People being surprised when wild animals act wild.

[wolfie]

Has anyone ever seen videos of deer attacking people? A lot of the comments I read and see on these videos is summed up as "Why did Bambi attack?". Just because it is a prey animal doesn't mean it can't do any damage. Those antlers are very sharp and deer are very strong. If one of them gets mad at you, start praying.

One "urban legend" I've heard is about a moose in the road that doesn't want to get out of the way. An impatient trucker honks at it - big mistake, since the moose interprets the low-pitched blast of the diesel horn as a challenge from another male moose. Front end of the truck gets completely trashed.

Similar to all this is the person who owns a viscous animal for a pet

A viscous dog is one thick puppy.

[LewisLegion]

Any snarly, snappy, misbehaved dog is purely the fault of the owner. Period. I don't care the size, a human is at fault when a dog behaves like a maniac, unless the dog is ill in some way...in which case, the human is still at fault for not taking the dog to the vet the moment behavior started to change with no other known cause.

The ONLY time I can understand when a dog snaps or acts aggressively and it is NOT the fault of the owner is if the dog is in some serious pain at the time. Severely old arthritic dog and someone grabs it and it snaps? I don't blame it. Dog hit by a car and thrashing around in pain, terrified, biting the person that tries to rush over and help it? Well...still usually a human's fault for having their dog in a position where it can be hit in the first place.

[Andara Bledin]

Another issue where a human is at fault but not the owner: Bad breeders. A friend of my mother's had a pair of rotties that were from a breeder that was falsifying their documents. The older was a great dog but had to be put down for severe hip dysplasia and the younger was never right in the head and only got worse as she got older.

^-.-^

[LewisLegion]

There is always a human at fault somewhere. Always. Most of the time it's an owner but as you said, it can be the breeder as well.

But it is always a human. Dogs don't do this to themselves. It's absolutely ludicrous we hate/blame/stereotype them as individuals or breeds when it is ALWAYS a human who caused it.

[Mytical]

I remember when my cousins dog was hit by a car (which didn't even stop). Everybody seemed shocked that it snapped at anybody trying to help it, including my cousin. Unfortunately I had to end up carrying it to a car so we could get it to a vet, and it was biting me (though not hard, just 'HEY WATCH IT' nips) the whole time.

To this day I remember my Aunt's words. "If it was biting me, I'd drop it." Like it was the animals fault. It was hurt, I was hurting it a bit, it wanted the pain to stop. I never blamed it for biting me, I expected it. I KNEW it was going to bite me, but I wasn't about to let the dog lay there and die. The dog was fine, though she walked with a limp for a bit.

[Sleepwalker]

Meh. Animals are people. They are highly stupid people, but still, the shit they do is pretty understandable, if you try and understand it from the point of view of a thinking, feeling, but stupid creature.

It's when people treat animals like objects, machines or like a completely different animal(ie a wild tiger like a fully socialized pet cat) that problems arise.

[AdminAssistant]

A lot of my friends on Facebook were upset that the wild animals released in Ohio were killed. If you didn't know, a man who owned ~50 lions, tigers, bears, etc. set them all free before killing himself. The town had to go on lockdown while the police force hunted down the menagerie. Sure, ideally, the animals would have been tranquilized and sent to animal rescues. But the primary concern of the police force has to be public safety. They had to neutralize the threat as quickly as possible. Also, when you consider the health problems usually found in animals kept like this...it may have been the best option.

To put it another way: If there's a lion in my yard, I don't care if you kill it. Get it out of my yard, tyvm.

[guywithashovel]

I almost started a thread about the animals that were released in Ohio.

If you read the comment sections on the websites for the Ohio newspapers, it's amazing to see how many people are upset about the fact that the sheriff ordered the animals to be hunted down and shot. Yes, it was unfortunate that those animals had to meet that fate. However, I really think it was the sheriff's only option.

They actually did try tranquilizing some of the animals, but the fact is, animals (especially ones as big as tigers and lions and bears) don't fall right to sleep once they are hit with a tranquilizer dart. They hit a tiger with one, and he just roared and started to run around in attack mode. Also, on some of those animals, you have to inject the tranquilizer into a certain part of the body for it to work.

I look at it this way. The sheriff and the police who helped stabilized the situation and prevented those animals from hurting any PEOPLE (people crying about the animals getting shot always seem to overlook that). It's really sad when those people post comments on the news sites like "I can't believe those defenseless animals got shot! Shame on the police!"

Uh, yeah. Let's put you face to face with a tiger or a grizzly bear and then you can tell us how defenseless they are.

