep, kitchen table or bed. They almost seem like they are showing off. You might think, that's pride, cats kill out of pride, but I suggest that they don't kill out of pride, they kill for the pride. Cats have instincts to kill and eat. Domestication hasn't taken that out of them completely yet. The killing drive remains in tact in cats. Here's the catch, they don't need to kill because they are fed by their loving owners. Why kill and eat a nasty mouse when you have gnarly smelling cardboard cold cereal stuff? Exactly. Cats are well fed, but they feel the need to kill, so they do. They are programmed to kill and bring food back to their pride, their family, so that's why they put the dead mouse on your bed. You are their family. Cats and humans are the only animals that kill for the thrill, but really only humans, because cats are just doing what genetics tells them to do. That should suffice.
Given this overwhelming collection of facts (not facts) lets return to the fish-stabbing heron. If they don't have pride issues like humans, they must be being fed somewhere else, and therefore are not hungry, but feel the need to kill, like cats. It's gotta be one or the other, right? The real question now is this, where are the heron being fed? This is the investigation that I need to do. If I don't return, avenge my death.