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Tue 3 Jan, 2006 12:31 pm
Animals know stupid when they see it
By Ed Stoddard
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African mugger fleeing the scene of his crime hides in a tiger enclosure.
On the country's coast, a woman attempts to be a good Samaritan by pushing a young seal into the sea, believing the poor thing is stranded.
Both people paid heavily for their stupidity, underscoring one of nature's truisms: humans do dumb things around wild animals.
"I blame it on Walt Disney, where animals are given human qualities. People don't understand that a wild animal is not something that is nice to pat. It can seriously harm you," said James Cameron, a South African professional hunter.
The cartoon image of wildlife may have prompted a 49-year-old South African woman in October to try to help a seal which she believed was stranded, allowing her 1-year-old grandchild to stroke the creature in the process.
The seal responded by biting off the woman's nose.
Cape Fur Seals are common on South African shores and many have become accustomed to humans.
They are a popular tourist attraction and can be viewed playing in the sea by Cape Town's waterfront -- which may also give a false impression of placid friendliness.
"Cute" seal pups have also been used as potent symbols by groups such as the International Fund for Animal Welfare, further enhancing the animal's "cuddly status."
But they can in fact be dangerous and sometimes attack people who venture too close -- as South Africa's noseless do-gooder discovered to her horror.
TIGER TROUBLE
Then there was the South African robber who made the mistake last month of taking refuge in an enclosure which turned out to be home to a pair of unimpressed tigers.
He had fled into a nearby zoo after security guards heard the screams of a couple he had just mugged in Bloemfontein, about 400 km (250 miles) southwest of Johannesburg.
Not surprisingly, he was mauled to death by the big cats.
The mugger was not the first South African criminal to err in hiding among zoo animals.
Max, a 200 kg (440 lb) gorilla, won fame in 1997 after being wounded by a terrified gunman who jumped a moat into his space in Johannesburg's zoo while fleeing police.
Max pinned the fugitive against the wall of his enclosure and guarded him even after being shot until police arrived, making him an instant folk hero in crime-ridden South Africa.
Other people don't realize that you shouldn't get between a mother and her offspring -- especially when dealing with the world's largest land mammal.
In April of this year, an elephant gored a tourist to death in a Ugandan national park after the man, carrying an 8-year-old boy in his arms, approached the animal's calf.
"I think many people are just far removed from nature. People who live in cities often see nature as something that is tame and manageable," said Sue Lieberman, director of the global species program for conservation group WWF International.
"And wrongly so. We don't need to tame nature, we need to keep the wild out there," she told Reuters.
SHOW-OFFS
Then there are the show-offs.
Lions mauled a South African teen-ager in March who came too close to their enclosure while trying to impress his girlfriend.
The sixteen-year-old, his girlfriend and his mother were having lunch with the lion keeper when he ignored advice and went off with his girlfriend to see the lions in the breeding section of the park just north of Johannesburg.
The boy went into an area off-limits to the public and touched a lion through the mesh fence.
The lion quickly sank its teeth into his arm and dragged him under the fence before the curator came, drove the four adult lions in the enclosure away and rescued the teen-ager.
"It just shows a total disregard and disrespect for wild animals," said Cameron.
The boy was luckier than a couple from Taiwan in 1993, who got out of their car to photograph lions up close at a South African game park -- and who were quickly savaged to death by the beasts.
And the Darwin Award goes to....
The winner is.........Slappy who has successfully avoided the wildlife for his entire existence.
Thet ain't the way I heard it.
I'm particularly delighted that the nitwits who fled to the tiger cage are now out of the gene pool.
We have an isolated beach here (on Kangaroo Island) where sea lions happily allowed people to walk amongst them.
You would think, wouldn't you, that people would think "wild animals" and maintain some decorum and sense?
We went there a few years ago, and sat enraptured amongst them...maintaining a respectful distance, of course....for a few hours.
Then a tourist bus (full of Germans as it happened, but I suspect it could have been any nationality) arrived. Some of these lunatics (while the idiot bus driver looked on placidly) tried to pat the sea lions, approached mothers with pups, made enough noise for a stadium full of soccer hooligans....squealing and screaming...disturbed the sea lions and everything within fifty miles, and eventually tried the patience of the poor wild animals enough to get charged.
