We are all so deeply estranged from the facts of death. Blood is almost an embarrassment. Babies are born in hospital, old people die there. Few people have to face the unpleasantness of killing their own hamburgers. Death is no longer part of the cycle of life.
Death is socially unacceptable.
Everybody knows the hero can't die. Maybe this basic disbelief in the reality of death is part of the cause for terminal violence in the States. Less in the realm of speculation is a corroded attitude to the natural process of life in the wild. A possessive passion for the cute and cuddlesome was born out of the Disney view, and helped along mightily by a dramatised and romantic view of Joy Adamson fondling lion cubs. Big-eyed Bambi and a skunk called Flower may have introduced millions of young townies to wildlife, but with a heavily sentimental bias where individuals are valued above the entire system.