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Day Of The Animals: Tales Of Man Vs Beast (And Man Suffers)

Well I don't buy it. The finger of guilt is too obviously pointed at these
doggies and we know they are programmed to look guilty. As for the
dog licence, reputedly dropped at the scene, it beggars belief.

No, ladies and gentlemen and things of the Fortean jury, may I draw
your attention to the fact that at the very time of this German incident,
a gang of evil felines gathered underneath my window for a noisy
orgy of celebration. We have heard the very curious evidence from
Mr. Rolf Harris that he personally witnessed half a BMW tyre being
extracted from the cheek of an enormous ginger Tom. The fact that this
cat was in Salford merely supplies more worrying evidence of the
International nature of this felixis of evil which is dedicated to the
destruction of all we hold dear.

:p
 
Five hurt in badger rampage

Five hurt in badger rampage

An angry domesticated badger has savaged five people, leaving one man so seriously injured he needed skin grafts, and chased away pursuing police officers during a 48-hour rampage through a quiet town.

Domesticated? Sounds wild to me. Absolutely livid, in fact.
 
And of course, after being misshandled by idiots, the badger was put down. :mad: Shame we can't do the same for some humans.
 
Wild animals reared by, or at least become used to,humans are supposed to be the most dangerous animals as they have lost their natural fear but don't have the brain changes necessary for true domestication and are more likely to attack.
 
In a similar vein of good animals gone bad, I heard a tale on a facility where I worked. In that business, safety is a big issue such that any kind of mishap that requires treatment (even a plaster on the finger) needs to be formally reported.
The site was fairly big and needed to be driven around to get from A to B, and whilst one of the shift guys was driving on his rounds, he happened to catch a rabbit with his front tyre as it dashed across the road. He stopped the truck and got out to check on the rabbit's condition, which I presume was lying in a daze. He reached out, I know not why, and this rabbit went for him, biting him on the finger and drawing blood.
The bloke, most likely a burly jock, had to fill in the incident report form as:

"Reason for Injury: Savaged by irate bunny."
 
Hahahahah, that sounds like a Jasper Carrott story!

Australian dingoes used to be fed by tourists until the dingoes started to become too bold and raided campsites for food. My cousin who lives there reckons that the 'Dingo Baby' was taken by a dingo which had become a sort of half-friendly pet of the park rangers, with horrible consequences.

Takes years and many generations to domesticate wild beasties.
I saw a Discovery prog about a Russian experiment to domesticate wild squirrels. They bred the friendliest ones from each generation and it took years and years to produce squirrels of 'pet' quality which wouldn't bite & try to run off.

The point of which was............ I dunno.
 
Now for something completely wild and gnu

June 26 2003 at 01:45AM

Strange things turn up in scrapyards, but a wildebeest bull, live and kicking, has to be a first.

"Heaven knows how it got there, maybe someone was keeping it illegally on a plot in the area and it escaped," said Karen Trendler, director for Wildcare Africa, a non-profit organisation specialising in wildlife rescue.

No one could quite believe it when the Benoni SPCA received a call that a wildebeest - also called a gnu - had wondered into a nearby scrapyard on Tuesday. The SPCA alerted Wildcare, and they sprang into action on Wednesday.

"Apparently it wandered in when the guard opened the gates," said Trendler. But the animal turned out to be something of an unwelcome guest when it started showing signs of aggression and wouldn't allow the guard into his hut.

'It wasn't happy with the dog's barking and the guard was forced to lock the dog up'
"It wasn't happy with the dog's barking and the guard was forced to lock the dog up," said Wildcare centre manager Michael Jamieson.

The scrapyard was littered with 2,5m-high piles of scrap computers and other waste materials over a very small area, and it was up to Jamieson to dart the animal under difficult conditions.

Once it was drugged, the team were faced with the challenge of getting it out of the pile of computer junk.

"We had to clear away a lot of the scrap but we still had to use straps to lift the animal out," said Trendler.

The Wildcare team then transported it to the Klipkop Conservancy, east of Pretoria, where it was released to join a herd.

"The animal, a young adult, was in a very good condition. At first we were worried that it might have been tame, but from the way it responded to the herd it was clearly wild," said Trendler.

"It was an amazing rescue and everything went incredibly well under very difficult circumstances. It was great to have three animal welfare organisations - Wildcare, Benoni SPCA and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) - working together to ensure the rapid, safe and successful rescue of the wildebeest," said Trendler.

She said the cost of the rescue - about R6 000 for the special drugs, equipment and trained personnel required - was paid by Ifaw.

This article was originally published on page 2 of The Star on June 26, 2003

The scrapyard in question is a computer graveyard, the owners buy obsolete machines to recover the gold on the circuit boards.
Looking for a link to a picture - the site of a GNU in the middle of a zillion machines running windows is priceless.
 
