Ha! And a well-earned thrashing indeed!!

I'll have to check out On Aggression. Burrowing through the packing peanuts of my brain, I'm fairly certain there's a box stored in there, somewhere with grey goose mating ritual information. I think Marc Bekoff may have referred to it and Konrad Lorenz in Minding Animals. AND, very interesting that you should mention this because I keep coming back to an experiment described in the book RATS - a fascinating and highly entertaining deep-burrow into the world of NYC's rat population by a journalist who spent a year studying their habits. (he also interviewed garbage collectors, exterminators, and members of a club of rat terrier owners who went on hunting expeditions in lower Manhattan).

Anyway, he talks about this experiment where a small rate population is introduced into a contained environment. They have plenty of food and lots of space. They develop a highly organized, collaborative social structure; lactating mothers even take turns nursing each other's young. All goes well until the rat population increases and resources begin to dwindle. The rats become increasingly aggressive, start attacking each other and eventually resort to cannibalism. Which kind of reminds me of human behavior during The Great Toilet Paper Shortage Crises of 2020. And then Jared Diamond talks about packs of juvenile male chimpanzees going on murderous rampages.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that my interest in ethology was sparked by Cesar Millan/The Dog Whisperer - mostly because many dog behaviorists have criticized his methods as being outdated. But I loved that I could do field work in my own home by studying my dogs' behavior. The experience reminded me of studying Spanish and the sudden revelation of meaning when Palalalabamba became Para Bailar La Bamba.