Tag Archives: Cecil the Lion

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When Beasts Attack

Group of World Famous Animals
Is Killed By Some Stupid Humans

To call it a wave of killings would be an exaggeration. To see it as trending, too perverse to bear. But the spate of killings of iconic animals around the world does have a sinister bend to it, beyond the cruelty that garden-variety sadists usually inflict to them.
A rhino, a flamingo, a hippo, among others, all beloved and popular, have met unexplainable, atrocious fates in the past months. Even if one of them survived the injuries, the brutal attacks some have endured can only be classified as pure bestiality.
That’s why whenever an abuser is sentenced to a rare stiff punishment, there’s discreet celebration. For it goes against the grain: the norm is for them to walk unencumbered, like the dentist who shot Cecil, the Lion, or for people to ignore ethical qualms about slaughtering animals.
News coverage is usually mired in hypocrisy and selective morals. Case in point: the N.Y. Times story on Indonesians’ taste for dog meat, published the other week, which seemed to misplace the outrage on the fact that they like to eat what Westerners consider pets.
The biggest producers of industrialized animal products are not in Asia, but in the U.S., Europe and South America. And despite scandals, poor sanitary conditions, labor violations, and corruption, the environment and healthier alternatives to address world hunger are hardly covered.
The string of unrelated incidents renews calls for a radical change in the approach to crimes against the defenseless. Specially when them are used as a political prop, as was the case in at least one instance. Anyone should be liable for the carcasses their endeavors leave behind.

DOGS KILL LEOPARD & SNIPER KILLS DOG
In Namibia, known for its efforts to protect its wild life, a group trapped a leopard they considered a threat, and helped a pack of dogs maul it to death. Now there’s a global petition demanding that, if not a similar punishment to be exacted onto the culprits, at least, swift justice.
As for what happened to Grizz, it’s unfortunate but not exactly cruel. Two weeks ago, the in-training explosive-detector collie puppy at the Aukland Airport, in New Zealand, got loose on the runaway, freaked out, and failed to respond to couching and return to safety.
After three hours of flight delays, with pilots refusing to take off and risk an accident, a police marksman was called in and put an end to the worst day of his short life. It was an involuntary heartbreaking experience, and even crusty Aussie cops got tear-eyed.

PRAGUE FLAMINGO & THE AUSCHWITZ SHEEP
It’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to hurt, let alone, to massacre to death, a pink flamingo. In beautiful Prague, no less. And even worse, that three boys, age 6, 8, and 10, did it. But children can be cruel too, and parents, if around, are liable for what they do.
The killing is a big red flag, since some research confirmed that psychopaths and serial killers use animals as their training grounds. Intervention may help too. As for the 16-year-old bird, (more)
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Read Also:
* Farewell to a King
* Worst Than Thou

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Wild in the City

New Backyard Attractions:
El Jefe & the Lion King of L.A.

Behind the string of wild animal sightings roaming major urban centers is our destructive appetite for the land and resources of their natural habitats. Thus when a mountain lion takes residency in a public park, or a jaguar is caught on tape close to a highway, it’s urgent to study them before they disappear.
Seeing bears, coyotes, alligators, tigers, and many others is becoming common in American and world cities. But there’s something new about P-22, a puma who lives in L.A., and El Jefe, of Tucson and possibly the only jaguar living in the U.S.: the much we’ve already learned about their incredibly rich individual sagas.

No offense to the remarkable little tiger that roams your living room, but these magnificent cats’ ability to adapt and survive offers invaluable insights into our efforts to slow down the extinction their species and of so many others face. Even if, as it goes, their close proximity also shames us to no end.
The ongoing massive man-made extermination of wildlife, which took evolution millions of years to perfect, is not just a tragedy on a planetary scale; it may also turn out to be the gateway to our own quick demise. Good riddance, some of them would say if they could or were born for that sort of thing.
For too long, developed nations have blamed poor (our apologies, Africa) continents for being lax about natural resources and their native animals. But what the fate of P-22 and El Jefe brings home is the hypocrisy of such an attitude, as it exposes our own lack of commitment for protecting the planet.

CEO OF THE UNDOCUMENTED
The footage of El Jefe, whose name was chosen by students at a Tucson school, was is a highlight in a decades-long program to restore a clear path for jaguars between North and South America. So there was due credit given when a remote camera captured glances of the elusive cat for the first time.
But it also happens during a particular hard time for U.S. immigrants. As a misguided administration engages in mass deportations, it also plans to build a wall at the border with Mexico, which would be disastrous to that recover strategy. That is sad but fitting, though, as El Jefe is believed to be a Mexican by birth too.
How it’ll play out may determine whether current efforts to prevent the extinction of species is headed to success or failure. That’s because any effective preservation strategy has to allocate, and protect, large swaths of land, where they can thrive without human direct interference. And that’s tough.
By the way, tough is also the jaguar bite: 2000 pounds per square inch, which relative to its weight is the stronger than all other cats, and also bears, gorilas and hippos. It can crush a turtle shell and it’s no wonder the Amerindian word Yaguar means ‘he who kills with one leap.’

