Ahmad,
In my late teens I once spent about three months mostly living rough in the
Yukon, part of it in one of the most terrible winters the territory had ever
known (temp went down below minus 45, and that was without adding on the
wind chill). We got trapped in this absolutely unbelievable storm one time.
The wind was screaming and you could only see about six feet in the lulls.
It was so hard a *wolf* came in and sheltered in the cave with us. The poor
bastard was starving and on his last legs. I was shit scared, but the family
friend I was with had been a trapper most of his life, the only proper
backwoods man I have ever known, afraid of nothing except perhaps his wife,
and he gave me a kind of wry grin. He pointed at the fire and I'll never
forget what he said - Now Andy, you know why dogs made friends with man,
huh? They only get to die three ways: starvation, predation, or disease, and
there sure ain't no soft beds and kennomeat if you live up here. When you
have to die, you die alone.
It was odds on that we would die too if we went out, so we sat in that cave
and weathered the storm, and we fed the animal some of our rations. When he
was fit enough he went out hunting and brought us in what I think was a blue
hare, but I can't remember properly. It was just like a cat bringing in a
mouse or something. He stayed with us, sleeping by the fire curled up like
my labrador, kept watch, and we had one hell of a job getting rid of him
when we started the trek back home. I felt a real shit throwing stones at
him to scare him off. I hope he did OK. Beautiful animal when he was back in
condition. Wilf said the same thing had happened to him once before.
Andrew
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask]
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Ahmad Risk
> Sent: 12 September 1998 21:11
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Caged animals
>
>
> On Sat, 12 Sep 1998 19:28:59 +0100, Katie Law wrote:
>
> >I never said it was.
> >Educational maybe.
> >They are well cared for.
>
> Sorry if I touched a raw wire here, KT.
>
> I fail to see any value in us humans educating ourselves by caging
> animals or, indeed, perverting their natural habitat and breeding to
> produce 'child safe' pets.
>
> What gives us *any* rights to have so cutely called 'pets'? What gives
> us *any* right to do what we do to other species in the name of
> education? Whose education? What for? Wanna education? Go out and
> look in your back garden, there is plenty of wild life there :-)
>
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