[ExRetailDrone]

This thread reminds me of a story from a few years ago that still gets my blood boiling. It happened in my hometown, a very small, rural area. There are lots of forests around the town, lots of wild animals live there. It is not common to see any larger than a raccoon within the town limits itself, but it obviously does happen. One spring a few years back, a momma moose and her baby were spotted within the town limits. People stopped to gawk and stare and take pictures, like people do. The crowd became larger and larger, and the momma moose was probably scared for her young one, so she started becoming defensive. The police were also on the scene, but they weren't keeping the crowd under control like they were supposed to do. I think instead they were trying to deal with the moose, rather than wait and let the DNR take care of it, as per their job. So, the crowd was not being kept under control, the police were doing fuck all, and IIRC (I was not there, luckily) some people started to feel threatened by the moose's behavior. So, rather than having the police keep order and arrest people if they weren't listening, the momma moose ended up getting lethally shot The moose had a young one with her that she was trying to protect. She was doing what any momma animal would do, including most humans, yet she was disposed of because people can't figure out that the moose is not there solely for their amusement.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Reminds me of reading about these idiots who got attacked by a grizzly in a national park, cuz they saw a bear cub apparently alone by the side of the road, stopped and started poking it and prodding it.

Then mama bear burst out of the bushes...

[bara]

A lot of my friends on Facebook were upset that the wild animals released in Ohio were killed. If you didn't know, a man who owned ~50 lions, tigers, bears, etc. set them all free before killing himself. The town had to go on lockdown while the police force hunted down the menagerie. Sure, ideally, the animals would have been tranquilized and sent to animal rescues. But the primary concern of the police force has to be public safety. They had to neutralize the threat as quickly as possible. Also, when you consider the health problems usually found in animals kept like this...it may have been the best option.

To put it another way: If there's a lion in my yard, I don't care if you kill it. Get it out of my yard, tyvm.

They were able to save a few. But most had to be put down because of safety. They even closes some schoolds.

[LewisLegion]

I got bit recently by my mother's dog after she got hit by a car. Most sedate dog you'd ever meet, wouldn't hurt a fly, but I knew as soon as I got out of the car (I witnessed the hit) that I was going to get bit.

And get bit I did, four or five times, before I got the dog pinned and calmed down enough that I could lift her and carry her to the car. Fortunately all she got was some road-rash...I actually ended up more hurt than the dog.

But if I'd just been hit by a car and someone grabbed me and (as someone said), I was a bit dim in the intelligence department, I would probably smack or hit or bite them too.

[Cymberleah]

Last summer there was a hiker killed in Olympic National Forest. He was gored in the thigh by a mountain goat and bled out in about five minutes.

His estate has sued for $10,022,700 for wrongful death and personal injury. This claim has been denied, but it is expected that a lawsuit against the federal government will be filed next month.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/132784673.html

A few "fun" details from the article:

Messina said it is “a specious argument” to suggest visitors to Olympic National Park should accept the risk of encountering wild animals while in the park.

Wait, what? You go to a forest and expect there to be no wild animals? What planet are you from, because on this one animals are an important part of the ecosystem.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of people and kids visit the park every year. This is a federal reserve created for the purpose of the use of the citizens of the United States.

Again, what? I'm pretty sure the charter for the national park system has *never* said "the creation of wild spaces, minus all the wild parts." This isn't a city park, this is an enormous forest. Heck, I live by a couple acre green belt and there are coyotes and deer. There is no conceivable way that you could create a reserve that thousands and thousands of people visit that doesn't have wild animals in it.

Personal injury claims totaling $22,700 include expenses for counseling sessions, massage therapy, newspaper obituaries, emergency room procedures and funeral expenses.

Right. Just.... sure. I know that you weren't planning on having to deal with a death in the family, but the cost of a newspaper obit really doesn't seem to fall under "personal injury" as no one, NO ONE requires that you do that.

Part of what hurts my brain the most is that the federal park system is used in part as a means to preserve ecosystems and animal populations, and here we have someone whinging that human intrusion on an animal's territory is somehow the creature's fault. Was the animal unusually aggressive? Absolutely. Can you ever expect any animal, let alone a wild one, to not be territorial? Um, no.

[Andara Bledin]

She told a park ranger that Boardman had complained to the park several times about an aggressive mountain goat at Klahhane Ridge “and couldn’t understand why the park hadn’t taken action with this goat,” according to records of the incident obtained by the Peninsula Daily News under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Why they hell were they hiking there when they had prior knowledge that there was at least one unpleasant goat in the area that hadn't been dealt with by park staff?

At that point, they've strayed fully into 'assumed risk' territory and the results are on their own heads.

^-.-^

[Mytical]

Gah..really? You go into a wild area, get attacked by a wild animal, and it is the National Parks fault? I know, go swimming with sharks..and blame the coast guard for failing to protect your sorry behind when an animal considers you lunch. I swear, what drugs are these people on and why are they not sharing!