Why would prey creatures not hate predator creatures?

Question

In this world, a number of intelligent, sapient creatures exist. They do not have especially complex societies or technology; they live as hunter-gatherers and nomads.

The predator species isn't completely solitary. They live alone unless they have young to look after. Predators hold meetings at certain times of the year to conduct rudimentary trade, find a mate, and so on. Communication is done out-of-person by leaving messages in designated spots, which predators may check from time to time. Mothers will teach skills such as tool use and hunting to their children.

The problem is that the predators are obligate carnivores, and they've got to eat the other species, which are equally intelligent and sapient. The carnivores respect their living prey and have rules to prevent excess killing. They preserve meat in order to kill less often. But they've still got to kill members of the other species somehow.

Tigers have to kill at least once every two weeks. Let's say that with meat preservation, these intelligent carnivores can stretch that out to four weeks. Even with that lowered kill rate, why wouldn't the preyed-on species have any enmity or distrust towards the predator species?

Answer 1

The most obvious thing is to have your society structured in a way that predation is cooperative. Some ideas:

Being eaten is voluntary

Allowing yourself to be eaten is a form of suicide. Some individuals may just be too depressed and desperate for it all to end. For others — crippled, extremely sick, or just old — being eaten might be seen as a way to die with dignity; one last way you can make yourself useful.

Capital punishment

What better way to get rid of dangerous criminals?

It's eugenics

This can go very, very dark, but it's also essentially true in the natural world. Maybe your prey's society wants to rid themselves of certain elements. Maybe they're just fatalistic and feel that only the strongest of their own deserve to live. (Christopher Anvil's Advance Agent may give you some inspiration.)

Predators are seen as gods

Human history has plenty of examples of human sacrifice you could use for inspiration. Sacrifices could be willing, or otherwise (the latter are usually prisoners of war). This could work especially well if the predators do something for the prey in return, besides just "honoring them". Maybe there are "good" predators and "bad" predators, and the prey see being eaten by "bad" predators as horrific; the "good" predators could protect them from being eaten by the "bad" predators.

It's a fetish

There are humans who, given the chance, might voluntarily be eaten by lions. Given all the strange things that give people a rush, it's not hard to imagine that your prey species have somehow gotten to where some percentage of individuals want to be eaten.

That's just the way of things

If your prey is suitably fatalistic, maybe they just don't hold it against the predators. While not exactly the same thing, check out how the "reds" see themselves in Endless Blue. The down side of this approach is that your prey species is likely to come across as depressing.

Answer 2

Inspired by John's comment:

many humans don't hate human predators, awe, admiration, even respect are often in play instead.

I think the most interesting development builds on this. Interpret "predators" here in a broad sense, thinking of all the places the word is used including sexual (serial rapists), economic (predatory lenders, predatory journals), etc.

This comic comes to mind:

How does the "I am going to eat you party" wolf get elected? He convinces his base that they're not the ones he's going to eat. How does the CEO who repeatedly commits sexual harassment and assault have the support of his wife and other elite women? He convinces them they're not the ones he'll harm, and that the ones he does harm were responsible for what happened to them. Etc.

All of these principles carry over to literal predation.

Answer 3

The "prey" run an integrated, warlike society.

The prey are far better equipped to run a complicated civilization. Especially if they're omnivores, they're well equipped to develop technology, start farming, and construct villages. Semi-solitary obligate carnivores probably won't do those things.

However, powerful carnivores would be a fantastic asset in war, especially if they're substantially larger or more powerful than the prey. If your prey species are particularly warlike, the'd likely form a society in which they cooperate with the predators to fight against other prey groups. Humans, historically, have had few qualms about feeding their enemies to predators purely for amusement; forming an integrated society that fights to both enrich itself with goods and slaves and find food for its carnivorous members would serve the best interests of both predators and "prey".

Answer 4

The predators do not kill their prey.

These predators are more like robbers than murderers.

Suppose I am a prey animal. I accumulate resources in my body through my efforts and good luck. I am found by a predator who takes some of my resources. I am left alive, poorer, but able to regroup and begin accumulating resources once again.

This is predation more like robbery - the robber takes my wallet but I live on. Maybe he will rob me again someday if I don't see him coming first. Or like herbivory - the herbivore browses off some twigs and leaves, but the plant has more and regenerates what it has lost.

