Cute or Tasty?

It is fairly well established, that predators are inclined to first attack the young and sickly prey animals.

Humans have an in-built cuteness detector. It probably has something to do with head to body ratio. Regardless, I find myself scrunching my face up and saying "Awwww! Isn't that the cutest..." puppy, kitten, water buffalo. Water buffalo?! Yes, I saw a cute water buffalo today.

So my question is this: Do tigers recognize that an animal is cute and thus young and thus edible and thus delicious? Or are we the only animals with cute detectors? Or better still: at what point did our ability to detect the easiest prey get transmogrified in our positive emotional reactions to "cute" animals?

These are the things keeping me up nights folks.