[Lestat]

Right, I'm being rather nitty myself. My point is that "play" has been shown to aide an animal in it's survival. I think I read somewhere that the only animal that does not engage in play is a reptile. They are just born ready for the world. All other animals play in order to hone the skills needed for survival.

So the cat gets"use" from the act of batting a mouse back and forth to death, even if it doesn't eat it. My big thing is "use". If you get use out of killing an animal, I can't begrudge that. Even if I don't agree with it, or I wouldn't do it (such as hunting).