An herbivore might have a philosophical outlook to losses of this sort, and regard loss of regenerable bodily resources in the same way as loss to illness or bad weather or bad luck: a thing that happens, and you move on.

Answer 5

Because they worshiped the predators.

In Start Trek: Discovery Saru is a Kelpien from the planet Kaminar where his species had biologically evolved to be the prey of the Ba'ul. The story of how this came to be happened over thousands of years, but Kelpiens could "sense" the coming of death through a specially evolved organ, and they met their fate as an honor.

Cultures engaging in human sacrifice could also be a predator/prey arrangement, where the prey simply believes their sacrifice will grant them some greater reward. Suicide bombers are often recruited with this same argument. The clan promises money and protection to the family for the volunteer's sacrifice. Their tribe is so poor and destitute that they give their life to provide for their family. This can be extended to a predator/prey arrangement as well.

Answer 6

The prey have no will or ability to self control population, and know and accept that predation is the only way to avoid overpopulation and mass starvation. Perhaps there was a painful time in the past when they multiplied to the point that a large percentage died all at once.

The might have a biological imperative to reproduce, either because the body does it automatically, or because they die or go mad if they don't. Or just hormones that override any self control. (examples include Vulcan Pon-Farr, Tribbles, and Moties.)

It might be accomplished by lottery, or by granting the predator a license for a number of kills.

Answer 7

Because it strengthens your species.

In order for a population to remain fit and strong it needs either a way to remove the weaker and sicker members of the society or a way to care for them.

They can only care for them in a situation where you have an excess of resources otherwise the less fit members of the society consume those resources. This leads to competition within your species for resources and ultimately infighting.

A classic example of this is the wolf/deer relationship. In situations where the wolf has been eradicated deer populations rise out of control and eventually destroy their habitat. They also become weaker as a species as the slower and less fit can survive. Reintroduce the wolf, you reduce the deer population, the surviving individuals are the faster and stronger and the habitat has a chance to return to balance.

If your prey population can see this relationship they can fit the predator species into a context wider than the deaths of a few members of their own species.

Answer 8

Besides how healthy it is to not let your population out of control you need a reason why the prey would subject them to this type of culling. They would want to limit the risk to themselves if there isnt a solid reason why they would fully accept getting hunted.

You could make it a rite of passage. Prey that comes of age will have to prove their sexual maturity by joining in their equivalent of the spanish bull running except getting caught means getting eaten with lots of ritualistic elements. The males especially would be encouraged to take risks to show their suitability as a mate to the females. The females would be no less encouraged to join to show that their children would be strong enough to survive the ritual as well. Remember that survival of the fittest is about you getting children who in turn are strong enough to survive until they have their own.

Prey would as a natural consequence get lots and lots of children, and the right to get them would be a sought after commodity. Prey that is nurturing children wouldnt be joining in these rituals, which are essentially mating rituals. But once their children are grown they'll join in the rituals again risking their life to prove they have what it takes to get more children to prospective mates. Naturally this makes geriatric care a small worry in this society, any prey that reaches an old enough age to stop going to the rituals could be valued as teachers and possibly leaders (or go for one last hurrah feeling the excitement of the ritual before being eaten).

The predators would ritualize this as much as possible to make sure the prey does not retaliate. Eating the parents and children of prey might be punisheable, and only chasing the prey that joins this ritual is allowed to be eaten.

Answer 9

I've seen this addressed in

The Cockroaches of Stay More

Where all the characters are US-southern cockroaches, humanized but otherwise mostly realistic. For a sentient species they are fairly far along on the quantity-versus-quality side of the r/K reproductive strategy spectrum. One bit I remember is a regular family circle where the dead are memorialized, along with their cause of death, all too often "something he et" and sometimes, sadly, "something et him."

So, high infant and child mortality, where predation is just one of many causes and accepted fatalistically.

Answer 10

(Except idea, that the eaten individuals are from some reasons anyway undesired like in capital punishment or eugenics)

The predator specie provides something in return

For example, the predator specie protects its prey from other predators. Not even because of any noble intent, but it is highly territorial and simply hates idea of its livestock being eaten. (as that's fantasy, the thing given in return could be of some supernatural sort, like serving as source of some magic ingredients)

Answer 11

The prey might be intelligent, but that doesn't (at least in fiction) require that they:

1. value their own lives
2. experience fear of death (or even pain?)
3. experience fear in general
4. be capable of "hate"

with any of that missing, it seems like they might be able to get along just fine with creatures that eat them. they could realize intellectually that they'd be better off if their species wasn't eaten, but just... not be worried about it. in the same way i can explain to most people how they'd be better off if they operated a strict household budget that involved saving more money and borrowing less, and they agree with me, but then just don't do it, and never worry about it.