A ranger came down and herded the people until they were less trying to the poor animals. I can only imagine the hullabaloo if one of them had been bitten!
When they left, the ranger came up and sat down with us, as we all recovered. He said his nerves were utterly destroyed by the seeming increasing idiocy of apparently adult humans....
There is now a boardwalk and fences separating the species.
It was once such a wonderfully special experience that you could walk amongst wild animals and just quietly watch them going about their normal lives so closely.
I was walking to work one morning, and saw a coyote which had been hit by a car, rapidly paning away its life's breath at the side of the road. I waited until the road was clear, and walked around it, giving it a wide berth. About a hundred yards further on, a car came to a screeching halt, spraying me with dirt and gravel. When i shouted at the woman driving, she babbled something incoherent about "the poor doggy." I warned her that it was a coyote, and that no one in their right mind would approach a strange dog in that condition, let alone a coyote. She ignored me and ran back toward the coyote. About ten of fifteen seconds later, i heard a scream--but i didn't look back, i had to keep an eye on the idiots behind the wheel and i had a job to get to.
I hope she enjoyed the rabies shots.
Lol! I learned that lesson when I was about 2..I tried to rescue a drowning bee...thus was I inducted into the laws of the jungle.
That being said, I have quite successfully picked up wounded wild animals and looked after them...though sometimes with a little bleeding. But we do not have rabies.
But I wouldn't try it on something like a coyote!
On the other hand......
Get out your hanky for this one Set.....
A few years ago I had to commute about 30-40 miles outside of Austin, to San Marcos. Between Austin and San Antonio is this dead zone where people tend to think very literally as far as their religion and not at all about life beyond the next bag of pork rinds.
I was getting off a highway exit, and maybe a 1/4 miles down the access road there was this little furry thing just bouncing all around.
It was a little pomeranian who had accidently jumped out the car window when his mistress stopped at the stop sign. She was trying to get him to come over, but the poor little thing was in an absolute panic.
long story short, I pulled my car around to kinda corral the little dickens in, and one of us finally managed to scoop him up. He was so happy to finally be caught.
The thing is, people going by seemed to make no effort to even slow down for this tiny dog, who looked like he led a pretty pampered life, and didn't know much about roads, or cars or getting hit.
Not only that, when I got to work, some people just got this weird look on their face when I told the part about how I slowed down really slow at one point, trying to herd him off to one side.
I am absolutely sure some of these people would be the same ones who would offer a grizzly bear a potato chip from their mouth.
This is a dude's avatar from a local motorcycle forum I go to. It's an actual picture of him hand feeding a bear.
That is really, really stupid . . . black bears are even more violent and unpredictable than grizzlies . . .
click here for the story of the "Grizzly Man," eaten alive, along with his girlfriend . . . if you can stomach it . . . there is now a popular film on the subject . . . and an audio tape of the incident (the lens caps was on the camera, but it was recording) . . .
Even dumber than feeding black bears yourself, is giving the goodies to your 8-year-old kid while you take pictures of him feeding the bear.
old but still made me laugh
Public Safety Alert CANADA
The National Parks Board of Canada is advising hikers, hunters, fishermen and golfers to take extra precautions and keep alert for bears while in Canadian national parks.
They advise people to wear noise-producing devices such as little bells on their clothing to alert but not startle the bear unexpectedly. They also advise carrying pepper spray in case of an encounter with a bear. It is also a good idea to watch for fresh signs of bear activity and know the difference between black bear and grizzly bear droppings. Black bear droppings are smaller and contain berries and possibly squirrel fur. Grizzly bear droppings have little bells in them and smell like pepper spray.
A while ago in S. Africa there was group of Japanese tourists who went to the Lion Park just a few km out of Jo'burg. This a a sorta safari park where you drive around the very large enclosures in your vehcile to observe the lions and the other game. Now there are sings all over saying do not get out of he vehicle and keep windows closed, however the tourists thought it would be nice to get a picture of one of them patting a lion, so they got out and walked towards the lions were they were attacked and one was killed... great so they are not pussy cats after all. Every year there are stories like this in South Africa that make the heaadlines they always amuse me.
Grizzly bear droppings have little bells in them and smell like pepper spray.[/quote]
Wearing those bells is just a way to let hungry bears know that it's dinner time
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