THE BOSS OF HOLLYWOOD
The case of P-22 is similar in what the cat’s endurance is also the result of a carefully laid out plan to drive up the numbers of a genetically diverse population in the U.S. That’s another component of a successful recovery strategy, as it increases their odds to survival.
Centuries of hunting, inbreeding, and the perils of navigating diminishing wilderness patches squeezed by miles and miles (more)
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Read Also:
* Farewell to a King
* Pachyderm Skills
* Sleep With the Fishes

Continue reading →

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We’ve Kept You Posted

Yearly Recall Takes
a Blurry 2015 Picture

It was a year of record refugee waves, with boatloads of heartbreaking stories landing en masse on European shores. Greeting them, equal parts of compassion and vile political pettiness, and a stunned world reacting as it usually does: with violence.
As usual too, there were plenty of staggering deaths – massive, laser-focused, or undiscriminated – due to terrorism, war strikes, stampedes, and in the U.S., racism and too many guns. And, of course, a fair share of encouraging news about climate change, for instance.
This post hardly covers them all, though. For these Colltales stories we’ve picked are more of a counterpoint to what was going on then. Rather than rehashing what was on everyone’s devices in 2015, they run a parallel track of commentary, criticism, and even comic relief.
Just as global temperatures kept rising, our pulse on the year’s events was better reflected on the weekly editorial Newsletter/Curtain Raiser. So we were free to report another kind of news, neither Pollyanna nor downright depressing. You know, the Colltalers preferable way. Enjoy.

ELVIS, CATS & RIO IN WINTER
The terrorist attack that killed nine journalists at the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo, on Jan. 7, was arguably the biggest news of the first three months of 2015. But the following day, we featured Elvis Presley‘s 80th birthday. And never looked back.
Stories about crows, unemployment, that old fave Voynich Manuscript, and a quirky take on Valentine Day followed. A personal darling was the 450th anniversary of Rio, our city of birth. Bandit Maria Bonita, cats, caturally, and life after death, online, completed the bunch.

A SPRING OF RACE & TIME
By then, the biggest refugee crisis of our era was already creeping in, but within the U.S., an old scourge was robbing the headlines: racism. Our own second quarter, though, was deep into Continue reading →

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Worst Than Thou

How We Gloat When
the Evil Clown Is Not Us

Careful, now, for we’re about to point fingers at people caught doing the despicable. So, let’s get this out of the way, first: we don’t like it one bit. But oh it feels so good that here’s hoping we’ll all come out of the experience better human beings. Kidding, of course.
When someone pays a fortune to shoot a wounded lion, we delude ourselves say we could never do that. Or kick refugee kids. Raise money for a cancer we never had? Shoot a puppy? We. Would. Never. Right? Oh but it must have felt so good to them. Despicable.
To be sure, we hate Internet mongering, and trolling, and public shaming, exactly because it lends everyone but the accused that phony, sanctimonious feeling they’re somehow above the rest. Which no one is, period. Besides such bullying is often on the account of someone’s hidden agenda.
That being said, the devil always reminds us of callous traders of human gullibility, ever eager to profit handsomely from our empathy juices, by sucking them dry. And who’d mostly walk free and sleep well if not caught on the randomness of the Internet. You know who you are.
We’re supposed to learn and grow from those experiences, nourishing ourselves with their cleansing powers, all along singing the praises of this imperfect world’s innate ability to provide opportunities for us to fulfill our highest aspirations. Not a fat chance in hell.

A KICKER & A HEALTH PRO
So, just as if on cue, comes news about that monument to good personhood, Petra Laszlo, a TV camerawoman who was caught on video kicking refugees fleeing the police in Hungary. Among ‘beneficiaries’ of her kicks, there were children and a father carrying his kids.
But what’s less in evidence is her employer, which has just fired her, a channel known for right wing ideas and intolerance. Among its latest tactics, is the deployment of crews to record clashes between migrants and the police, which it then broadcasts to instigate hatred against foreigners.
Not letting his 15-minute disperse into oblivion just yet, beloved lion Cecil’s killer, Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer, went back (more)
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Read Also:
* Man Made
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Farewell to a King



Cecil, the Lion, Who Wore
His Mane & GPS With Pride

He couldn’t have cared less how he’d live or die; just did it both the best way he could. The slaughter of Cecil the Lion, an iconic Zimbabwean big cat who’d been studied for most of his 13 short years, continues to generate waves of grief and anger throughout the Web.
His death, however, is more of a despicable routine than a surprising casualty. His killer, a dentist who’s now candidate to world’s worst person according to a dubious online consensus, spent a small fortune for the right to maim first, and then execute, the majestic feline.
Cecil left behind his brother Jericho and the extended pride they both commanded, along with a bloodline which will most likely be exterminated too. He also leaves years of research for the Oxford University team that outfitted him with a GPS collar to track his whereabouts.
It was a brutal death after an equally brutal life, but of the two, the first one could’ve been avoided. Cecil spent his last agonizing 40 hours with an arrow wound, before being found by his heartless hunter and his over-equipped posse, who then proceeded to shoot, skin, and behead him.
But for as much as this was a senseless act, that tears to shreds the arguable view of humans as innately inclined to compassion, as it stands, it’s far from being unique, final, or even solely attributable to the low member of the species who perpetrated it.

MOVABLE BLOODBATH FEASTS
After all, our ambiguity towards animal killing is not about to be dissipated by the martyrdom of one lion in the jungles of Africa. Neither a spike in collective adherence to Veganism is about to trend on Twitter; we’ll keep on eating burgers as if they have nothing to do with anything.
In a way, it was also a devilish twist on the David vs Goliath legend: the only way a hunter can win is by deception and Continue reading →