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Leopard kills child in Kruger (1 Viewer)

The poor Leopard.

A remarkably crass and insensitive statement.

I would agree had it been the result of an act of stupidity by one of the countless, idiots who frequent the park but it seems not to be the case.

It looks at first sight as if, just like in India, the Leopard has recognised an easy opportunity for a meal and, just like India, it may have come back to do it again in the future.
 
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The poor Leopard.
I agree. :t:

Incredibly sad for the boy and the family of the boy too.

Killing the Leopard didn't bring the boy back.

People seem readily replaceable judging by the population growth rate ..... Leopards -- not so much ......... :-C




Chosun :gh:
 
Agree with dan and Chosun... the Leopard's behaviour was natural, it did nothing wrong - there's not many left - now there's one less... didn't we do well?
 
I imagine there was some deep heart-searching by the Park authorities prior to taking the action that they did. They are responsible for substantial numbers of animals of various endangered species: they are painfully aware of the value of each rhino, elephant, lion, leopard.....

However, I do agree with the non-anthropocentrics on here: until we as humans accept that from some other species' perspectives we are just a prey species - and one of unmatched abundance with no top predator to keep us in check: 7.7 billion and rising, is it not? - we will go on netting beaches to kill sharks, turtles, dolphins and other endangered marine life so people can go swimming and surfing; hunt down and kill 2/70,000 wolves because they took out 1/350,000,000 people out jogging; shoot a leopard because it took 1/56,000,000 of the South African population..... Don't even start me on Polar explorers and charity walkers being allowed firearms.

People get run over on the roads. Cars go on. People get predated occasionally. Animals should go on. For most top predators and other large dangerous animals, each individual of the species is far more important than any individual human or for that matter, some bigger numbers of humans.

John
 
I agree



No evidence in the article which suggests this

There's no evidence because they killed the Leopard, would you have waited for it to kill another child?

In India, they have to constantly remove Leopards from areas (Mumbai) where housing has encroached in to their territories. The animals have become so bold, that they enter people houses and have taken people, adults, from their beds.

The question for me here is, why didn't they relocate the Leopard instead of killing it?
 
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Much as I value the life of animals, I also value to life of a human (child or adult). Those on the ground, rather than we armchair critics, are better to judge the degree of threat posed by this luckless leopard. If they had a well-founded belief that the animal posed a continuing danger to humans then they had no choice.
 
Much as I value the life of animals, I also value to life of a human (child or adult). Those on the ground, rather than we armchair critics, are better to judge the degree of threat posed by this luckless leopard. If they had a well-founded belief that the animal posed a continuing danger to humans then they had no choice.

No, I'm sorry, I don't accept that any more. There are too many of us and too few of them, and the system of values has to change. And before you say anything about children being special, consider the replacement time of a 30 month old child vs that of an adult Leopard.

What you are doing is placing humans above the animals instead of considering us as part of them, and it won't do. That's Old Testament arrogance, and it has to stop.

If they considered the animal posed a continuing danger they had three non-lethal options that I can think of straight off the top of my head:

1. relocate the animal
2. relocate the humans
3. improve the humans' defensive infrastructure. Indeed since that was defeated what happens when the next Leopard in the territory discovers the same weakness?

- but what they did was shoot the Leopard.

John
 
It's interesting that the BBC brought this to the attention of 'the Western World' as a news story - No-one is a winner, not the Conservationists, Tourist Industry or the Leopard. All are losers instead. Do the BBC have much vested interest in wild game hunting?

Sensationalism to a degree. Maybe there's an irony that those trying to help the wildlife (or in this instance their offspring, an innocent child) are targeted by the wildlife itself, but all the story really does is add to the continuing slow drip feed that there is really no place for wildlife in our human world that we are turning this planet into.

People who work with wildlife and dangerous animals know to a degree what it is they are involved with. Terribly sad of course for the immediate family involved, but beyond that all it is is a bad news story for the rest of the planet's wildlife tbh.
 
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Much as I value the life of animals, I also value to life of a human (child or adult). Those on the ground, rather than we armchair critics, are better to judge the degree of threat posed by this luckless leopard. If they had a well-founded belief that the animal posed a continuing danger to humans then they had no choice.
John, I can see the point that a human life is valuable (there are many instances in this world where it is not - child sex trafficking, conscript child soldiers, slave labour, women repressed and treated as possessions, the list is endless). However, I don't think we can say for sure that the motivations of those that killed the Leopard were unaffected by the emotion of the situation (one of their own), or free from pressure to be seen to act decisively. Surely every effort should have been made to enact a non-lethal solution.

As Farnboro John has pointed out there probably should have been other courses of action taken, as a dispassionate logical analysis would reveal that this hapless Leopard's death does virtually nothing to prevent a similar situation happening again.

I think we should fess up too - it's quite easy for us in our sanitized modern existences, completely safe in our armchairs, to forget the fear and stress of living in the same vicinity as big bitey predators that can inflict a rather gruesome death. I take my hat off to those villagers around the world who live with such threats.

We have to realize that we are just a part of the world - not some superior species that has dominion over it. Many species are hanging on by a thread - how magnificent and beautiful are things like Clouded Leopards ...... I just don't know that I would want to live in a world where the most interesting thing to look at was another human ......... Really, if we continue to lose species then we are also losing a part of ourselves ......

