Saturday, November 01, 2014
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
When an animal kills or maims a human, the animal in question is usually put down. This happens no matter what kind of animal – dog, shark, horse, lion, bull, elephant, bear. Indeed, the polar bear that killed Eton schoolboy Horatio Chapple in 2011 was also killed, even though the polar bear is in serious danger of becoming extinct (and Eton schoolboys are not). It seems a little unfair; the animal can't be taken to court and tried – if animals could talk, who knows what their reasons might be. They might have felt threatened, or scared, or been hungry. Or, most likely, could probably be excused on the basis that it's their animal nature to be a killer. Or if it's a pet, surely the blame lies more with the animal's owner, and they should be tried (and probably destroyed). Other times, it's just an accident, like a clumsy elephant sitting on someone. Whatever the reason, killing the animal is pretty harsh and doesn't really solve anything.
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3 comments :
This is one of my bugbears. I remember reading about the nutcase who wanted to commune with a lion in the lion's enclosure at one of the London zoos. He somehow managed to get inside, whereupon the lion did what a lion will do, and mauled him to death. So the lion was put down. It's actually making me angry all over again just writing about it. Yes, the same thing happened with that polar bear that killed the posh boy – that was the posh boys' own fault – and also with sharks in Australia. Swimmers invade their territories, sharks attack, and they are killed in turn. To keep other swimmers safe? No, purely out of revenge. It's as stupid as those idiots who went around killing stingrays after a ray killed Steve Irwin.
See what you've started?
Caspar, I sometimes feel like this blog is just a public forum for us to bear our bugs. I'm glad you feel the same way.
Public? You mean there are other people here? Voyeuristic perverts, every one of 'em.
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