Desert lions: starting over in Namibia

“Desert Lions,” tonight’s “Nature” program on PBS, told about two young sister lionesses in the Namid desert of Namibia, on the southwest coast of Africa. Decades ago, lions were thought to have left the desert, but now they’re back.

The story of the scientist who keeps track of them, hoping to keep them from a village and its livestock, is pretty much the usual Nature narrative: will the lions stay away from the village; will they leave the livestock alone, thereby escaping the wrath of the villagers; will they find their way to the coast, where colonies of seals are there for the taking? (In the end, of course, they do all three things.)

Along the way, though, we learn (1) the desert temperatures are high enough to crack rock; (2) these two young lions learn to hunt aurochs (with their amazing long/high horns) in tandem; (3) in these parts, brown hyenas are solitary, and not the threat they’d be elsewhere; (4) though lions can rise to most challenges, their biggest obstacle is people.

“No animal has a concept of restraint, predators least of all.” This point was made while the lionesses tore into a herd of wild donkeys near the village. It looked as if they killed many more donkeys than needed for their own food, but beyond that, the point wasn’t satisfactorily detailed.

The long-range hope: lions will become established along the coast to South Africa. We’ll have to wait and see.
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The hunter’s mind (such as it is)

. . . “Hunter Joe Bartnicki, 39, of Hackettstown, bagged a nearly 120-pound yearling.

““I’m gonna actually get a rug made out of him,” Bartnicki said. “It’s on the way to the butcher; I’m gonna get a lot of hamburger made out of it and some Italian bear roast.”

Asked what bear tastes like, Bartnicki said, “It’s like pork – a little juice to it. It’s very edible.”” . . .
--from www.NJHunter.com, Dec. 8, 2010.

And there, in brief, you see the hunter’s mind. Callous, cruel, insensitive, inhumane. A mind that changes a young, once-living creature who did him no harm into a dead creature. Not only that, but a creature whose skin he will put on his floor and walk on, a creature he will eat. Notice how the “him” used early becomes “it.” Maybe that impersonal pronoun is a more comfortable way to refer to the victim of a needless murder.

……………………..

***** Gov. Christie indicated at a press conference yesterday that he might stop the hunt IF there are scientific reasons to do so and IF they’re presented to him by the Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) -- the same hunter-and ammo-connected outfit (many of whose higher ups are hunters) in state government that brought us this bear hunt to begin with.

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/commentary/if-gov-christie-wants-science-to-end-new-jersey-bear-hunt-its-still-there#

You call this a ‘management’ plan?

“For hunters, a big first day”: So read the headline in Tuesday morning’s Trenton Times. Too bad they couldn’t interview the bears involved too. But – oops, I forgot: they were dead. Yes, mothers, cubs, males – all were “fair” game.

And those diligent, eager hunters killed at least 150 of them on the first of six hunting days. Or as the Times reported it: “the biggest one-day take in the hunt’s three seasons.”

Hunters, stand tall. You bagged ’em. You kept New Jersey safe for . . . unsecured garbage? unprotected bird feeders?

A reported 7,800 permits were issued to hunters from NJ and neighboring states. They were up against an estimated 3,400 bears. How do those odds stack up?

And those hunters we read about earlier, eager to make taxidermy arrangements: how do they feel later about a bear cub they shot to death?

All in the interest, so state officials said, of reducing the bear population that “preyed on livestock, the occasional house pet and, mostly, table scraps tossed into the trash at the margins of suburbia.”

Mostly table scraps. Which, if laws were enforced, wouldn’t be there to attract the bears.

We’ve repeated the many arguments against this hunt. We’ve discussed how shy and non-aggressive New Jersey’s black bears actually are. We’ve pointed out the errors in the so-called “management plan,” with its so-called “proof” of the need for a hunt.

This hunt is heinous, nothing less.
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Opposition loses fight; bear hunt begins

Earlier posts have dealt with the NJ bear hunt and steps against it. Now all efforts have failed and the hunt started today; it will run through Saturday. Poor, poor bears, robbed of their habitat and their right to live free. Instead of cherishing these animals, New Jersey slaughters them.

. . . . . . . . . .

Don’t go in there,
into the faded orange wood –
it’s filled with angry old men
sneaking around in camouflage gear
pretending no one can see them.

Some of them aren’t even old,
they just have arthritic foreheads,
or else they’re drunk,
but something’s got to suffer
for their grudges, their obscure sorrows:
the more blown-up flesh, the better.


--from Margaret Atwood's "In Autumn"

. . . . . . . . .

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Comment-comment

Though I haven't gotten the hang of interacting with comments, I'm glad to do so this way. The reaction to my last post, on Schultz, the police dog killed in action -- I believe animals should not be forced into servitude for humans -- argued that beyond his police K-9 work, he still had numerous hours to be a family pet and have a good life.

I don't agree. Schultz was conscripted as a police dog -- the 1st wrong. The 2nd is that that he was made to do what humans thought important; he had to live by their values. And finally, he had to die for their values. That's all unfair, inhumane and based on humans' distorted belief that animals exist for their use. Nonsense.

“Service animals” can sound good. “Service” is such a positively loaded word. But of course, it depends on who’s doing the serving, who’s benefiting from the service. In the case of Schultz, that’s very clear.

Earlier posts in this blog discussed “service animals.” I invite the reader who commented and any others who may be interested to visit Nov. 21, 2009, Nov. 19, 2009 and Nov. 11, 2009 (in that order) – and comment on how they feel about the subject after that.
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Schultz: being a police dog was 1st mistake

Earlier this week in south Jersey, a police dog died in the line of duty. Correction: he was murdered. And now a memorial fund has been set up and the dog will be honored.

How much do you want to bet that 3½ year old German shepherd would much rather have been a family dog, playing outside with the kids and barking at the neighbors . . . than running down the shoulder of Rt. 48 after a two-bit robber. When 85-pound “Schultz” fastened on his arm, the crook hurled the dog into traffic, where he was hit by a car and reportedly killed instantly.

Some life. And forget about the dog’s (human) friends on the force, who lined up outside the veterinary hospital when Schultz was driven out in a hearse.

Did Schultz make the decision to be trained as a K-9? Did he swear to risk his life to track down wrong-doers? Did he want to die a hero’s death?

Phooey. Humans decided all that for him; humans made Schultz a “service dog” – as in service to humans. Get the pattern? Humans have dominion over animals. Phooey.

(http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/state/schultz-gloucester-twp-k-9-police-dog-killed-in-action-suspect-partner-in-custody)
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“Like a deer in the headlights!”

We sometimes talk about people who look, and act, blank – “like a deer in the headlights.” It turns out we sometimes look and act that way for much the same reason deer do: they’re temporarily dazed and don’t know what to do, and so they do nothing. (Recognize the feeling?) But for deer, doing nothing is a bad idea, especially with a moving vehicle coming at them . . . with headlights on. Why? In a recent NYTimes Q & A, this was the answer.

Deer are crepuscular, explains C. Claiborne Ray – they see best around sunset and sunrise. Therefore, their vision is best in very low light.

“When a headlight beam strikes eyes that are fully dilated to capture as much light as possible, deer cannot see at all, and they freeze until the eyes can adjust. They don’t know what to do, so they do nothing,” Ray reports.

Scary, isn’t it? Because he goes on to say that by human standards, deer are legally blind. They’re actually better adapted to detecting motion.

What to do about this headlight problem? Beyond “deer crossing” signs, articles to warn the public and defensive driving, no one has come up with a better way to avoid deer-car collisions – especially during the fall breeding season, when even more deer are on the move.
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