Absolute worst case scenario if this particular Leopard was deemed to forever be an irredeemable man-eater, then it should have been captured and placed in a secure breeding program (for the progeny to be returned to the wild and aid the diversity of the genetic pool).

I saw a sickening report that in one of the world's sh*tholes (can't remember where - but there was zero respect for animals) that some b*st*rds were breeding big cats on a large commercial scale to be slaughtered for pelts and whatever other sick as f**k bits and pieces get ground up to make 'enhancement' powders etc for the sick as f**k mongrels that take them. Uggh !





Chosun :gh:
 
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I saw a sickening report that in one of the world's sh*tholes (can't remember where - but there was zero respect for animals) that some b*st*rds were breeding big cats on a large commercial scale to be slaughtered for pelts and whatever other sick as f**k bits and pieces get ground up to make 'enhancement' powders etc for the sick as f**k mongrels that take them. Uggh !

Chosun :gh:

Is there not still a thriving business raising tigers for parts and bears for bile as a component of traditional medicines in China?
In much of the world, including Asia, farming the animals seems the most likely path to ensuring their survival. Certainly tigers are so economically valuable that poaching is certain to extinguish them in the wild in the coming decades. Even the highly touted national parks in India are suffering and I've not seen any independent count that does not show a seriously adverse trend.
This of course is not ideal, but unless there is economic value to these creatures for the local community, they will be lost. The birding community in some places has begun to recognize that and African trophy hunting is going in a similar direction. The choice is domestic captivity or extinction.
 
..... The choice is domestic captivity or extinction.....

I hope there is a better way .... a better future for us all ....

There's got to be a middle way .... There's got to be.

There has to be recognition of the intrinsic value of each ecosystem and each animal and their own innate right to existence .....

Surely when robots mine and process required resources, when robots run the manufacturing plants, when automated transport delivers everyone and everything exactly where and when they need to go - apart from being robot engineers, what is the world to do ? - there will be healing, learning, the arts, creating, culture, hedonistic experiences no doubt, charity we hope, but likely a large chunk of time and effort will be spent on travel and tourism. To see what exactly ? - what will be left ? In my mind, the country that preserves it's environment and natural wonders the best will have the most significant advantage in the only assets that can provide any differentiation - natural.

If nothing else, preserve this evolved world of natural wonders since it would take more money than God to recreate what is already extinct ..... and unless time machines are on the horizon, then many generations will not live long enough to see the giant 1000 year old trees etc, that we have already decimated .......

I can tell folks - that when there are cultures living today that have lived more or less sustainably for over 60,000 years, when they are directly and inextricably connected to creation, dreaming, and the universal spirit of the world, with power that is beyond comprehension - when the last 500 years or so of human existence and the damage done looks like a spoilt brat having a tantrum in comparison ........


It's time for the world to well and truly wake up.






Chosun :gh:
 
I hope there is a better way .... a better future for us all ....

There's got to be a middle way .... There's got to be.

There has to be recognition of the intrinsic value of each ecosystem and each animal and their own innate right to existence .....

Surely when robots mine and process required resources, when robots run the manufacturing plants, when automated transport delivers everyone and everything exactly where and when they need to go - apart from being robot engineers, what is the world to do ? - there will be healing, learning, the arts, creating, culture, hedonistic experiences no doubt, charity we hope, but likely a large chunk of time and effort will be spent on travel and tourism. To see what exactly ? - what will be left ? In my mind, the country that preserves it's environment and natural wonders the best will have the most significant advantage in the only assets that can provide any differentiation - natural.

If nothing else, preserve this evolved world of natural wonders since it would take more money than God to recreate what is already extinct ..... and unless time machines are on the horizon, then many generations will not live long enough to see the giant 1000 year old trees etc, that we have already decimated .......

I can tell folks - that when there are cultures living today that have lived more or less sustainably for over 60,000 years, when they are directly and inextricably connected to creation, dreaming, and the universal spirit of the world, with power that is beyond comprehension - when the last 500 years or so of human existence and the damage done looks like a spoilt brat having a tantrum in comparison ........


It's time for the world to well and truly wake up.






Chosun :gh:

I wouldn't hold out much hope, Chosun.

It seems to me, that as long as our large Brains continue tricking us (not all of us, I might add) into believing we are more than just Animals, nothing will change.
 
A double tragedy, one for the grieving parents of a dead toddler, the other for the western mammal watching elite.

There’s no remotely satisfactory solution to the problem, yearnings for an imagined golden age of sustainability notwithstanding. Mono’s right: the best we can hope for is captive breeding programs and tame and shabby tigers in urban zoos. Oh, do I wish it weren't so. . ..
 
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Wild animals are totally unpredictable. Jane Goodall used to put her young son in a cage to protect him from the chimpanzees, which are incredibly fierce and can rip your face off:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/jane-goodall-chimpanzees-evil-apes-12170154

Sounds like the child who was attacked was in a fenced-in area, but leopards can easily crawl under or jump over a fence if they sense an opportunity.

This was my exact point in comparing the situation to that in parts of India, the Leopards have recognised the chance for an easy meal, however, I still think the animal could have been moved.

Moving the animal will not erase the learned behaviour it aquired from this event though and there's no saying it wouldn't have continued at the very next opportunity?
 
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