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{{trope}}
[[File:Donald-Duck-roast-bird_4284bird 4284.jpg|link=Donald Duck|frame|Shut up or you're next!]]
 
{{quote|''"[[Let Me Get This Straight...]]. You know her; she knows you. But she wants to eat him. And...everybody's okay with this? '''Did I miss something?'''"''|'''Timon''', ''[[The Lion King]]''}}
 
There's an [[Elephant in the Living Room|unspoken awkward issue]] in fiction involving [[Talking Animal|Talking Animals]]s. If everyone can talk, and everyone at least implicitly has the same thoughts and feeling as everyone else regardless of species, does this mean predatory creatures are forced to engage in a form of murder to eat? Or is it more like ''cannibalism?'' And then [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|what happens when]] [[Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!|human characters are added into the mix]]?
 
Works of fiction will address this in one of several ways:
 
* By far the most common approach, especially in older fiction, is the [[Predators Are Mean]] subtrope. All your heroes are herbivores. All the villains are carnivores à la the Big Bad Wolf from the Three Little Pigs.<ref> In [[Real Life]], pigs and wolves are both omnivores, eating both plants and other animals. Wolves will prey upon pigs, but only to the extent that they would prey on other organisms, e.g. it would be rewarding and they could pull it off without getting themselves killed.</ref> This subtrope is so strong culturally that people assume [[Real Life]] predators are mean, evil, and nasty, and all the herbivores are cute, cuddly, and friendly. Anyone with any knowledge of real animal behavior knows that's not the case at all.
* Sometimes your heroes are predatory animals. Now carnivores are okay, so scavengers often become the [[Villain by Default|Villains By Default]]. The usual ethos is that only evil weirdos eat carrion, and only cowards do not hunt. They will be depicted as ugly and intimidating. Example: ''[[The Lion King]]''.<ref> Non-exclusive scavenging and predation is rarely used in fiction. In [[Real Life]], lions scavenge off hyena kill more often than vice versa.</ref>
* A increasingly popular option in recent fiction has been to render the carnivore's prey in a realistic, [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?|non-cute manner]]. The prey does not talk -- thetalk—the prey is not humanised in any way. [[No Cartoon Fish|Fish]], in particular, are nearly always a viable mealtime option, unless they're major characters.
* Similar to the option immediately above, some works such as ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'' and the ''[[Spellsinger]]'' novels make it clear that only some of the animals have human-like intelligence. In some fiction, there are explicit differences between the anthropomorphic and normal members of the same species -- bipedalityspecies—bipedality, speech, clothing, etc. It's okay for a talking lion to eat a non-talking deer, but eating a talking deer would be tantamount to cannibalism.
* Establish that the carnivore is unlucky ([[Looney Tunes|Wile E. Coyote]]) or that their chosen prey is too fast or aggressive to catch -- forcatch—for example, Jerry of ''[[Tom and Jerry]]''. This makes the point moot, since we never see the predator eat.
* Depart from real-world biology completely: the carnivore can choose to go vegan if they really want to. A common way of doing so is by rendering carnivorism as something similar to alcoholism. (''[[An American Tail]]'', ''[[Finding Nemo]]'', ''[[Pride]]'', etc.)
* Somewhat similarly, the solution in works with more of a science fiction bent is that the technology available has created meat substitutes that are readily available for humans and animal carnivores. (''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' explicitly pointed this out in an early episode.)
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== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]'' has played a bit with this problem (despite being guilty of this trope itself in early episodes): after all animals make peace under the new "lion king", they are suddenly facing a situation where no-one is allowed to eat anyone else, thus reducing their entire carnivore population to live solely on insect (and even THAT gives them moral qualms; lucky that a man who's been trying to invent "artificial meat" eventually comes along...)
* ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' brings up this trope sometimes, albeit rarely. In the series, all animals -and even several plants- are Pokémon, and all Pokémon are intelligent. The cast has indeed been seen eating meat and the early games directly address this at points - Farfetch'd and Lapras are said to be near-extinct due to overhunting, and ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver]]'' has you rescuing Slowpoke from Team Rocket...who are harvesting their tails for sale as delicacies. (They grow back, but...). In the first season of the anime, curiously, there ''were'' a few [[No Cartoon Fish|non-Pokémon fish]], but they've been pretty much [[Retcon|retconnedretcon]]ned out of existence. (Much of this was before there was a Pokémon equivalent of almost everything you can think of.) Most of the characters seem to prefer to never talk about such things and enjoy the meal, including the Pokémon.
** Actually, there are real animals in the [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Animals_in_the_Pokemon_world Pokémon world], they were just not brought up very often. In the games Raichu is described as being able to knock out an elephant and Bellsprout eats insects according to their Pokédex entries.
** But they also have Pokémon food...and berries can be fed to any Pokémon...
** In one episode, James has a Magikarp, which is basically a very big koi. They narrowly escaped a sunken ship, and are starving on a makeshift raft in the middle of the ocean. Everyone wants a taste of the juicy Magikarp, except Misty who has a soft spot for Water-types. The only reason Magikarp survived was because its scales were too hard to bite through. Nobody seemed to care that Magikarp was ''alive''.<ref> That might be because of ikizukuri, a variety of sashimi in which the fish is still alive when the dish is served. The way the characters imagine the Magikarp sashimi is exactly the way ikizukuri is served.</ref>
** In an episode featuring Farfetch'd, the Pokédex states that the bird is best served with the leek it carries as a weapon.
