rustedtusks.com

_________________
"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

_________________
~Blazeblast

"Whenever I have to shave, I always assume someone else in the world is shaving, so I say, 'I'm gonna go shave, too'." ~Mitch Hedberg, RIP

_________________
Emoticons are the wheelchair ramps for the humor impaired.

_________________
"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

*watches deer kick the living daylights out of a hunter*

Good grief! Weird, that he didn't try to use his horns on him though, just hooves.

*tries not to read You Tube respondents ... always makes her head hurt*

Sometimes I just wonder about these creatures - like the one that ended up trapped in someone's basement back east a year or two ago, trashing the place, or the deer that have been observed eating shellfish washed up on the shore.

There's so many behavior quirks that one doesn't usually associate with herbivores at all, that I wonder if its just carnivore/omnivore bias.

Ever play with a pet rabbit? They don't play the same as a cat or dog, but they do -play-, including games of chase, which you'd think wouldn't be 'fun' for bunnies - but I've had them try to get me to do just that, chase them so they could run away from me, only to lope back for another go - same behavior with the cat, except that the bunny in question would sometimes chase the cat back, wigging the cat out.

I chalk the bias up to cosmopolitan ignorance. The media learned people, for whom the wild is some romanticized notion of eden and balance, are a wellspring for the perpetuation of this ignorance. They see the cute animals in books, broadcast on shows, and docile in their zoo cages. They think of the neighbor's dog, the friend's kitten, or the relative's parakeet and mentally transpose those domesticated traits. Then it comes as such a shock when a "domesticated," "tame," and "shy" horse staves in another human's skull with a single hoof strike. Suddenly that learning about how wild animals "fear" humans doesn't stand up to the reality of mountain lions hunting humans on the peripheries of towns and cities. Despite the oft recorded incidences of humans attacked, maimed, and killed by animals of all stripes the learned retreat to the veracity of their recorded media.

I believe it is that willful choice, that decision to avoid reality for contrived fiction, comes from unrealized feelings of dissatisfaction and inadequacy. I find that many people that hold the romantic view of nature are disillusioned with human societies largely because they see things in those societies they don't like. It is rare that I encounter a rosy-sunglasses-wearer who is happy or remotely content with their current state of living. Instead of looking at what are the causes of these problems and doing the things necessary to change themselves and their society, they project their ideas of happiness onto some existence that is anything but a modern human society; some choose sci-fi or fantasy worlds but a large portion choose "Mother Nature" and her animal children.

"Mother Nature," what a misnomer. It should have been called "Dutch Uncle Nature" for that's how it really works. The learning experiences are often fatal and often it is sheer physical capability or mindless viciousness that decides who lives to see the sun rise the next morning. The "balance" is an unwieldly cycle of bounty and starvation with a fair dosage of disease, drought, and essential deprivation to claim their victims at random. Life is brutish, merciless, and mercurially short as few young survive to adulthood.

It is the people that choose to ignore these things that think pigs are merely gross instead of dangerous. Or that swans are too elegant to have ever killed adult humans. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, sharks are still scary monsters. I guess rows of jagged teeth in a gaping mouth are too blatant in their purpose to be supressed by any romantic/cute notions.

_________________
"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

The only way I can respond to this interesting posting, Andrick, is with this quote:

"At nesting time the mute swan cob is especially dangerous. Children and dogs coming near the nest are often badly beaten or dragged into the water and drowned. A blow from his powerful wing has been known to break a man's leg."

I love swans... They're FUN!!

Jadúgara ^_^

You need only watch a cat huting to realize, the only reason cats and people retain their relative positions in this world is because of their relative sizes.
I watched a pair of Big White Dogs like mine, who had been in the owner's livingroom playing the guests for treats and pets head out to the pasture at nightfall, and then ease up to the top of the field waiting for a group of coyotes who had been around for a day or two trying for the sheep. They ambushed the column. The beta (male) and the others in the pack watched the coyotes leave at speed, all but the leader, whom the Aplha dog had jumped. Was a full moon night, we watched her from maybe a hundred feet away. She killed the coyote, stripped it apart, and pissed all over the pieces of carcass in a matter of maybe two minutes. And did this totally silently. Only sounds were breathing, crunching, and snapping. And then lapped the field with the rest of her pack checking. When they got to us, she was fist up with wags and 'pet me pet me' like nothing happened. Which, I guess, by her instincts nothing had.
A cat going for its dinner or a flockguard taking out a predator gives a spooky new meaning to 'all out attack'. The gent who wons the farm (in northeastern Kentucky in the Appalachains) delights in showing city people the true nature of their pets.
It doesn't translate into furries for the most opart, which is just as well.

--lj

And, for the folks sticvking up for Cuchuy, "He may be an asshole, but he's OUR asshole."
It's a Southern thing....

--lj

Speaking of deer, I recall a video clip in which a hunter thought it'd be really funny to douse himself in doe scent. His day didn't go very well after that. He got jumped by a horny buck, and then when the buck realized the hunter wasn't what he was looking for, he got pretty annoyed and basically kicked the living shit out of the guy.

I live in Canada. Most of us here in BC are raised with a clear understanding of what nature is like, thanks in part to the Discovery channel which airs some really good nature documentaries. People with romanticized visions find themselves disillusioned fairly quickly, especially after seeing something like Mr. Grizzly crunching down cute little fuzzy Mr. Marmot.

Now as far as the sea is concerned, I don't have fins or flukes. I'm an ape and apes aren't supposed to swim in the water, even though we are capable of it (See the Aquatic Ape theory). We're actually too bony and don't have enough body fat for sharks' tastes, but that doesn't dissuade them from initially mouthing us either out of curiosity or to check whether or not we're something edible. They have a mouth full of serrated razors, and a direct chomp would nearly sever your limb completely. Those huge rips and gouges you've seen pictures of are the result of curiosity.

I enjoy all of the anthropomorphizing in the furry-fandom as much as the next guy, but when it comes to real animals I try to understand them on their level, because that's the only way you can really get an insight into their minds and truly appreciate them for what they are, for better or for worse. I'd like to believe most people understand this as well.

_________________
Gas burns fast. Liquor burns quicker.

No, it's an "Us vs. Them" thing which is not more beholden or more prevalent in any part of the world over the rest. "We protect our own," is a credo and rallying cry used by families, groups, and even nations, to stir normally passive and peaceful people into blood vengeance. Amrican history is riddled with such euphamisms for "them" attacking "us" like: "the Boston Massacre," "remember the Alamo," and "remember the Maine." It is stirring and chilling at the same time to read accounts like the Union soldiers, having repelled in a bloody slaughter, chanting "" as if saying they had achieved revenge for their fallen brethren. Race, religion, ethnicity, profession, social class, or fandom when the ranks close around a group identity it's always "Us vs. Them."

When someone calls you gabacho, or raghead, or Charlie, or any of a number of slurs he's really clearly marking you as "Them" and trying to bring the attention of "Us" to the situation. In Tony's case it had nothing to do with what he eats and everything to do with the culture in which he was raised that marked him as "Them." The canids, like the bartender, seem very much like la raza chicanos.

_________________
"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -