If i was to go on a Safari and decided to get out and take a walk about and ended up being eaten by a lion, i doubt i would get much sympathy because we know that if we stepped into a lions natural environment, there is a chance we will not be coming back out again with all our limbs.
This is true for us encroaching on any other dangerous creatures territory but it doesn't stop us having a bitch and a moan when they try to take a bite at us. To them, we are a walking dinner bell and if i had the choice of either stalking a quick moving cream doughnut for most of the day or taking a bite out of the slow moving jam one that wobbled across my living room, i'd know what i'd prefer.
After suffering 6 deaths in 20 years, the Western Australia Department of Fisheries have decided that sharks that attack swimmers will be hunted down, shot in the head and sawed apart until their spines are severed.
'That is not an easy task, as sharks have very small brains' said the Fisheries Official in a sentence that also works if you replace the word shark with Fisheries Official.
Rather than catch, shoot and then mutilate a Shark for doing what nature intended, how about a radical step and just put up a few signs on the beach that say's 'Shark infested area'.
They could even go so far as to put a little picture of a shark on the notices for those Aussies to smashed on the national Fosters and Castlemaine XXXX breakfast to be able to read it properly. If anyone decided to still go in the water, then it's probably doing the gene pool a favour if a shark does treat them as lunch.
Obviously the chosen solution is for someone to get attacked and then kill the shark instead. And to think, we used to get beaten at cricket by these flaming galahs.
4 comments:
I've never heard of a British person being attacked by a British shark. It's probably because the weather is too cold for them and, besides, the water isn't very salty because it rains all the time!
It could also have something to do with the fact that British people aren't very tasty. Probably has to do with all those fattening meat pies and warm beer!
Australians, by contrast, are both attractive to sharks and tasty. And they have enough courage to swim in the shark's environment.
In Australia, you can always pick the British people. They are the ones who sit in their cars at the beach or walk on the dry sand well away from the waves wearing long trousers, sandals with socks, plus a shirt with long sleeves and a stained tie!
Bokko! Another palpable hit!
First the Yanks and now the Brits get 'the David treatment'...
Is nobody safe from his ascerbic wit and perspicacious eye?
While i admit sandals with socks is a British thing, i think we are quite happy Brit is not among the sharks favourite flavours.
The tie stain could well be stray ashes from the bbq. Talking of Ashes...
As I understand it, there haven't been any predators bigger or meaner than foxes in Britain for a few thousand years. No lions or wolves or bears. So you live in a privileged place where you can walk around anywhere at any time of the night and fear no predators other than your fellow humans.
In the grand scheme of things, lions, wolves, and bears are still "native" to Britain. Why don't you reintroduce them in your area and set up a rule that man-eating animals can't be hunted down and killed. I'm pretty sure that nobody in Britain outside of some folks at Greenpeace would sympathize with predators that decided to eat rural schoolchildren.
Most folks don't have that luxury. In Texas we have bears, coyotes (though not as big as wolves which haven't been around since the early 1900s here, still big-enough at times to attack humans when in large groups), mountain lions, and alligators, as well as things like large feral pigs that could eat you if they had the inclination. In other parts of North America there are still wolves (there are more in Canada than the US).
Your view that folks who get eaten in a creature's natural habitat deserve it, or that the creature's shouldn't be hunted down are at odds with the environmental realities that most humans live in.
If you ever own land in rural North America, you'll find yourself running into things that can eat you on your own land from time to time. The simple fact of the matter is that for every mile you walk in the night in the country, there's something like a 1 in 10000 chance that something will decide that you're its dinner. And given the realities of farming and rural life, rural folks are going to have to walk in the night some times. For most of these sorts people, this means carrying a gun in the truck in case you run into a mountain lion messing around with your cows.
Wanting to exterminate creatures that eat us and our domesticated animals, and even wanting to exterminate predators that haven't but could is a 110% natural response to a competing predator.
I don't know about what others think, but I'm glad that I'm at the top of the food chain, and I sure as hell intend to stay there. And if some bear, or mountain lion, or pack of coyotes decided to eat anyone I cared for, I'd make a point of hunting it down.
-Nog
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