I wouldn’t kill an injured animal if the choice was “leave it” or “kill it”. I would do whatever I could to get help for it. If I couldn’t realistically do anything, that’s exactly what I’d do. Nothing.
It’s no easy thing to kill something that you believe has feelings. I couldn’t do it to a person (so don’t ask me to shoot you when we’re stranded in the desert with no hope of rescue and you have a broken leg, please) and I couldn’t do it to an animal, either.
lekatt, are you always like this?
Let’s try it again, stop trying to avoid a definitive answer, please.
Kitten, severely injured, starving, no outside help available. You don’t have the resources to change anything. You can’t take it with you.
Less than 15 minutes to make a decision.
What do you do?
I did not say that, I said I would take it to a vet, who would determine if that was necessary and if so, the vet would do it.
How is this an answer to the OP? Stop beating around the bush and get with it. Kill or leave?
I always have the resources to change things, everyone does. I can take it with me, I have a cell phone to call someone. What is the point, could I kill an animal? I don’t know, never have been in that position. Hope I never will be, the only way I am not going to help is if I am dead lying beside them. Enough said.
I appluad your stance but that does nothing to answer the OP. His circumstances are diferent from yours. Sticking to what you would do under your circumstances has added nothing to this thread. Why post at all if you are not going to “play along”?.
No. Everyone does NOT always have the resources to change things. Funny you should mention a cell phone. I’m not allowed to have a cell phone either.
So, no cell phone, no vet, no kind bird lady who will come pick it up, no food, pleanty of water, but no dish to serve it in, no shelters, no helpful organizations…
Would you feel guilty if you left the animal there to die slowly instead of mercifully killing it on the spot? Would you feel guilty if you killed it, but later wondered if you should have let it live–even if in pain?
You are absolutely right.
Lekatt
When you eat an apple, what do you do with the seeds? They’re unborn apple trees you know.
Did you miss the part about the OP being on patrol in Iraq? Taking a screaming kitten out of the building puts the lives of other soldiers at risk, it is not an option.
Nice non answer.
Technically it is an option, just not a very good one.
I’d put it in the car next to my kid.
Thanks, Roald. 
Reference the OP - in practice I have euthanised, or helped to euthanise, wounded animals before, but I don’t believe it matters all that much. True, the creature is experiencing pain, but it’s open to question whether it has the capacity to realize that things could be or ought to be different. Either way, its sufferings will end shortly whether I do or let be, and my decision is probably dictated by misplaced compassion.
Why would you not kill it? I put down a deer Sunday night that somebody had hit with a car. It was pretty badly busted up, but had enough life in it to be lying beside the road thrashing. I wonder for how long? I wonder how many people glanced at its suffering and drove on? One 9mm through the head and its pain was over. I don’t understand how people can leave an animal to a prolonged, agonizing death and feel morally superior for doing so.
In practice I’d do so in a heartbeat - I’ve also killed mice caught in traps and not dying cleanly, and I’d do it for the kitten; I might not be able to do it painlessly but I’d sure get it over with in a matter of seconds. It’s just that it’s hard to justify such a course of action objectively.
???
What did you want? An apology written in his own blood (or from his nearest O- relative)? I take that post to signify that he realizes that, valid as his position is, it doesn’t answer the question and he is now at the same place where everybody who has not replied to this thread is. He is not compelled to answer this or any other poll on the board.
At which point you have to nuke the car from orbit.
It’s the only way to be sure.
Would anyone like to guess or care to know the actual outcome of the scenario?
I’ll hazard a guess. You did nothing, left the kitten there alive.
Your unit has a new mascot?