An enterprising crocodile grabs a cape buffalo by the leg, and finds out the hard way why the cape buffalo is regarded by many authorities as very possibly the most dangerous of the Big Five.

Hat tip to Field & Stream.

Photo taken seconds before it charged.

Telegraph

As the New York Post reports:

“It was his time to go.”

Perverse Nature fun From the Daily Mail, teasing hungry bear with food that is withheld:

So THAT’S what it’s like to be eaten by a polar bear! Photographer inches from animal’s jaws as he takes wildlife shots from safety of perspex cage.

(The video is currently “unavailable,” but I find that they usually get these running again a day later. Try it again tomorrow.)

Quickly going viral, and typically accompanied by a “there is no doubt in my mind that this woman voted for Obama” kind of comment.

Hat tip to Henry Bernatonis.

David M. Villalobos, a 25-year-old realtor from Mahopac, New York, yesterday jumped 17′ from a Bronx Zoo monorail into the Siberian tiger pen. After his rescue, Villalobos informed police that he “wanted to be one with the tiger.”

Mr. Villalobos describes himself on Facebook as “a Messenger of the Return of the Divine Mother.” He listed under his Religious Views: “Mother Earth.” Villalobos goes on to tell his readers: “Fear is irrelevant, there is no greater bliss than living in My Divine Light and in the Womb of My Unconditional Love.”

Naturally, a 400 lb. male tiger named Bachuta mistook Mr. Villalobos for a new toy, and proceeded to play with him. Villalobos wound up with “bites and punctures on his arms, legs, shoulders and back, as well as a broken right shoulder, right rib, right ankle and pelvis, and a collapsed lung.” Zoo workers were able to rescue him by using fire hoses to distract the tiger, and instructing Villalobos to roll to safety.

Villalobos was upgraded to stable from critical condition at the hospital, but will be charged with trespass.

His Facebook page.

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It seems clear that the combination of the exploitation by the entertainment industry of charismatic predators in nature films and the sentimental emotionalism of the modern cult of Nature worship with some regularity impact impressionable people so strongly as to produce a mental disorder we might refer to as Theraphilia, “the passionate love of, and self identification with, large, dangerous animals.”

The victim of Theraphilia becomes obsessed with some large predator, and gets so carried away with admiration and affection that he comes to believe that one of the most dangerous killers in the wild is going to love him back. He insists on getting himself into the immediate proximity of his favored critter, talking to it, and trying to touch and pet it, and he eventually winds up, as the famous Timothy Treadwell did, as the main course for lunch.

It’s not likely that any individual seriously afflicted with this pattern of delusion is going to be cured. The victims derive too much emotional gratification, and place too much personal dependency, on their fantasy. The real root of the problem is cultural. It is extremely profitable to purvey misleading, sentimentalist natural images and story lines, both commercially and in the course of fund raising for environmentalism and preservation. Consequently, contemporary culture will inevitably continue to be awash with feel-good images and stories peddling anthropomorphic notions of animal behavior, all laying the foundation for uncritical self-identification and emotional involvement with animals by neurotics.

The Daily Mail publishes evidence that the order of the universe is not necessarily on the side of fundamentalist Muslim demonstrators.

A Pakistani protestor has died after inhaling smoke from burning U.S. flags during a rally against the anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims.

Abdullah Ismail died in Mayo hospital in Lahore having complained of feeling unwell during the angry demonstrations in the eastern Pakistan city yesterday.

Around 10,000 people are estimated to have taken part in the protest organised by the group Tehreek Hurmat-i-Rasool.

Hat tip to Iowahawk (via FB).

Preview of 70 minute video, titled (in translation) “More Butts — 5 Stars,” of bulls nailing people, during the corrida de touros (“the running of the bulls”) from 2009 to 2011 in the towns of Terceira and São Miguel in the Azores, a group of Atlantic islands belonging to Portugal. (I recommend going to YouTube and watching the mayhem in Fullscreen version.)

A surprising number of the people seen here seem to have suffered little injury, but not all. Not recommended for the squeamish.

“There is no official list, but [Tarek] Omar [a local diver who recovers bodies] estimates that more than 130 divers have lost their lives in the hole in the last 15 years. He compares what is happening in the Blue Hole to the madness on Mount Everest.”

Spiegel profiles Egypt’s Gulf of Aqaba Blue Hole:

There are more attractive dive sites than the Blue Hole of Dahab, with more colorful corals, and more fish, shipwrecks, channels and caves. But the Blue Hole is considered to be most famous diving spot in the world — because it’s the most dangerous. …

The Blue Hole is easy to reach. It doesn’t take a boat to get there, and you don’t even have to swim out to it. You just hop in. It’s about 10 meters from a beach chair to the Blue Hole. The water is warm, there is no current and visibility is good.

Photo Gallery: “Compressed air can only be used to a depth of 56 meters. The tunnel’s exit is one meter lower than that.”

It’s OK for a 5-year-old to swim with these sharks. They are “rarely aggressive.”