* The gamesag and cards specifically cite references of Pokémon eating each other; Ekans have clearly been stated to eat other Pokémon eggs. According to Pokémon Silver, Furret eat Rattata, and according to one of the TCG cards Omastar is a predator that cracked open Shellder shells and sucked out their insides. Sneasel specifically targets the eggs of Pidgey, who in turn love to eat Magikarp, Wurmple developed poison to fight off Swellow, who still manage to eat many Wurmple anyway. Thankfully, Pokémon you've caught won't try to eat each other.
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** Even more [[Tear Jerker|heartbreakingly]], {{spoiler|At one point, the two get stuck in the snow together. There is no grass around, so Mei will almost certainly not make it back home alive. There is no prey for Gabu to eat, either...except Mei, that is. Gabu refuses to listen at first, but when Mei points out that he might be able to live if he eats him, and that Mei will almost certainly die anyway, he reluctantly sees things his way, though not at all happily. Luckily, they find a way out without having to resort to that.}} Honestly, the whole movie could be seen as a [[Deconstruction]]/[[Reconstruction]] of the trope.
* ''[[Yume no Crayon Oukoku]]'' has an odd situation. The Crayon Kingdom has several neighboring kingdoms, such as the Hamburger Kingdom and the Rice Ball Kingdom. When dignitaries from all these kingdoms were invited to a banquet, we couldn't help wondering, "What do the hamburgers eat?" The question was answered: they eat smaller, non-sentient hamburgers.
* Averted in ''[[Wolf's Rain]]'', where in spite of the wolves' ability to replenish energy by sleeping in the moonlight, it's clearly no substitute for actual food. Kiba mentions having gone a month with only moonlight to sustain him, and consequently is much thinner than the others. They find a decomposing deer carcass in one of the early episodes (which everyone but Hige turns down, generally because it's ''rotting''). After Toboe's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] where he kills the giant walrus, they eat the walrus--andwalrus—and in a surprisingly dignified acknowledgment, the walrus says something along the lines of, "You may have killed me, but I have saved you all."
* In ''[[Serendipity the Pink Dragon]]'', Bobby talks to and sings a musical number with some coconuts before eating them.
* In the manga ''Wa!'', there's a [http://www.mangareader.net/wa/12/18 scene] in which [[Those Two Girls]] engage in a [[Seinfeldian Conversation]] which quickly turns into [[Conversational Troping]] regarding this trope and [[Furry Confusion]].
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** Of course, that raises the question of what the hell the wolves were eating before they invented spaceflight.
*** They ate sheep from their own planet. That's why they are extinct, and why they have to go to space now.
* The [[DC Comics]] series ''[[Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew]]'' takes place on Earth-C, a parallel Earth populated solely by anthropomorphic animals. The series presents the world's populace as being vegetarian (though eggs are acceptable, and vegetarian versions of burgers, hot dogs, etc. exist), including carnivorous-in-real-life species such as felines. The comic explains that while their prehistoric, uncivilized/unevolved ancestors did eat meat, animal-kind ceased doing so once it became "civilized". A villain in one story attempts attacking the Zoo Crew with fierce prehistoric animals brought from, as he describes it, "the age of the flesh-eaters." The idea of eating another animal is viewed among Earth-C's populace as cannibalism, as seen in one story where a "[[Our Werewolves Are Different|wuz-wolf]]" -- a—a friendly wolf who, under a full moon, becomes a feral human -- attemptshuman—attempts to eat a pig.
* In ''[[Blacksad]]'' we see a photograph of a barbeque where two polar bears and an arctic fox ([[Petting Zoo People|anthropomorphic]] of course) are grilling sausages. In the ''[[Blacksad]]'' world not all animals are anthropomorphized...but the pigs are.
* The French comic ''[[De Cape et de Crocs]]'', which is set in a [[Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!]] world, plays with this trope. In one book, the main characters are taken prisoner by a tribe of savages who, at first, seem to be your average [[Cannibal Tribe]]: they bind them, dump them into a cauldron of boiling water and vegetables, the usual works. The heroes manage to free themselves and befriend the tribe leader, who is confused when they complain to him about the barbaric custom: his tribe, he says, have never been cannibals. That's when the characters seem to remember that they are, actually, an anthropomorphic ''fox'' and ''wolf''. And the savages, while not cannibals, definitely have no problems with eating dog meat. (That's only one way in which the comic parodies and subverts the heck out of various adventure tropes.)
** Which doesn't mean that [[Carnivore Confusion]] isn't played straight elsewhere in the comic. The galley of the pirate ship definitely contains pork, when one member of the crew is a talking pig.
** And even more amusingly, when the pirates threaten to eat the hostages, the one marking out the "cut here" lines on the servant is...the pig. Not to mention the fact that [[Big Badass Wolf|Don Lope]] is the one [[Hypocritical Humor|calling out the pirates on eating humans while wearing an expression suggesting he's gone rabid]].
* The newspaper comic ''[[Tom the Dancing Bug]]'' parodies this in a strip called, I think, "Anthropomorphic Antix". An anthropomorphic dog is walking a dog on a leash when an anthropomorphic pig holding a bag walks up. The pig says, "I don't get it. Aren't you both dogs?" to which the dog replies "Isn't that a pork chop in that bag?"
* ''[[Douwe Dabbert]]'' features an animal kingdom populated by [[Funny Animal|Funny Animals]]s. Every single one of them is vegetarian, including normally predatory ones, such as the wolves. Two human villains then entered the kingdom. Not knowing that the animals were intelligent, they slaughtered and roasted the innkeeper, a chicken (the inn as empty at the time, and quite isolated from the rest of the kingdom). When the wolves arrive, they eat along, not knowing it's the innkeeper. When they realise it afterwards, they decide that they like the taste of meat, and proceed to conquer the kingdom with the human villains. {{spoiler|They go back to being vegetarians at the end of the story.}}
* ''[[Elf Quest]]'' doesn't really fit the "talking animal" topic, but it notably avoids the "carnivores are okay as long as they are predatory" bit. For the Wolfriders (a tribe of elves), it is normal to leave the bodies of their dead to the wolves.
* In ''Snarfquest'', after the gaggaleech/death leech Wished for the ability to communicate with any living thing, it discovered to its horror that a type of prey-animal it'd fed on previously was just a baby, and began screaming for its mother when the leech attacked. For the rest of the series, the gaggaleech wound up feeding on fruit (which still cried for help!) or the blood of fresh-killed monsters slain by Snarf and his friends.
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* In ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police]]'', while there's only a few truly anthropomorphic animals, lots of other animals are sapient and can talk. This might be deliberately dark humour to reinforce what a [[Crapsack World]] the setting is, though. In addition, Max is repeatedly shown eating meat, even though he's a rabbit, albeit one with [[Cartoon Creature|carnivorous-looking teeth]].
* Played with in early issues of the children's magazine ''Cricket'', where the marginal comic strip's talking insects hung around with Zoot the shrew: a mammal who, by rights, should've been eating them all. For a time, Zoot's friendship with "everybuggy" was justified by his being so nearsighted, he mistook them for bunnies and other creatures not on a shrew's menu; later, he got some glasses and learned the truth, but conveniently also turned vegetarian.
* Beast Boy of the [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]] has come to this conclusion: as he can [[Animorphism|transform into any animal under the sun]], eating ''any'' kind of meat, feels like cannibalism, with eggs having a [[Squick|squickysquick]]y [[Eats Babies|implication]]. He tries to share his [[Future Food Is Artificial|tofuburgers]] with the other Titans whenever possible(they rarely partake), and has been known to turn into particularly cute animals and quip that they should at least vow never to eat ''green'' meat.
 
 
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** All those times Pete has kidnapped Minnie...was it for love...or [[I'm a Humanitarian|lunch]]?
*** Well, Pete ''is'' [[Cats Are Mean|a cat]] - a really fat and ugly one, yes, but still a cat.
* ''[[Bedknobs and Broomsticks]]'' features a sequence that takes place underwater, with the live-action cast dancing with a city of talking fish. All well and good -- untilgood—until the merry ball is broken up by a fisherman. Who turns out to be a talking bear. Because all the animals on this island island were made human-like thanks to a magic spell. Hello, [[Fridge Logic]].
* Addressed in ''[[Finding Nemo]]''. Nemo is introduced to a Pelican who makes an apology to Nemo on the off chance that he had ever tried to eat him in the past. Apparently, predators only eat prey animals they're not on a first-name basis with. Which makes sense, one with pet fish usually won't go after them for food, and many people keep farm animals as pets without going vegetarian.
** Also, carnivorism among sharks is rendered as similar to alcoholism, and the sharks in the movie belong to a "Sharks Anonymous" group. The question of what they're supposed to eat instead is completely ignored.
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** And then for some reason utterly ignored in the sequel, "Escape to Africa", where most of the animals live in harmony under the rule of a benevolent pride of lions, never minding the fact that a lot of the animals under their rule are a major diet source for lions in real life.
** [[Dueling Movies|The similar Disney movie]], ''The Wild'', avoided the issue altogether, except for the unusual subversion in which the film's wildebeest villain intended to turn the Circle of Life on its head by eating lion meat and "ascending to carnivorism." [[Cloudcuckoolander|Of course he was more than a little cracked...]]
* ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'' also avoids the issue, since the Furious Five are carnivores or omnivores (Monkey and Crane), but all we ever see them eating is...noodles. (Granted, it's the only thing the herbivorous Po knows how to cook, and coming from a village where all the denizens are prey species -- rabbitsspecies—rabbits, geese, pigs, sheep, etc. -- kind of makes that a no-brainer. But still...) Even Tigress, who initially refuses Po's dinner thanks to the continued chip on her shoulder, instead eats a plate of tiny tofu. Po, of course, only eats things like cookies, peaches, and dumplings, hopefully not stuffed with meat (though, thankfully, [[Animal Stereotypes|not bamboo]]). The only character we can assume to truly eat meat, due to his size, personality, and mental state, is the villain Tai Lung...and [[Determinator|rather having a bit more on his mind at the time]], we never see him eat either. The fact that, according to [[Word of God]], the villagers were deliberately designed to be prey species in order to seem more helpless and timid before Tai Lung's ravages, on the other hand, treads very close to crossing the cannibalism line of this trope -- andtrope—and purposefully so.
** ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'' is a big offender. Every animal in their version of ancient China is sentient (even the insects), making it jarring whenever it's shown carnivorous animals (Viper, Tigress, Mantis) living in harmony with the prey-species villagers.
