The Bill of Rights is a list of transgressions the federal government may not make against its people. It makes no guarantees about the actions of an independent lion, nor imposes consequences.

> If rivers have rights does it also has responsibility and culpability?

I think that question is key to understanding what rights are and how they function in the constitution of a polity.

Animals, rivers, etc. don't interact with us in the way other humans do. There may be analogous aspects to that interaction, so we can recognize that we have a responsibility to keep rivers clean, but that's an obligation on our part, not a "right" that the river has.

> Should they be imprisoned?

No, because other animals don't have mental capacity to truly understand the consequences of their action.

That said, I've never really seen a consistent argument against _protecting_ prey animals from lions (and letting lions die out).

>That said, I've never really seen a consistent argument against _protecting_ prey animals from lions (and letting lions die out).

You might begin your research into this subject with reading about the reintroduction of wolves into various locations where they had been eliminated. The prey populations always fare better when there are predators around them. Without the pressure of predators to balance the population, deer and beaver and other prey animals tend to over-populate, which results in damage to the environment (over-grazing) and then eventually starvation of the prey animals.

The deer are either going to be killed by a wolf, killed by a human, or killed by disease and starvation. At least the first two options don't also cause extensive damage to the environment before they happen.

https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduc...

When deer don't have predators (of whatever species) they overpopulate and die of starvation or of running in front of vehicles.

I'm not convinced that dying of starvation is better than a sudden death. The vehicle accidents harm humans as well as the deer. The hungry deer damage crops and gardens.

I think the overpopulation also causes the spread of parasites (ticks etc.) which carry disease.

>No, because other animals don't have mental capacity to truly understand the consequences of their action.

A lion knows full well that it survives another month when it kills a wildebeest and that it can feed it cubs. What more is there to "truly" understand?

When a mentally capable human kills another human, they do so with the understanding that killing that human will cause other humans to grieve the death of that human, and will remove that human's productivity from the world. They've made that connection and have decided to end that human's life anyway, so they are held responsible for the outcome of that. This is why people who are mentally incapable of understanding this are not punished the same way as people who are mentally capable.

A lion is not, to the best of our understanding, capable of understanding that killing another animal will cause grief to that other animal's family. If that other animal's family is even capable of understanding and/or grieving their death. And then we'd have to prove the killing was done with malicious intent, because just merely being responsible for someone's death, even as a human, is not immediately a criminal offense.

But it's a silly argument anyway because humans are often not prosecuted for the death of non-human animals, especially when that non-human animal is killed for food. So the idea that we would prosecute a lion for killing and eating an antelope is laughable when we don't prosecute a farmer for killing a cow for food.

Prey animals must have a right to get eaten by predators, just as the predator must have the right to prey on them. They both have evolved to balance each other out, after all.

Alternatively, prey animals would have to have the right to birth control, whereas predators would require a food program. Both would need to be provided by humans, of course, which would inevitably lead to an animal welfare state.

Nice, the mental health defense. The river forgot to take its meds that week sir.

Extending to other animals the same rights humans enjoy is not silly but logical and long overdue.

And your example of prosecuting a lion is unfortunately already reality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant)

Saying a being is a "natural resource" is just despicable. Someone else could say that with equal ease about your family. Would you like that?

Have you spent any time watching nature? Predation? Animals fundamentally consider each other such. Cougars consider horses food and horses "prosecute" cougars if they come close enough by kicking them to death. Killing threats is what any animal capable of doing does.

Animals are fundamentally incapable of grasping the concepts of rights and would not respect them. Applying human standards to them is fundamentally anthropomorphic chauvinism and absurd hubris.

Under human standards we should start hunting or capturing more male lions because they would happily commit infanticide to make lionesses reproductively available. Naked mole rats are incestuous pedophiles. It is important to remember that nature does not care about you and cannot care about you.

First, there are plenty of example where other animals do grasp these concepts very well.

Second, as I have shown earlier humans already do "prosecute" animals for such behaviour. So why would argue that "absurd hubris" should be applied in these cases?

Third, my point was not to start "prosecuting" other animals, but that humans do not follow their own standards.

Said humans were giving the elephant more than the standard technically given that death to an animal that kills a human was a longstanding standard and would be mocked as absurd hicks even in their day. A monkey was hanged as a possible French spy and again regarded with mockery for being so stupid to think it was possible or mistake the poor creature for a cabin boy. The precedent of animal trials indicates it doesn't help the animals or justice and usually indicates a profound detachment from objective reality. Judging ideas on human precedent alone isn't a good idea. Even precedent by all judges in the 20th century.

You addressed my second point but not the first nor the third.

Mockery or not, it happened and still happens. Only two years ago in Cincinnati. That was technically not "punishment" but the result was the same.

My main point is not whether or to prosecute other animals, but that humans live double standards.