Killing sharks solves nothing

There have been 13 deaths caused by shark attacks worldwide this year. Think about the size of the oceans and the number of human beings on the planet. Now tell me that 13 deaths is a good enough reason to start slaughtering this allegedly protected species.


Humans are unbelievable. Anything that is remotely a threat to us in any way has to be killed without any thought about what that ultimately means to the natural balance of life on land and in the sea. We spend so much time, energy and money chasing the boogie man that we can't see the real threats in our lives each and every day.


Time and time again we imperil ourselves in worse ways in the quest to eliminate rare and unlikely threats. We'll kill every shark in sight because the number of attacks on human beings is up slightly. We'll kill sharks for profit. And we'll kill sharks in order to pound our chests while they hang from a hook.


I presume some people like killing for the sake of killing. It's not a public safety issue with them. There is something primal in certain people who want to dominate all other living things. Even when we don't kill, we abuse various species by putting on animal shows in circuses and rodeos.


When you go into the ocean, there are threats. You might get stung by a jellyfish. You might stub your toe on coral. You might get caught in a riptide and drown. Should we drain the oceans so these things don't happen, thereby depleting our food supply?


Look, if you don't want to feel threatened by a shark, don't go in the water. If you don't want a black bear to bust into your picnic basket, don't go in the forest. But do not destroy the entire ecosystem because you've watched "Jaws" one too many times or have an irrational fear of animals -- critters that will normally will leave us alone if we leave them alone and don't do anything stupid while in their habitats. Animals that directly and indirectly benefit human beings by their mere existence.


We have to stop overreacting to things that are not common threats to our safety and start identifying the things that do endanger us. There is more to fear in the air and water supply -- invisible things -- that should get more of our attention than a shark that is, well, just being a shark. We have more to fear from Corporate America than a wolf roaming through Yellowstone. You want to be scared of something? Be frightened to death by right-wing politicians who want to remove regulations that are in place to keep us safe.


Millions of people die from heart attacks and cancer, yet we somehow want to divert our media attention, public research and dwindling resources to 13 people who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some people want to blindly kill the top predator in the oceans without regard for how that will alter the food chain in ways that could come back to haunt us much more than these 13 deaths.


Yes indeed, humans are unbelievable.

Evil, lack of regulations at fault

This is what happens without reasonable regulations.

This pile of dead exotic animals, including 18 endangered Bengal tigers, could have just as well been a pile of dead people if these big cats had made their way into populated areas of Zanesville, Ohio yesterday.

Instead, the animals were shot by police -- a tragedy on top of a bigger and prolonged tragedy.

These animals were bought and held captive by a lunatic named Terry Thompson. There are no regulations in Ohio to prevent idiots like Thompson from purchasing wild animals.

This is the face of evil. This is Thompson.

It's hard to fault police for killing these animals. Thompson released the mammals and then committed suicide. The animals were on the loose and posed an immediate danger to the public. However, in a town where Thompson was well known by authorities, and where he had been arrested for allowing some of the dangerous animals to escape before, I do have to question as to why police did not have access to tranquilizers. Perhaps more animals could have been saved if bullets weren't the first and only option.

The legal and illegal exotic animal trade is an outrage. Wild animals belong in the wild, hopefully protected from poachers and other man-made threats. But what really has me steamed is this idea, constantly trumpeted from conservatives and Tea Partiers, that somehow we don't need any regulations regarding anything in this country. We don't need our food inspected. We don't need our drinking water protected. We don't even need air traffic control. There are people on the right who want to do away with government agencies that actually keep a lot of us alive.

In my opinion, we don't have enough regulations. Human beings are terribly flawed creatures that need some sort of boundaries and civilized protections against people like Thompson. That's why we have laws. Someone in an authoritative role must at least try to protect us from getting mowed down by a teenager speeding in their car while texting. We have to have someone in charge of making sure the medicine we're taking is relatively safe. And there should be safeguards that reduce the chance of someone unleashing dangerous animals on us.

Perhaps in a perfect world, where evil and stupidity weren't a part of the human condition, we wouldn't need rules or even religious leaders guiding us. Everyone would just do the right thing and not impose upon their neighbors or strip the planet of its most amazing creatures. But the more I see of people and the things they are capable of -- the misuse of freedom and power, the over-the-top sense of entitlement -- the more I think we are going to end up in a pile one day.

A horrendous decision by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court's decision to strike down a law that prohibits the sale of animal-abuse videos is another moral loss for America. The ruling shatters every ounce of commonsense one would hope the high court possessed. Animal-rights advocates are profoundly disappointed in this ruling. President Obama had supported the law. This one is truly mind boggling. When did it get so hard to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil? Read more.