Originally reported in the San Francisco Chronicle - Hunter John Runnells was shot by a 200-lb. black bear (gun went off when bear stepped on it during scuffle), but is recovering, and the incident was videotaped by his buds.

:D What a great bunch 'a' guys!
 
Bears harmless party animals? Urmmmm no.

California Couple Killed In Alaskan Bear Attack

POSTED: 3:15 p.m. PDT October 7, 2003
UPDATED: 4:10 p.m. PDT October 7, 2003

KING SALMON, Alaska -- A self-styled bear expert who once called Alaska's brown bears harmless party animals was one of two Californians fatally mauled in a bear attack in Katmai National Park and Preserve -- the first known bear killings in the 4.7-million-acre park.

The bodies of Timothy Treadwell, 46, and Amie Hugenard, 37, both of Malibu, Calif., were found near Kaflia Bay on Monday when a pilot with Andrew Airways arrived to pick them up and take them to Kodiak, Alaska State Troopers said. The park is on the Alaska Peninsula.

Treadwell, co-author of "Among Grizzlies: Living With Wild Bears in Alaska," spent more than a dozen summers living alone with Katmai bears, and videotaping them. Information on Hugenard was not immediately available.

The Andrew Airways pilot contacted troopers in Kodiak and the National Park Service in King Salmon after he saw a brown bear, possibly on top of a body, in the camp Monday afternoon.

Park rangers encountered a large, aggressive male brown bear when they arrived at the campsite and killed it. Investigators then found human remains buried by a bear near the campsite, which was in a brushy area with poor visibility.

No weapons were found at the scene, Park Service spokeswoman Jane Tranel said. Firearms are prohibited in that part of the park.

The remains and the entire campsite were packed out Monday and transported to Kodiak on the Andrew Airways flight.

As the plane was being loaded, another aggressive bear approached and was killed by park rangers and troopers. The bear was younger, possibly a 3-year-old, according to Bruce Bartley, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game office in King Salmon.

The bodies were flown to the state medical examiner's office for autopsy.

Dean Andrew, owner of Andrew Airways, said the pilot was too upset to comment. The company had been flying Treadwell out to Katmai for 13 years and Huguenard for the last couple of years. Andrew said Treadwell as an experienced outdoorsman.

"We were all good friends with him," he said. "We haven't had time to deal with it."

Treadwell was known for his brazen confidence around bears. He often got so close he could touch them. He gave them names. Once he was filmed crawling along the ground singing as he approached a sow and two cubs.

Over the years, Park Service officials, biologists and others expressed concern about his safety and the message he was sending out.

"At best he's misguided," Deb Liggett, superintendent at Katmai and Lake Clark national parks, told the Anchorage Daily News in 2001. "At worst he's dangerous. If Timothy models unsafe behavior, that ultimately puts bears and other visitors at risk."

That same year, Treadwell was a guest on the "Late Show with David Letterman," describing Alaska brown bears as mostly harmless "party animals." He said he felt safer living among the bears than running through New York's Central Park.

In his book, Treadwell said he decided to devote himself to saving grizzlies after a drug overdose, followed by several close calls with brown bears in early trips to Alaska. He said those experiences inspired him to give up drugs, study bears and establish a nonprofit bear-appreciation group, called Grizzly People.

Grizzly and brown bears are the same species, but brown is used to describe bears in coastal areas and grizzly for bears in the Interior.

Treadwell and Huguenard were videotaping bears at the Kaflia Bay lakes, usually not frequented by visitors, according to Park Service spokesman John Quinley. He said bears are attracted to the area by a late run of salmon passing through lakes.

The site is 60 air miles east of Brooks Camp, the best known and most frequently visited bear-watching site in the park. Although it is reachable only by float plane or boat, as many as 300 people visit in July, when scores of bears congregate at the Brooks River as sockeye salmon make their way to spawning grounds.

"July is prime-time for bears there," Quinley said. "It's a worldwide destination."

In the mid-1980s, a brown bear mauled the body of a visitor who drowned, but this week's attacks are the first known bear killings in the park, Quinley said.

Rangers planned to return to the site Tuesday, but were waiting for low clouds to clear, Bartley said.
Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press.

http://www.ktvu.com/news/2538431/detail.html

Due to the known sick sense of humour of the universe if I'd said that about bears I'd never have gone near one again. Perhaps we might have to start keeping an eye out for people who have died after saying stupid thingson David Letterman's show?

Doom of Dave
Letterman's Legacy

Emps
 
I read an article on this guy that said the Parks Services people loathed him because he persisted in doing sh*t that was incredibly dangerous and then others who saw it would also try it. Mostly stuff like standing inches from the bears, when the minimum safe distance according to the rangers is 50 feet.
 