*** Except since Tigress is shown eating tofu, and all the others eating noodles, the issue is actually avoided. It seems to be the case that the predatory animals eat meat substitutes. We're also never shown any beasts of burden pulling carts (since bulls and takins and such are also anthropomorphized), so we don't know if any non-sentient herbivores exist to be eaten.
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* [[Richard Scarry]]'s ''Busytown'' is a bright modern town populated by anthropomorphic animals. The problem of who eats who is ignored. In fact one can find a family of jolly pigs at the supermarket checking out the butcher's selection. Yes, they are selling bacon, pork and ham.
** And let's not forget the ''[[Animal Farm|farmer pigs raising pigs]]'' in one of the books!
* Turned on its head and parodied with the [[Let's Meet the Meat]] scene in ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (novel)|The Restaurant at the End of the Universe]]''. The cruelty, Galactic culture decides, is not in eating animals. The cruelty comes in eating animals who probably do not ''want'' to be eaten. So they breed livestock that is intelligent enough to know what's going on -- andon—and is also disturbingly eager to be devoured. The animal even goes so far as to recommend cuts of itself to the diners. (By the way, Vore [[Fetish Fuel]]?)
** Arthur is completely [[Squick|squickedsquick]]ed out by this concept ("That's not the point! Maybe it is the point, I don't care. I don't want to think about it"), but has come to terms with it by ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/Mostly Harmless|Mostly Harmless]]'', where he meets a whole herd of these creatures, and is quite happy to discuss barbecue arrangements with them. This time it's Random who's [[Squick|squickedsquick]]ed.
* The above-mentioned ''[[Dinotopia]]'', which takes place in a land where only [[Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!|about ten percent of the population is human]] and the rest are [[Intellectual Animal|Intellectual Animals]]s of all imaginable species, has a relatively clever approach to this problem. All carnivores have switched to a diet of fish and it's implied that those who can (most notably humans) have gone entirely over to veganism. The twist is that some animals refused to make the change and have exiled themselves to the Rainy Basin and Backwood Flats, where they live as their wild ancestors did (similar to The Wild in ''Kevin and Kell''). Interestingly, this is treated by the major characters as more of an alternate lifestyle choice than a break of the rules and such characters are not vilified as one would expect. (At least, not in the book. [[They Just Didn't Care|The movie]] is another story...)
** In one of the not-quite-Canon spin-off novels, a city-dwelling herbivore was shown journeying through the Rainy Basin as she was about to die, providing the carnivores with food. This act was referred to in almost religious terms.
*** though the spin-off novel is not-quite-Canon the act is cannon and even mentioned in the original book.
** To be sure, the assurance that fish are kosher becomes a bit troubling when it becomes increasingly clear in ''Journey to Chandara'' that any species with more brains than a sponge can communicate with each-other...
** Additionally, leathers, skins, and furs were seen in use by the Dinotopians. Readers had to wait until ''Journey to Chandara'' for the explanation: Arthur Dennison is given a new journal bound in the skin of an [[Intellectual Animal]] "whose dying wish was to donate his body to science". [[Fridge Logic|Um...]]
*** Gets even [[Squick|Squickier]]ier when you realize that, until the 1800s or so, books bound [http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2006/01/07/some_of_nations_best_libraries_have_books_bound_in_human_skin/ in human skin] were not entirely unheard of...
* ''[[Spellsinger]]'' takes the approach of making [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?|all the reptiles (save turtles) non-sapient]] and therefore "kosher".
** However, the books suffer a [[Continuity Drift]] when in one book the intelligent owl eats mice but every other book in the series has them as intelligent. Either that or the owl didn't care that he was eating an intelligent creature.
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* The Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and others in the [[Land of Oz]] series tend to be examples of "the carnivore can go vegetarian if he really wants to". Granted, living in a magical land probably alters certain biological rules that would apply in our world.
* In ''[[Wicked (novel)|Wicked]]'', ''The Wizard Of Oz'' from the (not quite so) Big Bad's perspective, there are animals and then there are Animals, who talk. Humans and Animals eat animals and use them as beasts of burden.
* Daine, the main character in [[Tamora Pierce]]'s ''Immortals'' books, suffers from Carnivore Confusion. She's a "wildmage" who, among other things, can [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|turn into any animal she wants]]. Before she started to learn about her magic, she grew up eating meat like anybody else, and continued to hunt and eat meat for a long time after discovering it -- sheit—she says at one point that she doesn't see why this would surprise anybody, since animals kill and eat each other all the time, and it's not as if she kills for sport or uses her magic to lure prey towards her. This changes, however, after a bad experience or two when ''she herself'' is pursued in animal form by hunters -- gamehunters—game meat becomes [[Nausea Fuel]] for her, and she can't stand to eat it anymore, having felt what the animal went through. She doesn't object to it in principle or try to stop other people; she just literally can't stomach it herself. It's mentioned that she gets by okay with domesticated meat by never bonding mentally with any farm animals, and how she feels about [[No Cartoon Fish|fish or insects]] isn't mentioned.
* The Medieval work the ''Roman de Renard'' (the stories of Reynard the Fox) are an early example of this, and probably the major inspiration for [[Redwall]]. Although [[No Cartoon Fish]] applies, most other animals are sapient and you have a situation where they are ruled by a Lion and other nobility are carnivores but others are herbivores. The logic seems to be that since [[Aristocrats Are Evil]] in the real world, it isn't that odd that characters would be perfectly willing to kill and eat their fellow subjects.