Answer 12

The prey are the philosophical equivalent of Earth's Buddhists, or in other words, they would spin it as:

Why would the prey automatically hate the predator?

If you look at things in general realistically, without any wishful thinking or pink lenses, life cannot help but be nasty like that – we all consume and destroy something every day that we live, whether we want to or not. We turn oxygen into CO2 by merely breathing, despite it being poisonous to some organisms (including ourselves). In fact, according to current understanding, oxygen was poisonous to the original life on Earth. And no matter what you think of eating meat right now, the fact that we exist to consider it means that a lot of meat was eaten by our ancestors, in a very long chain of systematic killing and pain.

One can either accept that and understand the circumstances each of us are in, or take the easy way out and let one's emotions turn to anger and hate.

In Buddhism, there's a concept known as dukkha, which basically means that suffering is the natural and unescapable fate of all life (as conditioned, individual beings, but that's beside the point). This does not have to be taken religiously either, as you can find similar ideas from many other schools of philosophy; absurdism, nihilism, stoicism, to name just a few. There's even antinatalism, a school of thought that considers it would have been "better" to not have been born at all.

Note that these ideas do not have to mean that one does not value attempts to minimize or do away with suffering, nor do they prevent the will to fight back, that depends entirely on the philosophy in particular. One can fight back, but without hatred or judgement. Many Buddhist martial arts schools are built on this kind of thinking.

Take your pick from some of these philosophies, or even better – make up your own!

Answer 13

Your prey are sentient Tribbles

Meet the humble Eatsalottus. It's a strange creature, in that it is both sentient, but breeds extremely rapidly and has a lifespan of only a single year, factors that are normally not found in sentient creatures. In the distant past, a plague nearly wiped out all the Eatsalotti because their rapid expansion caused overpopulation, making them extremely vulnerable to disease, especially once they came to realize that leaving dead bodies all over the place isn't the smartest thing to do.

Enter the Niceivore, a sentient predator that would rather not kill things if it didn't have to. By inviting Niceivores into their lands, the Eatsalottus finally had a way to get rid of all those dead bodies laying around everywhere. They don't hate the Niceivores because they're actually grateful! Nobody is still around who was there for the Great Plague, but their oral stories help share the knowledge that without the Niceivores eating their dead and killing the sick every now and then, the Eatsalottus is surely doomed.

Answer 14

Seems that your plot requires the prey to be sapient, but then the reader may wonder why there are little or no non-sapient creatures.

That said, since neither of your species (obviously) is human, they don’t have to have human emotions and attitudes.

There could be a collective symbiosis—but I’ll stop there, as other answers have already provided several possibilities for that.

Answer 15

Protection

There are worse predators around who'll kill you more brutally, painfully and/or randomly. So the Predators are our protectors; they guard and protect us - and all we have to do in return for this benevolent protection, is to let them eat our old, infirm, sick, injured and/or criminals. (...and maybe a monthly quota if that's not enough.)

Answer 16

I suggest a combination of two social norms:

No killing people for food.

Since the prey are sapient, killing them is considered murder. But a creature who dies for any other reason (old age, accident, suicide, capital punishment, etc.) can legally be eaten. With a sufficiently high number of prey creatures, there should be enough “natural” deaths to sustain the carnivores.

Being eaten is a dignified way to dispose of a dead body.

Think of it like being an organ donor, where a person's death allows others to live. Except that instead of donating your heart or liver, you donate your meat.

Funeral rituals could help reinforce this perception. For example, suppose you have a carnivore monarchy, as in The Lion King. Then whenever a herbivore dies, have an elaborate affair where a representative of the royal family visits the deceased's next of kin, bringing a special gift (perhaps a basket of rare fruits), and giving a speech about the Circle of Life. At the end, the body will be taken off to a butcher's shop, but try to downplay this part. Get people to focus on “King Simba came to offer his condolences; what an honor!” and less on “I wonder whose dinner poor Zack Zebra will be”.