It's a form of karma, I suppose.

Just goes to show that you need to respect nature. Don't wander up to brown bears expecting them to be friendly, don't try to pat the sharks off the cannery in Sydney Harbour, don't pick up a funnel-web to carry it outside, and don't try cuddling snakes.

Nature is wonderful, but best observed from a moderate distance.
 
Some follow ups:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3174636.stm

and a bit more background (a word rhyming with buckwit springs to mind):

Wildlife author killed, eaten by bears he loved

KATMAI: Many had warned Treadwell that his encounters with browns were too close.


By CRAIG MEDRED
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: October 8, 2003)


A California author and filmmaker who became famous for trekking to Alaska's remote Katmai coast to commune with brown bears has fallen victim to the teeth and claws of the wild animals he loved.

Alaska State Troopers and National Park Service officials said Timothy Treadwell, 46, and girlfriend Amie Huguenard, 37, were killed and partially eaten by a bear or bears near Kaflia Bay, about 300 miles southwest of Anchorage, earlier this week.

Scientists who study Alaska brown bears said they had been warning Treadwell for years that he needed to be more careful around the huge and powerful coastal twin of the grizzly.

Treadwell's films of close-up encounters with giant bears brought him a bounty of national media attention. The fearless former drug addict from Malibu, Calif. -- who routinely eased up close to bears to chant "I love you'' in a high-pitched, sing-song voice -- was the subject of a show on the Discovery Channel and a report on "Dateline NBC." Blond, good-looking and charismatic, he appeared for interviews on David Letterman's show and "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" to talk about his bears. He even gave them names: Booble, Aunt Melissa, Mr. Chocolate, Freckles and Molly, among others.

A self-proclaimed eco-warrior, he attracted something of a cult following too. Chuck Bartlebaugh of "Be Bear Aware,'' a national bear awareness campaign, called Treadwell one of the leaders of a group of people engaged in "a trend to promote getting close to bears to show they were not dangerous.

"He kept insisting that he wanted to show that bears in thick brush aren't dangerous. The last two people killed (by bears) in Glacier National Park went off the trail into the brush. They said their goal was to find a grizzly bear so they could 'do a Timothy.' We have a trail of dead people and dead bears because of this trend that says, 'Let's show it's not dangerous.' ''

But even Treadwell knew that getting close with brown bears in thick cover was indeed dangerous. In his 1997 book "Among Grizzlies,'' he wrote of a chilling encounter with a bear in the alder thickets that surround Kaflia Lake along the outer coast of Katmai National Park and Preserve.

"This was Demon, who some experts label the '25th Grizzly,' the one that tolerates no man or bear, the one that kills without bias,'' Treadwell wrote. "I had thought Demon was going to kill me in the Grizzly Maze.''

Treadwell survived and kept coming back to the area. He would spend three to four months a summer along the Katmai coast, filming, watching and talking to the bears.

"I met him during the summer of '98 at Hallo Bay,'' said Stephen Stringham, a professor with the University of Alaska system. "At first, having read his book, I thought he was fairly foolhardy ... (but) he was more careful than the book portrayed.

"He wasn't naive. He knew there was danger."

NO PROTECTION

Despite that, Treadwell refused to carry firearms or ring his campsites with an electric fence as do bear researchers in the area. And he stopped carrying bear spray for self-protection in recent years. Friends said he thought he knew the bears so well he didn't need it.

U.S. Geological Survey bear researcher Tom Smith; Sterling Miller, formerly the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's top bear authority; and others said they tried to warn the amateur naturalist that he was being far too cavalier around North America's largest and most powerful predator.

"He's the only one I've consistently had concern for,'' Smith said. "He had kind of a childlike attitude about him.''

"I told him to be much more cautious ... because every time a bear kills somebody, there is a big increase in bearanoia and bears get killed,'' Miller said. "I thought that would be a way of getting to him, and his response was 'I would be honored to end up in bear scat.' ''

A number of other people said that over the years Treadwell made similar comments to them, implying that he would prefer to die as part of a bear's meal. All said they found the comments troubling, because bears that attack people so often end up dead.

RANGERS RETRIEVE REMAINS

Katmai park rangers who went Monday to retrieve the remains of Treadwell and Huguenard -- both of whom were largely eaten -- ended up killing two bears near the couple's campsite.

Katmai superintendent Deb Liggett said she was deeply troubled by the whole episode.

"The last time I saw Timothy, I told him to be safe out there and that none of my staff would ever forgive him if they had to kill a bear because of him,'' she said. "I kind of had a heart-to-heart with him. I told him he was teaching the wrong message.

"This is unfortunate, (but) I'm not surprised. It really wasn't a matter of if; it was just a matter of when.''

