Last year, dozens of hungry bears besieged Luchegorsk, a city of 21,000 in Eastern Siberia. A shortage of nuts and berries in the Primorsky region apparently caused hungry bears to enter the town opportunistically looking for food.
Dubitsky had gone only two steps when he felt that something was amiss. He turned and saw the bear in midleap. Dubitsky was knocked to the ground. The bear swiped at his throat. Dubitsky put his arm in front of his face. The bear bit into him. He heard people shouting and felt a claw rip into his groin. He passed out. A taxi driver pulled up to the building and honked, startling the bear. It jumped off Dubitsky and ran. Passersby rushed to his aid. Neighbors threw first aid from their balconies, bottles of rubbing alcohol and bundles of gauze that ribboned to the bloody ground. Nikolai and his neighbor came back outside, surveyed the scene, and decided that they needed a drink.
The New York Daily News’ great mind, the same Gersh Kuntzman who recently suffered from PTSD as the result of test firing an AR-15, waxes indignant over the demise of alligators from the Disneyworld lagoon, who were dispatched by the local authorities in the aftermath of one of them killing a visiting two-year-old.
Did something just go wrong? Well, kill all the animals!
That remains the standard stupid human reaction whenever our control of nature goes awry.
Like on Tuesday night after a 2-year-old was apparently eaten by an alligator on an artificial beach near Disney World. The response? Local officials killed four gators.
No disrespect to the suffering family, but let me get this straight: We built a man-made ecosystem in the natural environment of a known predator, stocked it with fish for our amusement, built a hotel with a beach on its banks, let kids wade into the water, express shock when one gets eaten — and then we kill the animal for doing exactly what animals do?
Obviously, in Kutzman’s twisted worldview, Barack Obama ought to be conducting an apology tour of the Everglades, expressing America’s regret to saurians for imperialist occupation of their swamps and deploring the species-ist view that human life is more valuable than reptilian dining.
The 2-year-old boy who was dragged by an alligator on the shores of Disney’s upscale Grand Floridian Resort & Spa remained missing early Wednesday — as authorities continued their desperate search for the tragic tot.
Jeff Williamson of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said additional personnel would be deployed to assist in the search-and-rescue operation.
“Right now we’re going to bring in some fresh eyes and continue with the search,†Williamson said, the Orlando Sentinel reported. “Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.â€
The boy, who was vacationing with his family of five from Nebraska, was on the shoreline of the Seven Seas Lagoon on Tuesday night when the gator — estimated to be between 4 and 7 feet long — attacked him.
His dad tried to pry him loose from the animal but was unable to, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said.
“As a father, as a grandfather, we’re going to hope for the best in these circumstances, but based on my 35 years of law enforcement experience, we know we have some challenges ahead of us,†Demings said, the paper reported.
Tourist Cindy Waldron, 46, was swimming in waist-deep water with a friend at 10.30pm on Sunday night and yelled that she was being attacked by a crocodile before disappearing.
Her friend, a local resident aged 47, was grazed on the arm after she tried to pull the victim from the jaws of the crocodile.
“[She] tried to grab her and drag her to safety and she just wasn’t able to do that,” police senior constable Russell Parker told ABC News.
“They had been walking along the beach and they’ve decided to go for a swim just in waist-deep water and [it was] probably a very nice, clear night, but obviously [they] may not have been aware of the dangers.”
The incident occurred at Thornton Beach in the popular Daintree region in north Queensland, where a 16–foot crocodile has been spotted in recent weeks.
The area, north of the tropical city of Cairns, is known for its large crocodile population, which has been a drawcard for tourists.
“The whole of Cairns and up into Cape [Tribulation] is known for its large crocodiles,” said Neil Noble, from the state ambulance service.
“Certainly one has to be very careful around our waterways. Stay well away from the water when you can, especially when you can’t see.â€
North Queensland member for parliament, Warren Entsch, who represents the region, said the victim should be blamed for the attack, not the crocodile.
“You can’t legislate against human stupidity,” Entsch said on Monday, noting that Thornton Beach lies next to a creek where tourism operators run crocodile-spotting tours.
“This is a tragedy but it was avoidable. You can only get there by ferry, and there are signs there saying watch out for the bloody crocodiles,” he added.
“If you go in swimming at 10 o’clock at night, you’re going to get consumed.”
