Whoa...I literally live across a short field from one as well out in the country, maybe a couple hundred meters. He's been there since I was a child. (Also have a background in film/media as well, like you-if I remember reading correctly from your earlier posts-are you me?? Haha.)
It is indeed vexing, toxic, and frustrating. A safari park near me had to put down a giraffe recently because it got injured badly, and everyone on FB is expressing their sympathies (nevermind they care for some random animal they didn't know about 1 minute before). It was even on the evening news! Hard to believe we just universally accept peaceful death for suffering animals but expect humans to keep going no matter what they've been through or have mentally/physically wrong with them, no matter how dark their future is and how alone they are. Definitely feel its a govt./religious thing to just try to leech as much money off us as possible at the end of the day, under the guise of "every life is valuable" "power of positive thinking cures all" etc. In reality, people love cute things and don't like to see or know about their suffering, but can easily turn a blind eye/ear to *real* human suffering going on in their own family or social circles. I've seen this on a micro all the way to a macro level time and time again over my lifetime, and it appears to have gotten worse as things have sped up with the proliferation of the internet.