Not necessarily – the machlokes could be what threshold of probability of death would *halachically* be considered “chaya” or “eina chaya”.
Yes, but those determinations were based on actual observations, no?
Or are you saying that they would see 99 out of 100 cows live and yet proclaim halachically “aina chaya*?”
The Wolf
* Yes, I realize that that could be the situation today, but I have to believe that when the determinations were originally made, they were made based on whether they felt there was a significant probability that the animal would die.