What led up to the latest Alaska bear attack, as well as exactly when it happened, is unknown. The bodies of Treadwell and Huguenard, a physician's assistant from Boulder, Colo., were discovered Monday by the pilot of a Kodiak air taxi who arrived at their wilderness camp to take them back to civilization. A bear had buried the remains of both in what is known as a "food cache.''

The couple's tent was flattened as if a bear sat or stepped on it, but it had not been ripped open, even though food was inside. The condition of the tent led most knowledgeable observers to conclude the attack probably took place during the daylight hours when Treadwell and Huguenard were outside the tent, instead of at night when they would have been inside. Most of their food was found in bear-proof containers near the camp.

Officials said the camp was clean but located close to a number of bear trails. Because of the concentration of bears in the Kaflia Lake area and a shortage of good campsites, however, it is almost impossible to camp anywhere but along a bear trail there.

EXTENDED THEIR STAY

Treadwell and Huguenard, who was in the process of moving from Colorado to Malibu to live with Treadwell, had last been heard from Sunday afternoon when they used a satellite phone to talk to Jewel Palovak. Palovak is a Malibu associate of Treadwell at Grizzly People, which bills itself as "a grass-roots organization devoted to preserving bears and their wilderness habitat.''

Palovak said she talked with Treadwell about his favorite bear, a sow he called Downy. Treadwell had been worried, Palovak said, that the sow might have wandered out of the area and been killed by hunters. So instead of returning to California at the end of September as planned, Treadwell lingered at Kaflia to look for her. Palovak said Treadwell was excited to report finding the animal alive.

PILOT CALLS IN TRAGEDY

What transpired in the hours after the phone call is unknown. The Kodiak pilot who arrived at the Treadwell camp the next day was met by a charging brown bear. The bear forced the pilot for Andrew Airways back to his floatplane.

Authorities said he took off and buzzed the bear several times in an effort to drive it out of the area, but it would not leave the campsite established by Treadwell and Huguenard. When the pilot spotted the bear apparently sitting on the remains of a human, authorities said, he flew back to the lake, landed, beached his plane some distance from the camp and called for help from troopers and the Park Service.

Interviews with sources who were on the scene provided this account:

Park rangers were the first to arrive. They hiked from the beach toward a knob above the camp hoping to be able to survey the scene from a distance. They had no sooner reached the top of the knob, however, than they were charged by a large brown bear.

It was shot and killed at a distance of about 12 feet. The Andrew Air pilot, according to Bruce Bartley of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, was convinced the large boar with the ratty hide was the same animal he'd tried to buzz out of the campsite. The boar was described as an underweight, old male with rotting teeth.

Authorities do not know if it was the bear that killed Treadwell and Huguenard. They were to fly to the site on Tuesday to search the animal's stomach for human remains but were prevented from doing so by bad weather.

After shooting that bear, rangers and troopers who had by then arrived walked down to the campsite and undertook the task of gathering the remains of the two campers. While they were there, another large boar grizzly went through the campsite but largely ignored the humans.

A smaller, subadult that appeared later, however, seemed to be stalking the group. Rangers and troopers shot and killed it.

"It would have killed Timothy to know that they killed the bears,'' Palovak said, "but there was no choice in the matter."

"He was very clear that he didn't want any retaliation against a bear,'' added Roland Dixon, a wealthy bear fan who lives on a ranch outside of Fort Collins, Colo., and has been one of Treadwell's main benefactors for the past six or seven years. "He was really adamant that he didn't want any bear to suffer from any mistake that he made. His attitude was that if something like this were to happen, it would probably be his fault.''

Bartlebaugh of "Be Bear Aware'' has no doubts that Treadwell loved the animals but believes the love was misguided.

"I'm an avid bear enthusiast,'' Bartlebaugh said. "It's the same attitude that I think Timothy had, but I don't want them (the bears) to be my friends. I don't want to have a close, loving relationship. I want to be in awe of them as wild animals.''

Palovak, Treadwell's associate, and Dixon take a different view.

"I think (Timothy) would say it's the culmination of his life's work,'' Palovak said. "He always knew that he was the bear's guest and that they could terminate his stay at any time. He lived with the full knowledge of that. He died doing what he lived for.''

"He was kind of a goofy guy,'' Dixon said. "It took me a while to get in tune with him. His whole life was dedicated to being with the bears, or teaching young people about them. That's all he ever did. It was always about the bears. It was never about Timothy. He had a passion and he lived his passion. There will be no one to replace him. There's just nobody in the bear world who studies bears like Timothy did.''

