Lobsters & Bears, Oh my!

I was checking my e-mail this afternoon on-line when a couple of news lines caught my attention. The first one to catch my attention was "Divers find a new lobster-like crustacean". The only reason wny it caught my attention is this picture that was beside the caption. So of course I had to read it. Turns out this little furry bugger is only about 6 inches long and is blind. Which, to me, can explain why this critter has such hairy legs. It helps itself feel its way around the ocean floor. Okay, so I am no marine biology science doctor or whatever, but it makes sense to me. I'm not sure this is one lobster I'd want on my plate though. It makes me think of Harry and the Hendersons, like this is what a lobester would look like if it mated with a bigfoot. Yes, I know. It's not possible. But com'mon, doesn't them long harry arms remind you of bigfoot arms? Okay, maybe it's just me. I think I'll stick to the good ole red Maine lobsters.

So then after reading the new spieces of lobster story I found this news story:

Killing of 2 Captive Bears Ignites Va. Protest

Now the reason for the killing of these two bears was because a woman claimed that one of the bears bit her son. These bears are located in a park which I know has to have these bears fenced in a way that they cannot have any contact with humans. So you tell me, how in the hell did her son get bitten by a bear?

"Two weeks ago, one of the bears was accused of biting a 4-year-old boy who had stuck his hand through the 10-foot-high, chain-link fence that encloses their habitat at Richmond's Maymont Park.

The child was not badly hurt -- no stitches were needed. But with his mother unable to peg which bear did the biting, park and health officials decided five days later to euthanize both animals and send their brains to a state laboratory for rabies testing. The episode became public Feb. 23 only after both bears were dead and their headless, chemical-laced carcasses had been dumped at a local landfill."

...

"How, exactly, the 4-year-old was bitten is not clear. This much is known: The park separates bears from people with both the chain-link fence and a shorter, four-foot-high wooden fence. Neither was broken."

Then I read this:

"According to a preliminary report the mayor released Friday, the child's mother, who has not been identified, first told city officials that she helped the small boy over the lower fence to get closer. The report also indicates that she might have told a nurse at the hospital where the child's hand was examined that she had been visiting Maymont for years to feed the bears.

However, in an anonymous interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the child's mother insisted that she glanced away from her son for a moment and that when she looked back, he was over the short fence and trying to pet a bear."

It is standard practice with any park or zoo that houses animals to euthanize (or just get rid of, depending on the kind of animal) any animal that kills or hurts any human, especially park visitors. But what gets me is, didn't the park and health officials question how the boy was able to get bitten by one of the bears in the park in the first place? Or did they just go on the mothers word that she glanced away from her son for a moment only to look back and find him over the fence trying to be the bear?

If in fact this woman really has been going to this park for years and feeding the bears, it is a shame that these two bears had to die because of her. This woman has been going to this park for years and not giving a rats ass and just doing whatever she wanted to (I'd bet that there are signs all over the park warning about going over fences and feeding the animals!). And now these bears have paid for it because someone finally got hurt, which was her own doing in the first place, especially if she helped her boy over the fence to get closer. Yeah, I know that these bears could have been carring rabbies and that her son could have possibly been infected. She should have thought about that before letting her son climb over that fence to get closer to them.

I wonder if she felt anything other than relief for her son when they found out that the bears didn't have rabies after all? Too bad science can't find a way to find out if animals have rabies without having to killing them first.

I can't believe that this story actually pissed me off a little. Animals don't know better, they are placed in captivity and put behind bars, yet they still have all of their wild instincts. It's we as humans that know the difference in what is right and what is wrong, and it's only when we are caught doing something wrong that we find it hard to take responsiblity for our actions.