A suspected burglar jumped in a Florida lake apparently hiding from law enforcement before an 11-foot alligator killed him, investigators said Monday. His hand and foot reportedly turned up inside the animal’s stomach.
Brevard County Sheriff’s Maj. Tod Goodyear says 22-year-old Matthew Riggins told his girlfriend he would be in Barefoot Bay to commit burglaries with another suspect. Authorities received calls Nov. 13 about two suspicious men in black walking behind homes and investigated. Riggins was reported missing the next day.
Goodyear said sheriff’s divers recovered Riggins’ body 10 days later in a nearby lake, and that the injuries suggested the alligator had pulled him below the surface. “He hid in the wrong place,” resident Laura Farris told Bay News 9.
Authorities said Riggins drowned and the alligator, which behaved aggressively toward divers, was trapped and euthanized.
the late 11-foot (3.35 m.) alligator resident of Barefoot Bay who ate him.
Five hungry polar bears have surrounded a team of unarmed researchers at a remote outpost in northern Russia.
The bears have settled in the fields outside a weather station on the island of Vaygach in the Arctic Sea, preventing researchers from leaving the building to conduct their work, the World Wide Fund for Nature in Russia said in a statement.
The team, which consists of two meteorologists and an engineer, tried to scare them off with flares, but the bears were undeterred — and the Russian WWF says the team has no other weapons at its disposal.
The bears sleep near the station and have been seen fighting with one another outside the building in recent days, one of the researchers at the station told Viktor Nikiforov, the head of the WWF Polar Bear Patrol project.
The team, which consists of two meteorologists and an engineer, tried to scare them off with flares, but the bears were undeterred — and the Russian WWF says the team has no other weapons at its disposal.
The bears sleep near the station and have been seen fighting with one another outside the building in recent days.
Mississippi Rebel reports that a New Mexico mountain lion tried stalking a young girl from Odessa, Texas. Unfortunately for the lion, the little girl was deer hunting and carrying a .30-06.
A twelve-year-old girl killed a mountain lion that was threatening to attack her on a hunting trip in New Mexico.
Alyssa Caldwell was hunting elk with her father in October when he left her alone to gather some gear. Almost immediately, she noticed that something was wrong.
“I already had a feeling that something was watching me or something, but I didn’t see the cat until it was close,†she said.
Just feet away, a mountain lion crouched ready to attack. Although she had never shot anything bigger than a white tailed deer, Caldwell knew exactly what to do. She raised her brand new .30-06 and fired, killing the animal instantly.
“I just raised up my gun and shot it point blank long ways through the body because it was facing me when I shot,†she told CBS News. “The cat instantly flopped over right there, of course I kept my gun on it just in case it got up or something like that.â€
Her father came running back, thinking she had downed an elk. When he realized what had happened, he fell to his knees and “got emotional,†Alyssa says.
“I definitely could have died,†she added. “It was probably like seconds away from pouncing on me.â€
IJReview alerts us to an upcoming television first.
Discovery Channel’s Eaten Alive is airing an episode in which wildlife enthusiast and filmmaker Paul Rosolie is consumed by one of the largest anacondas in the world. Rosolie wore a snake-proof suit that helped him live through the horrifying stunt.
Rosolie and his team searched through the depths of the Amazon to capture the monstrous snake so that he could performer the daredevil act. After Rosolie is inside the suit, he will be covered in pig’s blood in order to make himself more appealing to the snake, then will proceed to go head first into the mouth of the beast. …
During the stunt, Rosolie is connected to a cord, which his team used to pull him safely out after he was swallowed whole.
While the Discovery Channel is keeping most of the details quiet for obvious reasons, they have said the snake lived through the stunt and was not harmed.
A white tiger at the New Delhi Zoo has attacked and killed a young man inside the tiger enclosure.
There are mixed reports as to whether the young man jumped, or has accidentally fallen into the enclosure, and even the age of the individual. However, the most credible reports indicate the young man was an Indian student who slipped while taking photo’s.
National Zoological Park spokesman Riyaz Ahmed Khan said the man ignored repeated warnings that he should not get too close to the outdoor enclosure and climbed over a knee-high fence and small hedges.
Authorities eventually frightened the tiger into a small cage inside the enclosure. Police arrived on the scene “very quickly”, but could not save his life. The man, whose body remained in the outdoor enclosure two hours after the attack, was dead by the time help reached him, Mr Khan said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police M.S. Randhawa identified the man only as Maqsood and said he was thought to be about 20 years old…