Dixon acknowledged Treadwell took risks with bears but dismissed as envious those who criticized his behavior .

http://www.adn.com/front/story/4110831p-4127072c.html

His website can be found here:

http://www.grizzlypeople.com/home.php

and it looks like he did a lot of good and interesting work with and for bears but I think everyone would have been happier if he had followed the advice thats on the main page.

Emps
 
Way too bad for the poor bears but this supports my earlier post that once a wild animal (bear, tiger, lion, whatever) learns to attack and eat humans they will do it over and over? Obviously the Park Rangers would not have killed the bears without a reason; the bears have now learned to kill humans.





Why am I reminded of that horrible 70's song "Timothy" by the Bouys?
 
ALASKA VICTIM TAPED DEADLY BEAR ATTACK

October 9, 2003 -- ANCHORAGE - The graphic sounds of a deadly bear attack in the Alaska wilderness were captured on tape, revealing a wildlife author's final screams as he tried to fend off the beast, authorities said yesterday.
Trooper Chris Hill said the tape suggests a video camera was turned on just before Timothy Treadwell was fatally attacked at his campsite. His girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, was later mauled to death by a bear. The recording is audio only, and the screen is blank for all six minutes.

"They're both screaming. She's telling him to play dead, then it changes to fighting back. He asks her to hit the bear," Hill said.

"There's so much noise going on. I don't know what's him and what might be an animal."

The remains of Treadwell, 46, and Huguenard, 37, both of Malibu, Calif., were found Monday at Katmai National Park. Treadwell was known for approaching bears in the wild.

"The audio starts while he's being mauled and ends while he's being mauled," Hill said.

Treadwell may have heard a bear and asked Huguenard to turn on the camera, which was found with the lens cap on packed in a bag, Hill said.

"At first, she sounds kind of surprised and asks if it's still out there. I'm not sure if she was asking if a bear was outside their tent or in the brush," Hill said. "The audio stops because the tape runs out."
 
Emperor said:
and a bit more background (a word rhyming with buckwit springs to mind):
I'm thinking more "Bucking Idjit" myself.

I hope this doesn't lead to a hunt for the bear responsible. Especially when you consider that it was probably the human's fault to start with. (Keeping in mind that it was the humans who were out of their element, not the bear. Same thing with most shark and crocodile/alligator attacks which also tend to result in unrelenting violence against the animals.)

Then again, I also don't think you should hold the tiger that mauled Roy responsible either. The only time you should need to use deadly force on wild animals is when they wander into human habitat of their own accord, and pose a threat to the people living there. (And self defence, of course. I just don't believe punitive vengence is needed in this case.)
 
Dog eats boys fingers

Sleeping Fla. Boy Has 4 Fingers Gnawed Off By Family Dog

Fingers Found In Dog's Stomach

POSTED: 12:59 p.m. EDT October 15, 2003
UPDATED: 11:55 p.m. EDT October 15, 2003

A 6-year-old Florida boy who was partially paralyzed by a hit-and-run driver last year had four of his fingers chewed off by his family's dog because he couldn't feel what the animal was doing.


Dontavius Bryant, of Tampa, Fla., was hit by a driver last year and left with no feeling on his left side, which is why he didn't feel the dog chewing off his fingers to his second knuckle while he slept.

Dontavius's 10-year-old brother, who shares a bed with him, found blood on the bed when he awoke sometime between 5 and 5:30 a.m. Monday.

"My brother told me to look at my hand," said Dontavius, sitting in a wheelchair Tuesday afternoon at the hospital with his left hand wrapped in white gauze. "I looked at it, and it was bleeding."

Hillsborough County animal control officials destroyed the puppy, a mixed breed of chow and pit bull named Chaka.

The child's fingers were found in the dog's stomach, police said.

Jerrolyn "Shawn" Dewberry, 27, rushed her son to St. Joseph's Hospital. Dontavius was being treated at adjacent Tampa Children's.

"When I woke up, four of his fingers were off. It was a lot of blood," she said. "He went to sleep with 10 fingers, woke up with six." Dontavius, who is right-handed, lost the use of his left hand in October 2002 when the driver of a pickup hit him as he was attempting to cross the street on his way home from playing football. No one has been arrested.

Dontavius and his two older brothers had received the puppy as a gift from their aunt two to three weeks ago, family friend Diona Thomas said.

"I believe the dog didn't know what he was doing," Thomas said. "He was friendly. Everybody loved him."

Chaka will be the last dog Dontavius will have, his mother said. "I don't want more dogs," Dewberry said. "We're going to stick to fish, to birds. No pets like dogs."

Dontavius is taking his latest injury in stride, saying it doesn't interfere with his passion for playing video games.

"I'll be OK. I can still play video games with one hand," he said.

http://www.local6.com/news/2556176/detail.html

There is also a video report at that site - brave kid with some really bad luck :(

Emps
 
He ate the corndogs with his paralysed hand then?
 