* The frumious bandersnatchi of Jinx in [[Larry Niven]]'s "[[Known Space]]" stories were bioengineered by the tnuctipun and sold to the Thrint Slavers as meat animals. Actually, the tnuctipun did not tell their "customers" that the bandersnatchi were intelligent, and working as spies and saboteurs waiting for the balloon to go up. It is not clear how they, unlike most intelligent species in the ancient galaxy, survived the Tnuctip Revolt.
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== Newspaper Comics ==
* ''[[Pogo (comic strip)|Pogo]]'' played around with this trope a lot, especially in its earlier days. The animals went back and forth between viewing carnivorism as no big deal ("I dunno, Pogo...sounds kinda good.") and treating it as cannibalism.
** The prime example here is Albert the Alligator, who in the early days of the comic would sometimes end up swallowing smaller animals by accident (they were usually saved, though) and would sometimes be accused of eating someone if they went missing. He'd sometimes threaten to eat the small critters if they annoyed him, and at one point even chased after the villains with a knife and fork, as revenge when they'd tried to eat Pogo -- butPogo—but he never actually went through with it. He pretty much stopped doing this in the comic's later years, but he'd still cheerfully mooch off his friends and eating their food.
** The villains of the comic were more openly carnivorous, especially Wiley Catt and Seminole Sam, who would at times try to cook and eat the smaller animals, such as Pogo.
** The other characters would (in addition to cakes, biscuits and other types of snack food) eat fish, who were mostly portrayed as non-sentient...though in one very early story, Pogo and Howland Owl are getting into a discussion while fishing, resulting in the same fish getting pulled in and out of the water a number of times...until it asks, in an annoyed tone: "Is you fishin' or just hossin' around? Make up yo' minds! I ain't got all day!"
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** The illustrated short story ''There's A Hair In My Dirt!'' by the same author, is an especially brutal mockery of this trope. The 'beautiful forest maiden' Harriet, on her way home from a stroll through the forest, encounters [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?|a snake attacking a mouse]]. She grabs a big stick and bashes the big bad vicious snake to death, then cuddles the poor helpless little mouse until it recovers, upon which she releases it back into the meadow. Good having triumphed over evil, the forest is now a safer place for all woodland creatures! Well...not quite. {{spoiler|Turns out the mouse was ''carrying deadly diseases''. As mice tend to do...which is why it's actually a good thing that snakes keep the population in check. And so 'one fine spring morning Harriet, delirious with fever, stumbled out of her little cottage, fell over, and died.'}}
** There was a series of full-page color strips from ''Cows of Our Planet'', and every age of evolution includes at least one cow-thing, leading to the future, where the whole world is ruled by cows. And there's a burger restaurant behind a wax museum full of butchers.
* The straight version is played deliberately for laughs in ''[[Sherman's Lagoon]]'', as part of its championship of 'uncute' critters: the two starring sharks eat other anthropomorphic fish regularly, usually after chatting for awhile. They also frequently go after ''humans'' -- which—which they call "[[Puny Humans|hairless beach apes]]" -- as—as well, 'fishing' for them using lines cast onto the beach. Numerous strips discuss the best baits for the various types of human.
* Played straight in ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]''...except that the predator crocs are altogether too stupid to catch their prey, Zebra, even though he lives right next door. They survive in the meanwhile by devouring fried chicken and other fast food.
** They doubled the fun when some lions moved into the house on the other side of Zebra and the wives are very competent hunters. Fortunately for Zebra, the lions went through a divorce and the husband scored big in the settlement. Got both the house and the wives have to ship a crate of meat each week.
*** [[Genius Bonus]]: Male lions don't hunt. Lionesses do all the work, and then the males bull in and take their fill (giving us a literal grounding in the phrase "lion's share"); the females and cubs can take from what's left when the males are done.
** Pig apparently really likes bacon. He was kicked out of the Pig Fraternity for enjoying BLTs, which gave the first ''Pearls'' collection its title.
* In ''[[Garfield]]'', Garfield has eaten (or tried to) [http://garfield.nfshost.com/2004/07/08/ birds], [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1997/05/23/ fish], and [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1988/01/31/ flowers] that are often shown to be as intelligent as he is even after holding conversations with them, and also has no compunctions whatsoever about squashing talking spiders (and their [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1986/08/24/ grieving families].) For the most part, Garfield will eat anything but mice, established within the first week of the strip's creation. ("Show me a good mouser, and I'll show you a cat with bad breath.") He also abhors spinach (especially cooked spinach) and raisins (even in cookies). A [http://garfield.nfshost.com/1994/10/30/ certain strip] has Garfield facing the ghosts of all the animals he's eaten, including what looks like a ''cow'' or a ''horse''. (It's probably meant to be a cow [beef lasagna], given its split hooves, although if he's ever actually eaten cat food, a horse might be possible as well.) Meanwhile, the protagonists of ''U.S. Acres'' are herbivores, with predatory animals appearing only as villains, unless you count Booker's fruitless pursuit of a worm which sometimes appears more intelligent than he is -- althoughis—although, in "The Worm Turns", Sheldon the ambulatory egg mentions that he's planning to have ''quiche'' for dinner...
** The front cover of Vol. 4 has Garfield about to have two eggs sunny-side up (truly a meal of epic proportions), when he sees that Booker, wings crossed and glaring at him, is standing there with Sheldon. The ''back'' cover has him running with his plate as Sheldon chases him, Booker riding on top and brandishing a fork...
