At our psychoanalytic research institute, we have a growing understanding concerning sadistic impulses in some humans and the lack of empathy in others.  We also see high correlations between human violence and violence toward animals. No one can rationally dispute that fur-bearing animals have nervous systems and can, therefore, feel pain; nor can one rationally dispute that fur-bearing animals have life algorithms that exclude being trapped and murdered by humans.  We have irrefutable evidence that some fur trappers enjoy watching animals suffer while caught in the steel jaws of their merciless traps.  They’ve even been known to spit on them, jeer at them, and kick them before they suffocate or shoot them.  These are the same humans who find justifications to sadistically harm domestic animals and other humans.  In the case of trappers who are not sadists but who lack empathy, we see a different kind of human.  This is a trapper who can watch a trapped animal suffer and die without empathy. Because of correlations between how we treat sentient non-humans and how we treat other humans, we find these very same humans showing a lack of empathy toward humans.  Sentient non-humans suffer just like humans do although we can avoid it, deny it, or deceive ourselves by using euphemistic, sanitized language, i.e., “harvesting animals.”  In short, if a trapper has a choice about how he interprets an animal’s suffering, it is difficult to justify such lack of empathy or sadism.  On the other hand, if the trapper does not have such a choice, then it may be true that he is representative of a lower form of humanity.