This reminds me of a book I read called 'The Gift Of Pain' which is about a pioneering leprosy doctor.

Leprosy patients often used to lose fingers and toes mysteriously in the night.

They don't any more because the leprosy doctor insisted they each keep a pet cat with them at all times when asleep.

Yes, their hands and feet were numb and they were being attacked by rats..............:eek:
 
When bears act foolsihly

Bear smashes through hospital doors - twice


Patients in a Japanese hospital were astonished to see a wild bear smash through the entrance door twice within the space of a few minutes.

The 100kg bear crashed in one entrance and out of another before circuiting the hospital and returning through the first entrance.

Once outside it ran across the hospital car park and returned for a second look before fleeing into nearby mountains.

The Japan Times said the early morning intrusions left patients and security guards at the hospital in Ichinoseki stunned.


Story filed: 13:49 Friday 17th October 2003

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_829761.html?menu=news.quirkies

It sounds like the bear was just dicking around.

Emps
 
Watch out randy emu about

Posted on Thu, Oct. 16, 2003

Looking for love -- 300-pounds of emu love

Associated Press

DEFUNIAK SPRINGS, Fla. - He stands six feet tall, weighs 300 pounds and may be looking for love, says the owner of an ostrich-like emu that was on the loose in the Florida Panhandle.

The flightless bird that escaped from his pen Wednesday remained at large Thursday, said Walton County sheriff's Capt. Danny Glidewell.

Jeff Crawford, who has raised the emu for eight years, said the bird could be dangerous.

"I don't want to be held liable if that sex-crazed thing does something to somebody," Crawford said. "I want people to know he's running around out there."

Crawford said the emu was spooked and jumped the fence when a neighbor hauled a large trailer down their rural road.

"You've got a 50- or 60-foot trailer coming down this little road, breaking off tree branches and making all kinds of noise," Crawford said. "Heck, I'd run, too."

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/weird_news/7029482.htm
 
When Dead Moose Attack III

'Dead' moose attacked hunter

A hunter's worst nightmare came true for 68-year-old Arne Aurdal after shooting a moose in the forest in Gausdal. Aurdal is considering giving up the sport after being beaten black and blue by the mortally wounded animal, though he survived thanks to a bit of quick thinking.

Aurdal escaped with cuts and a bodyful of bruises, but a clever idea helped him avoid what could have been a painful death, newspaper Gudbrandsdoelen Dagningen reports.

"I was sure that my final hour had come, and that the bull was going to kill me. I grabbed onto his horns and hoped that his wild frenzy would end. The minute it lasted seemed like an eternity," Aurdal told the paper.

Aurdal, an experienced hunter, had taken the moose down with his first shot, and moved in to finish it off. At that moment, Aurdal was faced with a situation that moose hunters fear but rarely see.

"Suddenly the animal reared up and jumped right towards me. In panic, I threw myself onto his horns in the hope that my only chance was to avoid being skewered on the ground," Aurdal said.

The moose ended its days in a violent frenzy, thrashing Aurdal around as the man clung on for dear life.

"Luckily the bull gave up. The first shot was well aimed, and after a minute of madness it sank to its knees and moved on to the eternal forest," Aurdal said.

Aurdal reckons the beast weighed in at a bit under 300 kilos (650 lbs) and was two and half years old. His horns had five points, and Aurdal is making an exception and keeping the antlers as a memento of his near death experience.

"Right now I'm eating pills to kill the pain in my beaten body, but in a few years I might look back and laugh," Aurdal said.

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=648828

Serves him right as far as I'm concerned ;)

Emps
 
Puppy Chews Off Paralyzed Boy's Fingers
TAMPA, Fla. -- A 6-year-old Florida boy who is paralyzed on his left side is recovering after a puppy chewed off four of his fingers because he couldn't feel what the animal was doing.

Dontavius Bryant is reported in good condition at Tampa Children's Hospital. The puppy -- a 5.5-week-old chow-pit bull mix named "Chaka" -- was destroyed by animal control officers.

Dontavius was left partially paralyzed about a year ago when he was hit by a pickup as he attempted to cross a street on his way home from playing football.

He suffers partial paralysis on his left side, which is why he could not feel the dog chewing off his fingers to his second knuckle while he slept.

Dontavius seems undeterred by his latest setback. He says the injury won't interfere with his passion to play video games with his right hand.
 
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Whale's tail killed man

A trapped humpback whale killed a New Zealand fisherman by slapping it's huge tail down on him as he tried to cut the stricken animal free of ropes, a coroner ruled.

Thomas Brent Smith, 38, died in June off the whale watching town of Kaikoura on South Island when he was hit by the whale's tail while trying to free the mammal from the crawfish pot lines. His body was never found.

