Why Don't Zombies Just Eat Animal Brains?

What if cats turned into zombies? And what if zombie cats couldn't be killed? Unkillable zombie cats would take over the world! And then they would enslave humanity, and make us do their bidding. Like now, but we'd KNOW we were enslaved. And cats are already murder-y jerks, killing birds and other stuff.

The only reason they'd keep some humans around would be for the opposable thumbs and ability to use a can opener! WE'RE DOOOOMED!

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

Zombies and vampires seem to be a thing now. Like, Twilight happened, and except for teenage girls, basically ruined the vampire genre for a lot of people. Or maybe not ruined it, as there is a lot of really, really good vampire stories out there, but dampened their enthusiasm, and made it hard to say out loud that you liked vampire stories, lest anyone associate that with the Twilight movement (I did read them, by the way, I am not just slamming it without even knowing what I'm talking about. I hate when people do that!)

Dracula is great, and in the other direction, I really love the Sookie Stackhouse novels (it is the books that the TV show ‘True Blood’ is based on. THE BOOKS ARE SOOOO GOOD.), and there is a young adult series called ‘The House of Night’ by a duet named Cast that is a really good interpretation of vampire stories. In fact, in both of these series of books, humans know about vampires and live with them out in the open, though that doesn’t exactly mean acceptance, does it?

Imagine if you were already living in a world where gay marriage is discriminated against. A stretch, I know. Now imagine that vampires exist and live next door, and you’re equally scared and fascinated by them. And some of them are gay, too. It would be uber-mega-vamp-homophobia! Except you couldn’t bully them, because they could kill you with their pinky finger. Everyone knows vampires are really strong. And cunning. Both because they really are cunning, and because the word “cunning” is an excellent one, and I felt the urge to use it here.

As to zombies, I am not sure on this. I like some of it, I don’t like some of it, but there are some pretty clear themes.

1. Zombies want to eat your brains.

2. Zombies are not the most effective communicators.

3. Most zombies are very slow, which helps to evade them, unless you are caught in a large crowd of zombies, in which case, you are basically mosh-pitted to death and then eaten in a frenzy of zombie excitement.

4. Malls are not the best places to hide from zombies.

5. They are able to be killed, for sure this time, but it takes more effort than killing humans.

6. Zombies are really good at killing humans. 

BRAAAAAAINS! Human, please. I'll take 3 pounds, sliced thin, on a hoagie

Why has no one ever explored the idea that zombies could be out there, eating the brains of dolphins or moose or squirrels or something? Why do they specifically need human brains? Is it just that when zombies come back from the dead, they are usually in a town or near a place where humans live, and therefore are presented with human brains as their first option? Oh wait, someone on Yahoo! Answers asked. Let’s see what they say. Hmm...not as bad as I was expecting, given that it’s Yahoo! Answers.

I posed this question to 3 other people. Showing that they know me well, not a single one of them even wondered why I asked, when out of the blue, I texted them “Hey. Have you ever wondered why zombies don’t just eat animal brains?”

I got 3 different and viable answers:

Boyfriend: “I assumed they did, hence zombie dogs, rats, etc.”

Gigi: “I think they do eat animals as well as people, but generally zombie outbreaks happen in populated areas, and the most plentiful game is people.”

Megan: “Because animals are smarter than us and hide better. Humans are all like, ‘I gotta go save my friend!’ But animals are all like, ‘Good luck forest friends, Imma be hiding over here!’”

The girls have good points! Animals generally have that fight or flight instinct that allows them to survive in the wilderness and avoid predators. Humans, while we HAVE the fight or flight reflex, are more able to override that and be like “Come at me, bro!” And all the movies do show zombie outbreaks happening in big cities like Gotham and Metropolis and you know, other big cities. And I don’t see a whole lot of moose and possum wandering the streets of New York to snack on.

So, I am not sure where I was going with this, but I feel like we all learned a lot about ourselves. Vampires are rad and they should be coexisting peacefully with us and drinking synthetic blood (Not exactly a spoiler: ‘True Blood’ is the name of the synthetic blood that vamps are able to subsist on instead of snacking on humans or animals in the Charlaine Harris novels-turned-TV-show). And zombies are questionable. They either eat both animal and human brains, kind of slowly, or they leave Fido and Sasquatch alone and target humans; either because we are heavily populated and therefore plentiful, or because we are stupid and animals hide better/run faster.

Side note: The True Blood books were really good. For fans of the show: Each novel is really action-packed and fast-paced. The entire first season of the show mirrored just book 1 of the more-than-15 book series, and then it diverged from the books. If you like the show, you should totally read the books! When I read them, I got the first several from the library, before eventually having to buy a couple of them when they didn’t have the next in the series that I needed!