CDN Kayaker Fights Off Wolf With Knife

I for one don't want to live in a world where the only thing that exists are cities, cornfields and aquaculture pens.
 
Do you think anyone wants that?
Far from it. We insist on our right to visit or inhabit the wild places, too.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Do you think anyone wants that?
Far from it. We insist on our right to visit or inhabit the wild places, too.
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I don't think anyone wants that but it is an inevitable trajectory because as a society we refuse to make painful collective decisions about our own growth, resource use and ecological footprints.

I also don't think people should be prevented access to wilderness preserves. In fact, the only way to reinforce a sense of value to the wilderness is to have people experience and appreciate it. However, we shouldn't confuse the wilderness with Disneyland nor place the two as comparable use patterns.

City parks are strictly of aesthetic value. Wilderness areas and preserves on the other hand provide other value-added benefits that haven't been fully quantified. Most ecologists believe that natural areas buffer geochemical and bioenergetic cycles in ways that are important but not fully understood. This is a root philosophy for why Environmental Agencies embrace biodiversity. Removing species often has unforseen consequences as has been noted previously.
 
skammer said:
ZOO's are torture to these creatures use to roaming 1000's of miles of territory and they are stuck in a box equivillant to you being put into a closet for the rest of your life and told to be happy.

The original Twilight zone did an episode on this exact topic and it was perfect.

Stuck in a box for life I'd chew your head off for fun too.

Been to a zoo once never again. The kids see animals in the wild only or on TV.

Skam
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Presuming to know what the animals think and feel is dangerous too....like that guy who got eaten by the bears. Some animals roam (not thousands of miles) to get enough to eat..
With an abundant food supply many animals would tend to stay in that area.
So that "tortured" tiger might choose to stay in the zoo...if he could just do something about the bars...;)
 
Tuesday night after it got dark (hiking trip), I was at the creek cleaning up and cooling off. It occurred to me what I must look like to a predator: a lump of meat 3 or 4 feet tall (crouching) with my back to the bush like an animal coming to drink. In that situation, I probably wouldn't have wanted my name released either...dumbass! It sells news though. I assume everone's heard about the oil spill here ? It's in the kayaker's home neighbourhood, but not as 'sexy' as a wolf attack story.

While I do agree it's a remote possibility, packing a gun just for that purpose or a 'bear knife' or whatever is like packing a parachute on a commercial flight. I'd be more concerned about a rabid bat bite while sleeping, or a Lyme-infected tick, or a West Nile mosquito bite. Maybe I just won't go outside anymore. Or maybe I'm just trying to raise my post count...

You gonna finish your mad cow stew ?
 
EmsRescueGuy said:
First off Good job Kayak Guy :thumbup: but why wasnt your knife on you ?? I wonder if this would have been different if it happened to a well heeled forum reader ?



We Dont Belong In The Woods ??

Where do we belong then?? in a house or apartment building as we started, wait, no, thats right we came from the wilderness, and using our tools, the most important of which being our brain, made it into a society. Yes we would be easy prey without skills and tools developed over time, but the fact that we can develope and use them is our natural defense.

We are not "Invaders" in the woods, We are guests, and as good guests we should treat the inhabitants with respect and obey their rules as best we can.

But much like in the human world, if your host attacked you unprovoked, you are within your rights to defend yourself.

I agree that destroying an animal simply because it has attacked a human is wrong unless its done in defense. what i mean is it is stupid to kill a zoo animal because teenagers went into its cage, or kill the grizzly that ate Grizzlyman or whatever he called himself, no ones life was in immediate danger in either of those scenarios and killing the animal diddnt really make sense.


If you hate humanity then do the world a favor and dont breed !, seriously save your money buy property and when you die leave it in trust For a nature preserve etc. until that time, dont use or consume anything man made because that will only add to the destruction. in fact the plastics used to make your computer and the energy powering it both consumed fossil fuels, the harvesting of which probably killed some animals and plants. you murderer!!!
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I don't claim to be infallible. I'm just as bad as the next lazy overweight slob. I completely agree, don't mess with the poor bear in the zoo. It did absolutely nothing wrong. And the bear guy had it coming. I still, however, feel that we need to stay within our own boundaries, instead of whining when something bad happens once we leave them, and then persecuting the one we perceive as guilty. What makes us any better or more important than that deer in the field? Or the raccoon you shooed away from your garbage?
 
TemplarKnight21c said:
I don't claim to be infallible. I'm just as bad as the next lazy overweight slob. I completely agree, don't mess with the poor bear in the zoo. It did absolutely nothing wrong. And the bear guy had it coming. I still, however, feel that we need to stay within our own boundaries, instead of whining when something bad happens once we leave them, and then persecuting the one we perceive as guilty. What makes us any better or more important than that deer in the field? Or the raccoon you shooed away from your garbage?
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What makes us any better or more important than that deer in the field? Or the raccoon you shooed away from your garbage?[/

The ability to reason.
Seems less and less humans have that ability.

Show me a raccoon that can perform surgery or a deer that can create a vaccine and you'll have a point.
Man is different than the animals.
Why?
I'd like to know that answer.
 
Other apes than humans have been seen using medicine. Others can reason, as well. Isn't the decision to flee a threat instead of standing and fighting a reasoned decision based on the emotion of fear?
 
When an animal kills a human in the wild, it isn't killed as punishment or for revenge, but to prevent it from killing again, having learned to see humans as prey.
 
Superdave1 said:
Presuming to know what the animals think and feel is dangerous too....
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We're never going to be able to completely understand the subjective experience of animals in captivity, but it is a bit of a cop-out to rely on that fact to justify the existence of zoos. There are behavioural and physiological indicators of stress that we can use to get a sense for whether animals are 'happy' or not. Zoo animals, especially wide-roaming carnivores like lions or polar bears, often make it plenty clear that they're none too keen on being cooped up in encloures that are in some cases as much as one millionth the size of their home range in the wild. Some zoos are are better than others, but most of them don't measure up to the standards of, say, the San Fransisco zoo.
 
On the other hand, to castigate all zoos for the problems of the concrete cage/steel bars of smaller, older zoos isn't right either. Many modern, especially larger zoos have learned to use limited space very effectively.

Case in point, the Central Park Zoo in New York is a tiny patch of ground. The old zoo had those hard cages, with little room for large carnivores to move around. The new zoo is largely a small animal zoo -- with a creatively designed polar bear enclosure.

It's built into a hillside, landscaped to look natural, with a deep pool at ground level. The pool is faced with "glass" so you can see a bear swimming around there, surrounded by a school of fish. The hill itself is cut up by ravines and a stream. The three bears seem to move around quite a bit. Walking down the hill alongside it, you can stop and peer through glass walls down onto the bears, separated from them and pretty much out of notice by them, too. There is one glass wall at ground level that was later fenced back so people couldn't go right up nose-to-nose at the glass.
 
g30ff said:
We're never going to be able to completely understand the subjective experience of animals in captivity, ...
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Sometimes they tell us. :)

I was in the old CP Zoo one day and went to the gorilla house, in time to see Congo, the big male, come rushing outside, looking back over his shoulder, literally bristling. He was not happy.

When I got to the front of the cage, I saw the keeper was hosing down the inside cage. He came right outside afterwards and spoke to Congo, who was sitting on a tire, and wouldn't turn to look at him. He said, "I'm sorry, you know I have to clean your cage, here, look what I brought you, would you like an orange?"

He held up an orange and Congo did turn to see it. He obviously could follow some points of the conversation! The keeper very gently rolled the orange towards Congo who reached down and picked it up. He sniffed it for a moment, then holding it behind his back, flipped it at the keeper, right out of the cage.

Can't buy my love! :grumpy:
 
I own my dogs and farm animals. I own the wildlife I take while hunting and fishing. It is my personal belief that I was given dominion over them by my maker. To eat, to labor for me, to please me with companionship. This ownership, like most, brings responsibilities of stewardship. Wise use. Humane treatment.

Until my children reach eighteen, I own them too. Then they reach the "age of emancipation" and are free to fly away and do as they please.

I allow the cats to stay here (outside, thankyou) from benevolence I suppose. They no doubt think the same way about me. I don't own the cats. They think they own me. They are wrong, but I feed them anyway. It keeps them away from my chickens.

I own my chickens. And I eat them and their eggs. Symbiosis I think it is called. They work for scratch and keep the insect populations down. Except the fire ants. Nobody owns them. Or wants them. I poison them. And they love to bite me. It is a love/hate relationship.

Codger
 
Esav Benyamin said:
On the other hand, to castigate all zoos for the problems of the concrete cage/steel bars of smaller, older zoos isn't right either. Many modern, especially larger zoos have learned to use limited space very effectively.
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True enough, and it certainly wasn't my intent to do so. As people have become more sensitive to these issues a lot of the smaller zoos have either closed or cleaned up their acts by limiting themselves to species they can actually do a respectable job of caring for. It sounds as though your local zoo has done a fair job of it. I'm still a little skeptical about the polar bear enclosure since they're one of the harder species to keep happy, but I can't judge it until I've seen it.

Sometimes they tell us.

I was in the old CP Zoo one day and went to the gorilla house, in time to see Congo, the big male, come rushing outside, looking back over his shoulder, literally bristling. He was not happy.

When I got to the front of the cage, I saw the keeper was hosing down the inside cage. He came right outside afterwards and spoke to Congo, who was sitting on a tire, and wouldn't turn to look at him. He said, "I'm sorry, you know I have to clean your cage, here, look what I brought you, would you like an orange?"

He held up an orange and Congo did turn to see it. He obviously could follow some points of the conversation! The keeper very gently rolled the orange towards Congo who reached down and picked it up. He sniffed it for a moment, then holding it behind his back, flipped it at the keeper, right out of the cage.

Can't buy my love!
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I would have liked to have been there to see that. As any dog owner knows, some animals have a way of taking a very active role in making their feelings known :) Sometimes it takes long hours spent scoring tapes looking for sterotypic behavious and analyzing infant mortality rates, and sometimes it's a little more obvious. Speaking of which, it looks like someone wants a cookie...
 
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