Limbaugh, Vick share some common traits

Has anyone noticed that many of the same people who don't want radio personality Rush Limbaugh to be allowed to buy an NFL team are the same people who were so anxious to give convicted felon and animal abuser Michael Vick another chance to play in the league? In my opinion, the day the NFL commissioner let Vick play football again is the day the league lost any right to prevent anyone from being a part of the league, including Rush Limbaugh.

These self-absorbed men are no friends to animals and probably have little positive value to society in any capacity. In my opinion, they are both broken and manipulative human beings. Limbaugh has a history of making anti-animal activist comments, not to mention some questionable racial statements. And Vick, now playing with the Philadelphia Eagles, went to jail for running a dog-fighting business in Virginia. Is anyone buying that he is truly remorseful? Seems to me he just wants another lucrative Nike contract.

Would be nice if both of these rotten apples would disappear. Instead, they continue to make millions doing what they do.

A shoot-first mentality in the suburbs

PETA is trying to stop a planned bowhunt of deer in a Leesburg, Va., community. Read about it here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/08/AR2009090803886.html

Granted, the deer population in Northern Virginia is out of control. I saw a fawn in a park near my home in Sterling recently. It was alone and calling out to its mother. I presumed the fawn was lost or perhaps the mother died on Algonkian Parkway like so many other deer. The parkway runs along a highly residential area that hugs the Potomac River. Drivers consistently speed along this stretch of road and kill deer almost daily. It was heartbreaking to see a tiny animal wondering around making such a distressed sound, knowing its mom had probably perished under the wheels of a BMW or Lexus in this affluent, self-absorbed area of the state.

I saw an adult deer once that must have been hit by a car before I passed by it on Route 7 near Reston. It was still alive and sitting up in an awkward position, twisted and totally stunned, and probably about to die. Again, a very distressing thing to see. I still remember the look in its eyes that reflected the glare from my headlights.

But shooting deer with arrows in a subdivision doesn't appear very smart or humane to me. I must agree with PETA's stance on this. There should be a better way to solve the problem.

It seems every time there is a wildlife issue anywhere in this country, man's first choice is to shoot it. Sometimes wildlife is an inconvenience to us, so we rather blast away than have our rose gardens disrupted. We don't like when those damn geese poop on our pristine walking paths, either. Often, we pretend that burying an arrow or bullet in the skull of an animal is somehow good for nature. Of course, it's not so good when the hunter misses and the animal runs off with a wounded leg and slowly bleeds out over 12 or 24 hours.

We like to pride ourselves on being the smartest creatures on the planet, but never seem to want to stretch our imaginations too much to solve problems (often ones which we created in the first place) in less violent manners.

Ted Kennedy and animal rights

I read an article today about 1-day-old male chicks being routinely ground alive by some egg-producing companies. Another abomination driven by the greed of human beings, over-consumption and corporations that obviously have no belief in karma. Then we wonder why things are in such turmoil. Think how we treat lesser creatures, big and small, doesn't matter in the overall scheme? Do you think these acts are unrelated to corporate crime, unemployment, illnesses and just about anything else that ails human beings? Think again. We will never fully treat each other with care and respect if we can't even do right by animals and nature. We have to stop thinking that anything goes when it comes to putting that Denny's grand slam breakfast down our throats or that Outback's prime rib in our stomachs. We have to raise our awareness.

I wanted to read more about this topic of brutalizing baby chicks by the millions, so I went to The Humane Society of America's web site. I didn't find the information that I was looking for, but learned something new that the mainstream media never mentioned about Sen. Ted Kennedy, not even during the saturation coverage of his life and death last week. Ted was firmly in the corner of animal rights. With that, my opinion of the senator shifted favorably. Here is a paragraph from The Humane Society's story about Sen. Kennedy:

"His compassion extended far beyond his own family’s pets. He was a stalwart ally over the years on a wide range of legislation to protect companion animals, farm animals, animals in research, and wildlife. Measures he cosponsored and voted for included those to crack down on dogfighting and cockfighting, ban horse slaughter, curb abuses at puppy mills, end the slaughter of “downed” animals (those too sick or injured to stand and walk), limit federal subsidies for very large factory farms, condemn Canada’s commercial seal hunt, halt poaching of bears for their viscera, block oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and restrict taxpayer funding for use of steel-jaw leghold traps on national wildlife refuges. Sen. Kennedy also consistently joined calls, beginning in 2001, for increased funding to ensure viable oversight and enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act, Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, and other key laws."