Video footage shot by a tourist showed the fishing charter operator swimming around the whale trying to cut away rope lines.

and from the same paper

Engineers quizzed on death of tourist

Two maintenance engineers have been placed under formal investigation following the freak death of a British tourist at an Italian railway station.

Professor Sally Baldwin, aged 62, suffered horrific injuries after she fell through a hole in a moving walkway- which was being repaired- and was killed instantly at Rome's Tiburtina station.

Two other men were injured trying to help Professor Baldwin and are recovering in hospital.

Investigating magistrate Roberto Staff, formally placed engineers Massimo Migotto, 37, and Sergio Marfut, 29. under investigation on charges of manslaughter and grievous bodily harm.

The pair claim they had switched off power and placed barriers around the walkway.

But when Professor Baldwin, who lectured at York University, stepped onto the walkway she fell through the hole after five panels had been removed.

There was no sign of any barriers the engineers claim to have put up.
....................................................................

Both articles: Wolverhampton Express & Star, 10th November 2003


I shall be less slothful in future...I am NEVER using one of those walkways again, that's as bad as those escalator adverts from the 70's & 80's:eek!!!!:
 
3.5lb fish 'kills' angler

BBCi News 6/12/03

Fish drags angler to death

A fisherman was dragged to his death in the Thames by a powerful fish pulling on his line, an inquest has heard.

Stanley King, who was recovering from an operation got tangled in his line and was pulled into the water at Windsor, Berkshire, after a tug from the 3.5lb barbel.

The 60-year-old called for help to his friend John Speer, who was on the riverbank, but was unable to save him from drowning during the night time fishing trip.

The body of the veteran angler, who had recently had an operation on his stomach, was not found until the next morning on 6th August this year.
 
The latest article on him - apparently quite a character:

Bear Advocate an Enigma in Death
By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - Timothy Treadwell's death came just the way he had predicted. Treadwell and his girlfriend were mauled by a 1,000-pound grizzly bear last October in a remote section of Alaskan wilderness that Treadwell knew well after years of living among its bear population.

That Treadwell was killed doing what he loved did not surprise many of those who knew him. He had acknowledged his forays into the backcountry were tempting fate.

He had started an environmental group and received donations from celebrities such as actor Leonardo DiCaprio, in part by saying the bears he loved were in jeopardy. He spun colorful stories about his adventures for the Discovery Channel, David Letterman's late-night audience and the Walt Disney Co.

What few knew about Treadwell was that much of his life was an invention.

Interviews with associates and reviews of public records reveal Treadwell as a complex character — part wildlife enthusiast, part showman, part educator, part impostor.

The organization he said was dedicated to saving bears did find an outlet educating school children. But some experts said the bears he professed to be saving didn't need his protection.

His tales of being Australian or an English orphan, later rescuing himself from a life of drugs and alcohol through his fascination with bears, only made his story more compelling.

Only after his death did some friends learn that he was born under a different name as the middle-class son of a Long Island phone company foreman. Charismatic in life, Treadwell had become an enigma in death.

Grizzlies, known as brown bears along the Alaskan coast, are more likely to attack people than the smaller black bear. More than 400 grizzly attacks on humans have been documented in Alaska since 1900, a fraction of them fatal, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center.

Treadwell refused to see the bears as "savage beasts." He spent nearly a dozen summers living among grizzlies, primarily in the Katmai National Park and Preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, videotaping many of his encounters.

Despite the concerns of wildlife authorities, Treadwell, 46, won national acclaim for his daring and devotion. He published a book, "Among Grizzlies: Living With Wild Bears in Alaska," in 1997, and more recently talked with filmmakers working on Disney's animated feature "Brother Bear" about bears.

Treadwell made regular visits to schools after returning to Southern California from his annual trips to Alaska.

"His passion for the bears and wildlife was just infectious, and the students loved his stories," said Phil Cott, principal of Webster Elementary School in Malibu, where Treadwell lived in a rented condo.

Not everyone embraced Treadwell's views. Critics said Treadwell's forays into bear country could encourage copycats and worried the mauling death of Treadwell and his girlfriend, 37-year-old Amie Huguenard, would turn public opinion against them.

"Bears are bears, and the sooner we treat them as bears instead of humans in a bear suit it will be less dangerous," said Tom Smith, a biologist at the Alaska Science Center.

Stephen Stringham, a bear biologist and professor with the University of Alaska system, defended Treadwell's work. Treadwell, he said, kept meticulous diaries of bear genealogy, mating patterns and maternal behavior that will be valuable to researchers.

"The details he has, no one's got anything like it. It's extremely valuable to science," said Stringham, who had planned to collaborate on several papers with Treadwell.

