81–90 of 146 posts
Then again, the kids also claimed that they were faster, smarter, and would hunt humans...so there was definitely some mythology going on.
One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous. There are coyotes in the northern part of Nova Scotia that have attacked lone hikers. A woman was killed, in fact a few years ago, and there have been numerous scary encounters in which the animal creeps closer and closer to a wary human, much like a predator…
A 3 year old child in 1981 and a 19 year old woman in 2009. Both victims were alone at the time of their attacks. Coyotes killing humans is an exceedingly rare occurrence.
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There's this method which is used in Tibet and a few other places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial
I had no idea that such practice existed, thanks for sharing! Not to take away any credit from your argument but not all places on Earth have mountains nearby. Also, I assume that since these nations and people live in mountainous terrains, they had to come up with a method to dispose of those cadavers in the face of land scarcity where they live.
Zoroastrians also left them out to be eaten by nature. They build a small structure for it. Exposure of the dead is not that strange.
One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous. There are coyotes in the northern part of Nova Scotia that have attacked lone hikers. A woman was killed, in fact a few years ago, and there have been numerous scary encounters in which the animal creeps closer and closer to a wary human, much like a predator…
They're going to find out fairly quickly that this combination is maladaptive. This also explains why dog and wolfs split... you can be aggressive and fear people, or you can be friendly and not fear people, but not both.
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Interesting. Not wanting to put words in your mouth, but that sounds like trying to impose a vegan lifestyle (for the record: I'm vegetarian and mostly vegan now) to the animal kingdom. I can understand part of the sentiment, but I'm a bit cautious of 1) the possibility of that happening 2) the impacts 3) the ethics.
That's an accurate representation of my views. Though as I said, it's pretty low on the list of things that need fixing. One day –hopefully– humanity will have its shit together. Then the majority of suffering will be inflicted by (non-human) animals upon other animals. What do we do about that? I don't have an answer, but I'm pretty sure "let it continue" isn't it. To bring the discussion back to the present: I thin…
Let me explain by way of an example that is close to home for me. In my country of birth we have many areas which normally used to have free roaming wildlife including predators like lions and leopards. These areas where subsequently taken over as farm land and the big cats removed. This allowed the pray, usually antelope and other herbivores, to breed out of control causing immeasurable damage to the vegetation and if left unchecked would cause these animals to die of starvation in the end. It might sound far fetched but these ever increasing herds do cause damage to the vegetation if their numbers become too big. Given this situation farmers and conservationists either have to organise regular culls of these animals or capture and relocate them. Unfortunately there is only so many place you can relocate them to before the natural environment cannot accommodate them anymore and starvation due to destroyed vegetation sets in.
Predators in these natural eco-systems serve a very necessary function.
I am not talking about Human predators here so please dont confuse the above example with justifying why some human beings prey on others. Human predators need to be removed from our society. We are not animals and have the ability to reason which sets a different standard for us.
What I am trying to illustrate is the logical conclusion of your very well intended desire to reduce suffering. I applaud your desire to reduce animal suffering, of which we humans have a lot of blame for, but to extrapolate that to natural eco-systems could have disastrous effects.
We would hear the coyotes howling over the ridge and go to the middle of the field and call them. When they crested the ridge to investigate we would crouch down really low on all fours with our eyes down. They would creep up on us with two or three going off to our flanks. When they got close enough we would stand up, wave our arms and hoot and holler, scaring them off. It was probably foolish for many reasons but we were in our late teens or early twenties and thought that a three on three mano-e-pata match was no contest in our favor.
We didn't do this often but it happend more than once.
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Sharks kill humans annually. So do big cats. And snakes. What are we going to do? Shoot all these on sight? Predate to extinction (and not even for their nutritional value) those species that harm us in even the slightest way? I oppose that. No thanks. That's not the type of world I want to live in. I want to co-exist with these amazing creatures, not drive them to extinction, or only have them alive in captivity.
Many pathogens and parasites are amazing creatures. Do you take the same stance with those, or are you only in favor of charismatic megafauna roaming wild? From my point of view, lions, crocodiles, wolves, etc... they're basically microencephalized sociopaths. It would be better if they never harmed any creature capable of suffering. That means either eliminating them or drastically modifying them. Granted, this is c…
Check out Nature: Meet the Coy-wolf if you have Netflix (presumably in the US only) Also, available here: http://video.pbs.org/video/2365159966/ (not sure if region restricted, sorry) This page has a bunch of other resources: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/coywolf-meet-the-coywolf/8605...
One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous. There are coyotes in the northern part of Nova Scotia that have attacked lone hikers. A woman was killed, in fact a few years ago, and there have been numerous scary encounters in which the animal creeps closer and closer to a wary human, much like a predator…
Coyotes have only killed two people in North America in all of recorded history (and if you check recorded history for wolf attacks it goes back at least to the 1800s). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attacks_on_humans A 3 year old child in 1981 and a 19 year old woman in 2009. Both victims were alone at the time of their attacks. Coyotes killing humans is an exceedingly rare occurrence.