Kindness to animals

I got nothing against people who don't want to harm animals. I wouldn't label myself that way, but I'm also not going to purposely run down a critter if it's in or near the road. Tonight, I saw a weird conundrum involving vehicle and critter.

As I was making my way home tonight, I come upon a vehicle stopped in the road. There was at least one vehicle in front of it, with their blinkers on. Engine die? Flat tire? What?

They either hit a raccoon just enough to maim it or came upon the already injured raccoon. Will never know what exactly happened, but apparently this person was trying to get the raccoon out of the road. I guess they figured that would help it.

Well, they didn't succeed. They got the raccoon over to the other lane at least, I guess so they could get in their vehicle and get out of the road. There were a few other cars behind me at this point.

As the now convoy started to move, I noticed that it was indeed an animal that they were trying to move. I also saw it twitching around, which was very, very bad. There was another instance a month or so ago where I saw a similar scene. Someone had hit an possum just enough to injure it (I assume). It was fluttering around the road when I drove by.

Same with this raccoon. It appeared both were injured to the point where it was likely better to end it. What this person (people?) did was admirable, but maybe a bit too much. I don't see this as a similar situation as my co-worker experienced recently. A dog >>> wild animals.

I remember hearing many moons ago that if you were driving and an animal runs out in the road, to not even try and swerve to miss it. I try to add to that by thinking that if you're casually cruising, you could likely slow down enough and stop to avoid it. But if I'm on the interstate, I just pray that all critters big and small stay out of the road.