And people say studying philosophy is irrelevant for every day life.
here we were just laughing about a bird / venting about a predatory species, and suddenly we are talking ethics and the question if moral(?) applies to animals when discussed by humans.

You are obviously right, in that i place my “pets” over a random predator. but then again, is the comparison truely equal if the heron is your “pet”? the fish seem to me pretty passive in all this, except in their inability to not attract things that want to eat them.

Is good and bad or right and wrong even applicable to animals in nature? and does a fish in a domesticated pond even fall under “living in nature”? would that even make a difference?

Or is the fault my own for not making sure the fish are protected?

Getting back to the beginning, do i have an obligation to moderate my language in any way?
Is it mean to wish for the heron to starve?
Could maybe a case be made that it is a request for poetic justice that one heron lives and a fish dies, and another one starves and a fish lives.

Philosophy is the shit.