During a middle-class upbringing on Long Island, Treadwell — born Timothy William Dexter — nurtured a passion for animals and the outdoors. In high school, he was a swim team member and later earned a scholarship to Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. In what his father, Valentine Dexter, called the start of a downward spiral, Tim injured his back while diving, lost his scholarship and dropped out in 1977.

Back home in Ronkonkoma, his troubles worsened: He crashed the family station wagon and was arrested on charges related to drunken driving. "That led up to his leaving," said his father. He moved to Long Beach in 1978, and soon began a personal transformation.

He legally changed his last name to Treadwell in 1987 after using it informally for years, Los Angeles County records show.

He also told friends of being Australian or of growing up a British orphan. People magazine in 1994 quoted him as claiming to be a native of Australia who moved to California as a teenager.

Supporters defended Treadwell's shifting persona, noting that in his book he said he was raised in New York.

Sunset Beach friends described Treadwell as a fun-loving eccentric, but he recalled his early years in Southern California as some of his darkest.

In his book, Treadwell wrote of an ongoing battle with alcoholism and drugs and carrying around a gun. He appears to have been in trouble with the law at least twice.

In 1984, a Timmy Treadwell was accused of illegally discharging a firearm, according to court records in Beverly Hills. Three years earlier, a Timothy Winthorpe Treadwell of Sunset Beach was booked on suspicion of assault, Orange County records show. Treadwell was living in Sunset Beach then and had used the middle name Winthorpe, those who knew him said.

Re-evaluating his life after a near-death experience from a drug overdose, he wrote, Treadwell decided to seek out bears in Alaska.

Treadwell's environmental crusade began slowly but quickly gained attention, propelled by his outsized personality. He and friend Jewel Palovak started the bear-advocacy group Grizzly People in the mid-1990s.

To raise money, the group increasingly turned to the most obvious source of charitable giving in Southern California — celebrities. The list of Hollywood stars who either attended his fund-raisers or gave him money included DiCaprio, Bundchen and actor Pierce Brosnan.

Darlene Malott, who until recently was a representative for DiCaprio's foundation, said the actor met with Treadwell about three years ago after seeing him on Letterman's show. The foundation gave Grizzly People nearly $25,000, said Malott and DiCaprio's publicist, Ken Sunshine.

Bundchen met Treadwell at one of his events a year ago and contributed money, although she wasn't sure how much, said her manager, Anne Nelson.

Brosnan and his wife, Keely, also attended Treadwell's fund-raising events.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our friend and admired environmental warrior," Brosnan and his wife said in a statement to the AP.

Robert Towne, the screenwriter whose credits include "Chinatown" and "Mission: Impossible," said he and his wife wrote Treadwell a check he recalled was in the thousands of dollars.

"However eccentric he was ... I think his work should be valued and honored," Towne said.

Treadwell told Towne and other contributors he was terrified the bears would be killed by poachers without his presence.

A Grizzly People statement distributed to supporters last year said the bears "are attractive targets and without Treadwell's care would be easy to poach." Some Alaskan wildlife experts discounted that, saying sporadic poaching isn't jeopardizing Alaska's grizzly population of 35,000. The animals aren't listed as an endangered species in Alaska.

Treadwell's supporters insist he videotaped poacher campsites and chased away hunters, adding he never claimed to protect all bears, just those in his area of Katmai. "I don't think it's mischaracterizing," Palovak said.

Treadwell's approach helped Grizzly People average about $30,000 in annual contributions over the past several years, said Tisha Bedrosian of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, a nonprofit umbrella organization that funnels tax-deductible donations to Grizzly People.

Despite Grizzly People's written claim that it was a nonprofit, the organization is not registered with the Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites) as a nonprofit, said Victor Omelczenko, an IRS spokesman. The group was, however, eligible to receive donations through its nonprofit sponsor.

Warren Queeney, an actor in Los Angeles and a friend of Treadwell's for 10 years, said Treadwell would have reveled in the attention his life and work have generated since his death.

Queeney only learned his friend was from Long Island when he met Treadwell's father at a memorial service, but he said he felt more amused than duped.

"He was a con artist, but boy, he pulled it off," Queeney said. "The man was truly a riddle wrapped in a sleeping bag. I don't know if any of us will ever know who he really was."


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040103/ap_on_sc/among_grizzlies_2
 
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There is a stuffed grizzly in a shop near here, and boy, is it big and scary. I certainly would keep well away from bear country.

I have an american recipe book with recipes for bears though. I dont mind a bear...provided its been cooked.

There is a panther down the bottom of my village, all my lifelong favorite walks, I used to do alone when I was 5 or 6...never imagined I would end up thinking `is it safe for me to walk here now?`
 
Let me be the first to say that I'd like to hear the tape.
Educational, you know.:(
 
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