Wild and Hard

Can we any longer fully identify with the hardness of the life wild animals lead?. We are now so far removed from extended contact with the elements that we've largely lost an ability to understand and empathise with the day to day hour by hour struggle for existence experienced by wildlife. We might feel intensely the pathos of suffering when seeing it on a screen in our living rooms but within minutes we can be onto another channel and totally absorbed in a different world. But it's still worth trying to understand the sheer grinding hardness that is life in the wild. A tiny bit of that communicates itself walking solitary through deep snow in bitter cold. Badgers, according to a local farmer, have been coming into one of his barns. Last winter many Scottish red deer perished and I was looking at young deer calves two weeks ago and wondering if they would survive if we have another bad winter. The same farmer was very disapproving of other farmers he knew locally who shot deer on their land and we know this happens. Easy to dismiss concerns at this by reminding ourselves that these animals, in a more natural world, would be constantly under fear of attack by wolves. It's just less easy to accept it when we think of someone coming out of their centrally heated cosy farmhouse with gun ready loaded. Or is that just another show of sentimentality? I like to think most of us have more respect for creatures that live in tough conditions 24 hours a day.