Wednesday 9 June 2010

If there was any news you’d get it

The safari has begger all to report from Patch 1; it’s getting towards that really quiet time in the park now.
Patch 2 on the rising tide before work was a little better with the grand total of three Sandwich Terns and a Grey Seal being recorded…hardly worth the long march; shouldn’t be too long before we can get straight across the road from the front door again, just a couple or three weeks maybe. At least it’ll be quicker to get back for a brew after blanking out! Going back to the ‘killer’ Fox story we’ve done a tiny bit of research on the interweb and discovered that there is only one authenticated record of a Wolf PACK killing a human in North America, winter 2005/6; we found a handful of old records of RABID Wolf/dog hybrids attacking people in North America and several hundred attacks by Wolves (mainly children working in fields and woodland edge) in Europe and India in the last 1000 years; the most publicised recent ‘event’ was the Australian ‘Dingo ate my baby’ affair near Uluru after which the mother was imprisoned for child murder but later evidence saw her acquitted. More insidious, much more common are the plethora of dog attacks in recent years again mainly against children.
So did the Fox do it? Wolf weighs 55kgs, Dingo weighs 15kgs, Fox weighs 10kgs, baby weighs 10 kgs, for comparison Frank weighs in at 40kgs he’s a gentle lump less than half my weight (yes I too am a gentle, but bigger, lump) but I wouldn’t like to have a serious fight with him - he’s extremely powerful but nowhere near a fit and conditioned like a truly wild animal would be, so it’s probably within a Fox’s capabilities to kill and carry away an infant. If the Fox was the culprit we don’t think murder was on its mind initially, maybe it just found the nice warm cosy bed which happened to have kids in it and fell asleep then was disturbed by them and either panicked – attack is the best form of defence – or ‘thought’ hmmm maybe there’s a free meal here, but then if it was going for the kill a bite or two to the throat or neck rather than a savaging of the face and arms would be more the normal modus operandi.
Suppose it’s possible but it’s still very, very, very bizarre, we’ll probably never know the true truth.
Stolen from the web - Humans have a very weird news gene that causes us to panic over unlikely events, such as great white shark attacks, a far bigger risk than wolf attacks even if you're not a surfer, and ignore or trivialize more immediate dangers such as domestic dogs.
A sense of proportion is what’s needed here not the usual all guns blazing UK tabloid nonsense.
Put it this way, TODAY 7 or 8 people will be killed on Britain’s roads and another 70 or so seriously injured but no one will ever say cull the car!
Hopefully the story will die the death in due course as the next piece of ridiculous journalism hits the headlines. Let’s hope not too many Foxes are ‘removed’ before this happens.
If it’s ever revealed that a Fox wasn’t to blame do you think they’ll get an apology?
Still hope that however the injuries were sustained the two young victims recover quickly and don’t grow up with a phobia about wildlife.
No lunchtime Patch 2 news – too busy with that work m’larky.
But then we hit the pond. Still very cold and not much moving but this exuvium shows a dragon has flipped out when we weren't watching.

One of the cubs found this Sawfly(?). A little belter we've never seen before...any ideas anyone.

There's still a chance to chance your arm on the cute critter from the other day...another clue Anno is the closest so far but on the wrong continent.

Where to next? Still hopeful one of the Patches will turn up something useful.

In the meantime let us know what you've not seen before in your outback

5 comments:

Craig said...

Hi Dave, Great post about the Fox, i agree 100% with you.
If i was ever killed by wildlife i would NEVER think bad about the creature, yes i would be dead but you know what i mean.

best wishes,
Craig

Monika said...

Haha, great comment Craig - totally agree.

Interesting stuff about the panic over unlikely events and ignoring more realistic threats - I can think of many circumstances where that's true.

Anonymous said...

Davo - your sawflies is a Turnip sawfly (Athalia rosae)lots of similar species...

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Thanks Anno.. you even cleverer than I thought!

Cheers
D
PS just spoke to IH re another blast to Moore - after the world cup obviously - you up for it.

Anonymous said...

always up for it matey you know me!!!
check out the new Moore Patcher blog site too;

http://moorepatcher.blogspot.com/

Marks 'one of us' - you'll like it...