Bambi Effect

Primarily the Bambi Effect designates the emotional trauma, usually mild and transitory experienced by hunters and trappers when viewing close up a dead or dying and suffering neotenous, i.e., "cute and adorable" animal for whose death and suffering they suddenly acknowledge some responsibility. Guilt experienced by a hunter as he suddenly identifies with the suffering of an animal which he has killed. The name is a reference to the classic Disney film, Bambi, in which the tragic climax to the story is reached as the protagonist's (Bambi's) mother is killed by hunters. Secondarily the effect pertains to the reaction of witnesses to scenes of the brutal killing of said neotenous animals, e.g., harp seal pups clubbed by Canadian hunters.