Mass Destruction. (1 Viewer)

Program on National Geographic last night.
Fear of snakes.

I dont think I have ever seen a more sickening destruction of a section of wildlife than this, and all through the pig ignorance and greed of man!! ok snakes are not everybodys idea of beauty, and yes some of these reptiles are highly venomous, but they do have a way of warning you to leave well alone!!
Rattle snakes rattle, others have bright colours to say keep clear, so if in doubt
leave it. Most of them wish to avoid us anyway. one part of the program showed people that had houses in Florida, right in the swamp areas, so this person thought he had the right to round and blast any snake he saw! most days he shot anything that slithered. But hold on, who has the right of way here? its us that are invading thier territory so what are they supposed to do?
Next showed Rattlesnakes in the arid areas that is again thier territory, but hey man also lives here with livestock & children.

1
Ranchers say these snakes cause loss of cattle & horses, so killing them by the hundreds is justified!! cattle and horses or any live stock have more sense than us anyway, unless they tread on rattler they are in no danger and most of the time as with most animals they detect snakes long before there is a problem, and the snake is on its way no harm done.

2
Danger to children, ok kids are inquisitive but if you live in this enviroment you should as an adult, make sure there is a safe area for them. And if dangers are explained to them they have a chance to learn, we sometimes
underestemate thier ability.

But no what do these brave ranchers do , they have a rattle snake round up
once a year, they go round collecting as many of these snakes as they can, and make a weekend fair of it. Roll up Roll up, try our fryied or stewed snake, and then when they have had thier fun with these reptiles, they slaughter the lot to make belts-bags. Good eh !!!!

The only good part of this program was the fact some people regard the snakes as usefull, and made sure the venom was milked, and stored for use in
future snake bites, the snakes kept not slaughterd. As man encroaches more & more into these reptiles territorys he will need thier anti-venom even more as they try to BITE BACK.
bert.:-C

Hear hear!

I encounter many snakes where I live, many of them venomous. It is a privelige for me to share "my" garden with these creatures.

I think there are two opposing forces that run through most activities in our lives, and we tend individually to more or less represent either one.

One is an impulse to take things to zero, by destroying wildlife or ourselves. In desert regions, people wantonly destroy barrel cacti, for example, as the same people might also kill snakes. Cigarette smoking is another "in your face" example; so is habitat destruction motivated by the desire for dollars that will supposedly purchase a better place to live. If you distance yourself--pretend you're a Martian just looking around--you can begin to see connections between snake killing, building 4,000-square foot houses, smoking, and attacking cultures in Iraq. What they share in common is a willingness to purposefully achieve an end result which justifies a means. In every case, something will be destroyed in order for something else to be gained.

The other force is a creative spirit based on the joy of building from scratch, or, closely related, simply looking at something that has already been created. If we look for a wide range of activities here, we might include bird-watching (but not birding which itself becomes destructive or overly resource-consumptive), building a paper dart, lifting a bug on one's finger-tip from a barrel of water, or making up stories for children.

People mistake the former destructive impulse for power and validation. Actually it is pretty easy to destroy most things, and it takes relatively little power.

I have a test for power. I welcome any and all to try it. Whether a person wants to simply be macho, or would like to control other people, or to be very rich, or even to be a warmongering president--come any and all, and try my test to measure your personal power. Here it is:

(1) Go downstairs to your workbench.
(2) Get out any tools you wish to use.
(3) Flex your muscles; pump yourself up.
(4) Build a dragonfly. One blue dragonfly. One living, breathing, flying, dragonfly. Build it from scratch. You cannot use any components which were already living: you have to create this dragonfly from, oh, say, sawdust, mud, steel, money--any amount of money--guns; you know, all the usual tools.

You have until lunchtime. Then come back upstairs and show us your single living, breathing, dragonfly that you made all by yourself.

That's power.

Bert, fear is one of the main components of greed (fear of the insecurity of tomorrow) or the need to control or destroy other people, other cultures, and other species. Anyone who lives according to the creative spirit I've mentioned seems best able to survive by simply creating as much that is positive and beautiful as they can in a day. Even a walk in the forest will do.

Occasionally we find ourselves positioned so that we can measureably improve people's sensitivity to wild snake dens. Here in British Columbia, where people have chosen to trade thousand-year old forests for drugstore advertisement fliers, there is, even so, more of a conceptual empathy for snakes than there used to be.

It seems as though your own personal actions and the choices you make as an individual are being tested without payment of any kind. If you were to be paid in terms of cash or happiness, your sensitivities and the choices you make would be merely sound business investments. If instead you were told you would lose this game, and your actions would not be returned for due reward--then you would reveal your real self.

Take all the sorrow you feel about the snakes, and see if you can squeeze some drop or two of energy from that sorrow; and then take that teensy bit of energy, and see whether you can use it to design one single aspect of one single cell that fits along the border of a dragonfly's wing.

And, my friend? I think you can.

Let them stay in their original role in the food chain, they don't bother me and I won't bother them!
I think sprawl & fear make a new breed.....idiots...ha !