* Wagner from the Finnish newspaper comic ''Viivi & Wagner'' is an anthropomorphic pig - whose favorite foods include bacon and ham.
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** Unknown if it's been retconned since or not, but the Beastlands had a sort of 'Valhalla-esque' vibe - anything that died there(whether eaten or not) would revive the next day. Thus Mouse Lord being eaten by Owl Lord isn't so much utterly destroyed as inconvenienced for a few hours, maybe a day.
*** You mean ''eaten alive'' then inconvenienced for a few hours?
* Subverted in the [[Ravenloft]] setting's domain of the Wildlands, where ''all'' the [[Talking Animal|Talking Animals]]s have a mean streak regardless of ecological niche.
* Also AD&D Example but not involving animals, its quite common for [[Exclusively Evil]] Races to eat anything not their race, like Giants, Orcs or Goblins. On a more [[Nightmare Fuel|horrifying]] extent, [[Eldritch Abomination|Illithids]] even breed and enslave [[Anything That Moves]] as tasty snacks and workforce. Also in one Novel its stated that humans make bad slaves for [[Our Elves Are Better|drow]], because they are way to prone for rebelliousness, but they are quite useful for trade connections or if you run low on other food...
* The Lunar Exalted in ''[[Exalted]]'' have the innate ability to assume the form of animals. They acquire new forms by killing an animal of the appropriate species (presumably after hunting it down themselves) and drinking its fresh blood in a very literal case of "you are what you eat". And given the right charm, they can use this trick with [[I'm a Humanitarian|humans]] as well...
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*** Mario is friends with Toad, stomps Goombas, and eats big mushrooms and 1up's.
**** It's never explicitly stated they're mushrooms; the ''[[Super Mario Brothers Super Show]]'' depicted them as midgets with no noses and mushroom hats. If this is true to the series, then the residents of the Bean Bean kingdom aren't beans who eat beans, they're green people who love eating beans. It makes sense that they're humans when you consider Peach is a human, as well as the fact that her Grand Mother was a Toad in SMRPG.
* ''[[Spore]]'' pretty much averts this entirely -- asentirely—as a Carnivore or Omnivore creature, you can socialize with the same creatures you are capable of killing and eating. The same holds true in the Tribal stage, and any other tribes don't seem to mind if you're slaughtering other sapient creatures and consuming them. (Not averted so much if you're playing Tribal as a straight carnivore and offer a gift basket of meat to a tribe of herbivores...)
* ''[[Animal Crossing]]'', being ''Animal Crossing'', totally avoids this. At least, for 364 days of the year. The sole exception is the "Harvest Festival", wherein everyone in town gathers at the wishing well for a great big Thanksgiving-esque dinner with no turkey. The only food there seems to be stuffing, vegetables, and the like...with the exception of one big, empty platter. As it turns out, the "guest of honor", a turkey named Franklin, has been in hiding ever since he got a letter from the mayor.
{{quote|Franklin: "We cordially invite you to be the main guest at our annual Harvest Festival. Heh heh heh hoorf..." What's wrong with that?!? I can even see where the word "dish" was erased and then replaced with "guest!"}}
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* The game ''[[Lugaru]]'' has wolves and rabbits, both heavily anthropomorphised. In the game, the wolves state their desire to enslave and eat the rabbits on the island of Lugaru; for some time, apparently, the wolves and rabbits lived in balance, but in the game the rabbit king turns traitor to the wolves in the attempt to save himself and his family, forcing the main character (a rabbit) to kill all the wolves.
* Played straight in ''[[Oddworld|Abe's Odyssey]]'' (and its sequels). The glukkons want to use their cheap labor as a cheaper filler for their new taste sensation.
* In the ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' series, the majority of the [[Talking Animal|Talking Animals]]s are either [[Heel Race Turn|reformed]] [[Mooks|Lurkers]] or [[Weasel Mascot|ottsels]] like [[Snarky Non-Human Sidekick|Daxter]]. However, there is one [[Polly Wants a Microphone|bird]] named [[Embarrassing First Name|Pecker]]. There's a scene in the racing spin-off ''[[Vehicular Combat|Jak X]]'' where he sees [[Combat Commentator|Blitz]] eating poultry and objects, saying that that could be his uncle. So apparently macaw [[Expy|expies]] are food in that universe.
* A short instance in ''[[Terranigma]]'' finds your character, Ark, trapped in an icy cave with a talking goat. . . and the goat's dead husband. The next morning the goat asks if you are hungry and would like some breakfast, before walking over to her husband (complete with dramatic music cue).
** The goat claims they must do what they need to survive, and the world would be without another goat otherwise. Ark becomes distraught and decides against the offer, disgusted. The goat informs him that he, "must be stronger". Shortly thereafter. . . the goat opens up a new area by ramming into it, and the character can climb to safety, the goat informs him she will make it out later. {{spoiler|She doesn't. If you go back to the same area later, you will find not one, but two dead goats. She cannibalized her husband for nothing}}
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* One of the filler strips of ''[[SSDD]]'' shows why this would [http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20080327.html not happen] if there were sentient versions of animals as well as non-anthropomorphic ones.
* In ''[http://www.rhjunior.com/TH/ TallyHo]'' the main characters are a fox and a hound. The fox is a carnivore but is only ever shown eating human food he has obtained somehow. He even points out to a frightened rabbit that thinks she's about to be eaten that he prefers his meat "batter-fried in 30 herbs and spices and served in a paper bucket".
