Pick your ethics
As has been said, peoples ethics may differ.
The assumption someone would (in an animal v human situation) would always choose to avoid the human.
What if your choice was between a cuddly animal or Theresa May / Michael Gove / Jeremy Hunt/ Jeremy Corbyn/ Nigel Farage / Piers Moron / etc. etc - delete as applicable. (i.e. animal vs someone you really dislike, go a real Godwin option figure if you like)
What if the animal was something extremely endangered and so of "higher value" than a random magpie, squirrel, etc. (and arguably "higher value" than any random person, e.g. animal species down to its last few dozen individuals)
Let's look at baby vs adult and idea of always avoiding the baby.
What if you bare in a country with very high baby / child moratlity rate (e.g. due to disease (& lack of vaccination. medical treatment) 90% infant mortality rate, but once someone has reached adulthood then a good long life ahead of them - it's not so long ago that most infants in UK never reached adulthood..)
In baby v adult situation, logic would suggest baby highly likely to die anyway, whereas adult should have good lifespan ahead so best option would be avoid the adult.
All sorts of "what ifs" you can apply to screw up the "obvious" ethical choice
Biting the hand that feeds IT
