Capital stupid

[unixronin]

yndy found this ... seems some 17-year-old chiXX0r in Kansas decided she couldn't possibly have some mere ordinary photo for her yearbook senior photo, she had to pose with a tiger at a wildlife sanctuary.  Despite being "restrained" by its handler, the tiger killed her, whereupon the local sheriff's department killed the tiger for, well, basically for being a tiger, when you really come down to it.

IMHO, they should have let the tiger live -- it was just being a tiger, for crissakes -- and executed the parents instead for approving this stupid stunt.  Charge them with conspiracy to arrange the death of their daughter or something.

....Well, OK, so I'm not entirely serious about executing the parents.  But this was both (a) not the tiger's fault, and (b) a Really Fucking Stupid Idea.  You'd think at the very least, they'd have called the whole thing off as soon as it became apparent the handler was having to restrain the tiger.  This is a case of a complete and total lack of common sense from beginning to end.  This wasn't just felony stupid, it was capital stupid, and Nature imposed sentence on the spot.

Hello?!?  600lb predator?  This isn't like posing with your stuffed Tigger toy, y'know.

Hell of a shame about the waste of a perfectly good tiger.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

No, sentence has already been passed on the parents, too. They have to live with this. I agree, killing the tiger was senseless. The *handler* should have some responsibility, too, though.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

No, sentence has already been passed on the parents, too. They have to live with this.

Well, I thought about that too. On the other hand, I suspect they're quite certain it couldn't possibly have been their fault. They're undoubtedly blaming the tiger.

I agree about the handler ... the moment he started having trouble restraining the tiger, he should have told them, "Get her out of here NOW, don't argue, just DO IT."

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I read "Lost Creek" and thought "Wait, isn't that the home for wayward animals with issues?" Going to their web site pretty much confirmed it.

People seem to think that these critters are "tame." No, they're socialized, which in some ways makes them even more hazardous. Tigers are 600-700 lbs of cat, a scale at which even your domesticated housecat would be dangerous. But tigers are socialized wild animals who have humans in their food chain, back in their native environment. Even Hobbes the Stuffed Tiger talks about how dangerous tigers are. Stupid people. Darwinian winnowing. Unfortunate about the tiger, though.

[rbos.livejournal.com]

A 600lb housecat would be dangerous, all right. Cats can be vicious bastards.

Consider; you'd be basically a large rat to them.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

A small rat.

[rbos.livejournal.com]

eh. a *big* cat is five kilos, a rat will mass 250g if that. A smallish human would mass 50, our hypothetical mutant housecat 300. The difference in is much smaller. So I stand by "large" rat.

But in terms of ability to defend ourselves without a weapon.. small. :(

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

You haven't seen roof-rats, have you? Hobbes brought home a dead roof-rat once that was bigger than he was. Granted, he was only about 8 months old at the time, but still....

[rbos.livejournal.com]

hm, mayhaps. Rats don't get that big around here.

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

I'll see your wager of a roof-rat, and I'll raise you a cane-rat. Male cane rats are ~70cm long, and 4.5kg. And ones that have been eating predominantly sugar cane taste very good.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

Ming brought home one, this winter, that was about 1/4 his size. I was impressed (and glad it was Dead).

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

A big domestic cat can get up to 10 - 12 kilos; go meet a Maine Coon if you don't believe me.

Our Olivia, who wasn't particularly large, was 6kg.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That too. Shadow's pushing ten kilos, and he's just a generic moggy.

[shadowcat48li.livejournal.com]

Fafrhd at 600 pounds.... hes scary enough at 30+ not a good thing

[jilara.livejournal.com]

Had an unfortunate thought. In our litiginous age, those parents are gonna sue, and it will be bye-bye wildlife sanctuary.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, you're probably right.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

waste of a good tiger, i totally agree. one less bim, no big loss!

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

Aye. People can be amazingly stupid.

[owlmirror36.livejournal.com]

It's probably just garden-variety stupidity. Probably.

Yet I couldn't help but think of this creepy article on parasite-caused behavioral changes... (http://www2.nau.edu/~bah/BIO471/Reader/Sapolsky_2003.pdf)

This is flabbergasting. This is akin to someone
getting infected with a brain parasite that has no effect
whatsoever on the person’s thoughts, emotions, SAT
scores or television preferences but, to complete its life
cycle, generates an irresistible urge to go to the zoo, scale
a fence and try to French-kiss the pissiest-looking polar
bear. A parasite-induced fatal attraction, as Berdoy’s
team noted in the title of its paper.

He's talking about rats (and other animals) in the article (the paragraph above is analogy, not the result of any study). There's also a study on the affect of T gondii on humans (http://www.natur.cuni.cz/~flegr/Tehul3.htm) (or, somewhat easier to digest, a slideshow (http://www.natur.cuni.cz/~flegr/TOXO/index.html)) which is less dramatic in its conclusions of the effect on human hosts, but I still wonder.

On top of that, I find myself wondering if a Toxoplasma (or similar) infection not only modifies the behavior of the host, but also changes its body chemistry so that it smells tastier to cats. It's not in the above studies, but there was another paper about people infected with malaria being more attractive to mosquitos. (http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030298)

To sum up, it's still probably just basic human stupidity. But there are other factors to keep in mind.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

An interesting speculation. I recall reading something on the subject myself in New Scientist some time back.