* In ''[[Gene Catlow]]'', [[Word of God]] says that all meat comes from donors -- furriesdonors—furries who donate their mortal remains to be processed as food, much like [[Real Life]] organ donors. This is explicitly mentioned in the fanfic The Basalt City Chronicles, where Eugene Catlow says he wishes he could thank the donor of the meat he is eating for keeping himself in good shape.
* ''[[21st Century Fox (webcomic)]]'' originally had the carnivores eat meat (a fox, for instance, once took down a '''lion''' and made him into "lion jerky"), but when a law was passed that made it illegal for people to eat other people, they had to rely on S.P.A.M. (Scientifically Produced Animal Matter). When said law was repealed, people were quite pleased with the good-tasting S.P.A.M.
* ''[http://www.cookingschoolnews.com/?cid=PBF112-Mr._Rex.jpg This]'' strip from ''[[The Perry Bible Fellowship]]''.
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**** Poor Uncle Chuck...And Bunny's arm and legs...And Tails' folks...And Mutski...And Cat. And Auri's friends...And about 3/4 of everyone else on the planet...
* ''[[Father of the Pride]]'' plays with this. The main character is a lion who's best friend is a Gopher who's name is "Snack". At one point, Snack's girlfriend (also aptly named "Candy") dumps him, and to protect his feelings, tells Snack that he ate his girlfriend instead.
* In an episode of ''[[CatDog]]'', Dog tries to answer the question of where meat comes from. He explains how there's a guy who plants ''meat plants'' -- meanwhile—meanwhile, Cat just explains slaughter. Of course, Dog goes crazy at the idea of eating sapient beings, who he thinks are friends, and turns vegan. Then, Dog starts to become delusional as he imagines that vegetables ''are'' his friends. After all that, Dog then tries to eat Cat, [[Insane Troll Logic|because he's not his ''friend'' but his ''brother'']]. Fortunately, [[The Cuckoolander Was Right|the guy who plants meat plants]] appears and solves the problem.
** Not enough [[Nightmare Fuel]]? Cat and Dog share bodies, so if Dog eats Cat, ''he eats his own body''.
** Well, they only fell pain in their half, so they have their own bodies, but they meet in the middle, [[Captain Obvious|'coz they're conjoined]]. So Dog would have only eaten Cat, which just leaves Dog and his half of the body...
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* Confused? Not if you're watching the new Jim Henson series on [[PBS Kids]], ''[[Dinosaur Train]]''. This series seems to go out of the way to talk about the differences between herbivores and carnivores. The dinosaurs that are carnivores, however, do seem to have come to an unspoken agreement to not eat fellow dinosaurs.
** While they're alive, anyway. Buddy, on discovering he's a Tyrannosaurus, also discovers that he likes carrion, and in another episode, Annie explains that the T-rex family migrates to follow the herbivores, because "they eat plants, and we eat them".
* In an episode of ''[[Krypto the Superdog (animation)|Krypto the Superdog]]'', Krypto and his cat friend Streaky (who also has the same powers) are exposed to red kryptonite and turn into fish versions of themselves. Not only are the sharks portrayed as being mean bastards preying on innocent fish, there's actually a DOLPHIN who is APPALLED that Streaky eats fish, and even has the nerve to call him (along with a bunch of other fish who find out the truth) a "fish eater". Both [[Carnivore Confusion]] AND [[You Fail Biology Forever]] since both dolphins and whales are treated as if they are related to fish. It's even worse when you consider that Dolphins feed primarily on fish.
* ''[[Back at the Barnyard]]'' - the fact that some of the cast of barn animals include a dog and a ferret, tends not to bother the others at all. However, Freddy the ferret does very frequently fantasize eating his best friend, Peck (who happens to be a chicken), but tries to maintain a vegetarian diet (the producers seem to disregard the fact that ferrets are obligate carnivores and completely lack the ability to derive nutrition from plant matter). In one hilarious scene, Otis the cow is seen EATING A SALAMI SANDWICH, but later turns out it's just veggie salami.
** The fact that the entire cast are intelligent, talking animals raises the further question about the morals of human meat consumption, and why other equally intelligent barn animals don't try to avoid this fate.
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* The inhabitants of the Candy Kingdom in the Land of Ooo in ''[[Adventure Time]]'' are sentient candy. Every building and even the streets are made out of candy too.
* In ''[[Thundercats 2011]],'' Third Earth's [[World of Funny Animals]] depicts Thundera's [[Catfolk|Cats]] not as obligate carnivores, but omnivores like humans. They eat meat, presumably non-sentient species, but the [[Fishmen]] sailors from "Ramlak Rising" have no qualms about eating other sentients...like the ''Cats.'' Indeed, the ship's cook has designs on stuffing the Thunderkittens, and when the Fishman Captain Tunar says he would have let the Cats eat his own first mate had he known they were such competent fighters, he's not entirely joking. In a subsequent episode, the Cats leave ''nonanthropomorphic'' fish-skeletons as food scraps, while an enemy [[Lizard Folk]] muses on the idea of eating the Cats roasted.
* A stunningly brutal aversion in a one-off gag on ''[[Tuff Puppy]]''. When looking into Kitty's past, they see her sixteenth birthday where her mother hired a very sentient (yet normal sized) mouse magician, Kitty ate him without even a second thought, understandably [[Squick|squickingsquick]]ing out the partygoers.
