LEV890 … Maimonides understands [this verse] "as a precautionary measure in order to avoid slaughtering the young animal in front of its mother. For there is no difference between the pain of humans and the pain of other animals in this case, for the love of a mother and her compassion upon a child does not depend on the intellect, but rather upon the power of emotion, which is found with most animals, just as it is found in man" (The Guide for the Perplexed 3:48). [A friend of mine, a jogger, notes that the surest way to be attacked by an animal of any size is to threaten, or even approach, its young: "When, while running, I am inexplicably attacked by a bird, it means that I have inadvertently stumbled across its nesting grounds."