* ''[[Veggie Tales]]'' has a world populated by talking vegetables and fruits, in which there are pies and popcorn balls as food, and apparently "apple choppers". It was [[Word of God|confirmed in the commentary]] for ''Duke and the Great Pie War'' (and demonstrated in ''Jonah'') that there are non-sentient fruits and vegetables in their world as well.
** In their version of Daniel and the Lion's Den, a ''cucumber'' is tossed to lions.
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* The "carnivores are mean" subtrope is so damn pervasive, wildlife centers and nature magazines are often deluged with calls and letters from hysterical bird lovers (really?) asking what can be done about [http://www.cvm.umn.edu/raptor/education/faqs/hawkspreying/home.html the mean hawk eating all the poor little house sparrows]. Seriously. For the record, backyard hawks and cats (don't forget that [[Cats Are Mean]] too) mostly go after Eurasian House Sparrows anyway. House Sparrows, for those not in the know, are an invasive species in the Americas who have wreaked havoc on native species. Fortunately they're so used to living around human houses for safety that they're almost too easy for predators to hunt.
** Speaking of backyard birds, [http://www.audubonmagazine.org/journal/journal0809.html this article], recently published in ''Audubon'' magazine, theorizes that ''one painting'' brought the Blue Jay of all animals under the Carnivores Are Mean banner. This isn't anything new for [[Crows and Ravens|Corvids]] (poor crows; they're like the hyenas of the avian world), but it's weird that the one member of the family generally agreed to be [[Beauty Equals Goodness|the prettiest]] is under this big tent too.
* Paleoartist Mark Witton has brought this subject up for discussion in his online portfolio/blog. The discussion, which has been rather lively so far, accompanies his admittedly surprising illustration that depicts [http://www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton/522293984 carnivorous scavenging behavior in ceratopsians]. Even though he [[Shown Their Work|explains the thinking behind the piece]], several posters can't quite wrap their heads around the idea of a meat-eating Styracosaur -- whichStyracosaur—which just underlines his point.
* [http://failblog.org/2009/03/26/meat-fail/ This editorial], found (naturally) on the Failblog.
* Have you ever heard of David Pearce? The Abolitionist Project? This [http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/08/predatory_animals_are_bad.php Tetrapod Zoology] post will explain all. Or try to.
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** Try a BBQ restaurant with a happy ''live'' pig as its mascot. The pig lying content outside while its owners cook others of its species inside.
* Paul the Octopus, just imagine how would it feel being well-kept in captivity when many individuals of your keepers' species happily eat other members of your species as a delicacy, and on top of that, half humans want to protect you and side with you and [[Fan Dumb|the other half]] want to cook and eat you for correctly "predicting" their team's loss in the FIFA World Cup 2010. The Spanish government even promised that should Spain emerge victorious of the World Cup final (as "predicted" by Paul the Octopus) the paella dish would not be served with octopus ''for a month''.
* While adult humans are (almost) immune to [[Carnivore Confusion]], most children are horrified when they first learn (or figure out) where meat comes from. Even adults are not completely free from it - people tend to be squicked out by eating animal species that are, in the given culture, usual pet species or otherwise held in high regard. That's the reason people in the West often think that eating cats, dogs, parrots, small mammal pets, or horses is terrible (though horse is eaten in France), while it's perfectly fine to eat pigs, which are at least as intelligent as any of the above, and certainly more similar to humans socially.
** Pets are seen as part of the family. Pet species have been bred to become part of the family. The concept of someone eating dog or cat meat is akin to someone eating your adopted brother, sister, or kids. Universal prey species are generally immune from being thought of in such a manner because they're rarely kept as pets. Livestock such as cattle and pigs have been bred to be less intelligent and more tastey then their wild counterparts.
*** Well, FYI guinea pigs were kept and bred for eating originally in South America(curtsey of the other wiki), so are we supposed to think that we "adopt a brother" just to plan to eat him later on originally? in most societies where cats and dogs are eaten, they aren't taken from someone, but are raised just for the purpose, similar to the reason I won't want to eat your dog... And about the bred for stupidity comment, when breading, the trait to look for is obedience rather than less in intelligence. The sheer notion that obedience=stupidity is totally human centric and doesn't make much sense in natural content.
**** In my societies where cats and dogs are eaten, they aren't raised just for the purpose, but are taken (stolen) from someone (who raise them as pets and most often quite treasure them), since raising a cat or dog well is much harder than the profit it provides. Many people come to hate the food after their pets are stolen.
** There are semi-vegetarians who classify meat sources by how intelligent they are believed to be (although how accurate these beliefs are vary, especially as science marches on). There are many people who will eat fish but are squicked out by the thought of eating squid/octopus.
* In Western societies, the Great Apes are considered to be highly intelligent, and their close resemblence to humans make the idea of eating them seem to most people almost equivalent to cannibalism. This is far from the case in the regions of Africa where apes originate. There, they are commonly eaten -- andeaten—and referred to as "bush meat" -- despite—despite various laws and protective regulations forbidding the practice. The current best explanation of the origin of HIV/AIDS is that it mutated from SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus); and was first contracted through the practice of eating "bush meat", due to the physiological similarity between humans and apes.
** It's not unheard of for humans to end up in the "bush meat," too.
** Actually quite a few African cultures had cultural taboos against eating chimpanzees, bonobos, or gorillas. However, with all the wars, droughts, and economic depression that Africa has suffered in recent decades, many people have been forced to choose between either abandoning their taboos or starving.
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