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Darwin's Missed Opportunity - Part II

By Boquisucio on July 24, 2010 | | Comments (24)
Hey look - How cuuuuute! 1,500 lbs worth of beef on the hoof.  I think I wanna play with him!


Boq

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24 Comments

By og on July 24, 2010 7:32 AM
it's a BISON. there are no native north American Buffalo. Damn, people. make an effort.

 
By John of Argghhh! on July 24, 2010 8:18 AM
C'mon, Og - the media knows more than we do, so this *must* be correct.

How dare you suggest otherwise.  Don't you subscribe to Journolist?
 
By SFC D on July 24, 2010 8:26 AM
I grew up (although that's still being debated)  just outside of Yellowstone.  In the early '80's, there was a particularly cranky bison bull wreaking havoc on stupid tourists that just wanted to get a closer picture.  The most popular T-shirt of that summer was "Bison 3, Tourists 0."
 
By BillT on July 24, 2010 9:07 AM
0:29 and again at 0:46 and 1:23 on the vid. The idiot threw a stick at the critter and nailed him in the flank -- you can see it hit and bounce off. The lurch-and-kick from B. bison is the normal reaction of any large animal that's been unexpectedly *touched* with something, not the reaction to unexpectedly *seeing* something.

A 1,500-pound prey animal reacts to an attack by counterattacking, and they're *surprised* by it?

Lemme guess -- "raised on the Disney Channel"...
 
By maddmedic on July 24, 2010 9:41 AM

Cripes how stupid are people going to get?

Were they going to "pet" him?
And throwing a stick? Shoot you throw a stick at anything and you expect what?

In this case stupidity was painful!!

 
By John (Not The Armorer) on July 24, 2010 9:52 AM
Bison Bill would never do anything as stupid as that....
 
By Justthisguy on July 24, 2010 12:31 PM
Dammit, Og, I'm the pedant around here, you troglodyte!
 
By 11B40 on July 24, 2010 1:12 PM
Greetings:

Back in the mid '90s, I was in college at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA.  One day a bunch of us decided to go and check out the elephant seals.   This involve a bit of a trespass on one of the Hearst ranches near San Simeon.  When we got to the fenced field we were going to cross to get to the beach, there was a big old bull all by himself in the middle of it.  Beautiful animal, way big and kind of reddish brown.  

Now, one of the bits of wisdom my father, a farm boy in his youth, had imparted to me was, "The long way round is the safe way home."  With that in mind, I told my then sweetheart and several others, that I intended to follow the fence line around the field to get to the beach.  Some of the more intrepid and less experienced decided that they would in the best Pythagorean tradition take the hypotenuse.  Sic transit gloria.

So, along the fence line we go.  A nice sea breeze kept the heat of the day off us as I kept my eye on our less well informed.  The bull interrupted his munchings for a looksee a couple of times. Then, he brought his head up and gave the pasture a bit of a pawing (or is it a hoofing?).   A bit more, and then he was off to demonstrate that Pythagorus' mathematics didn't apply practically to his geography.   The intrusive intruders were saved only by their scatter effect.  Apparently, the bull had yet to become adept at multi-tasking.  He pulled up and seem to enjoy the result of his efforts.  His targets did neither.  


 
By Boquisucio on July 24, 2010 3:46 PM
UnkaBill: The Bovine Wheeezperer!

Heh 11B40.  My bride and I spent Christmas of 2000 in Cambria.  Trully a gorgeous stretch of coast, as I've ever seen between San Simeon and Cambria.
 
By BillT on July 24, 2010 3:58 PM
UnkaBill: The Bovine Wheeezperer!

I wouldn't attempt to wheeezper to *any* wild critter until I got it

1. accustomed to seeing me as a normal part of its surroundings and

2. would accept food from my hand without trying to also remove part of said hand.

That said, I've had hummingbirds get in my face and squeak a blue-streak at me until I refilled their feeder...
 
By Justthisguy on July 24, 2010 7:22 PM
Chief, neither (1) or (2) work with gators.  We lose a few Yankees here every year to this concept. Reptiles aren't smart enough for all that subtle psychology to work on them. This really annoys my kitty, as his rat game goes totally un-noticed by the huge Cuban anoles. 
 
By Mark on July 24, 2010 9:57 PM
You are NOT supposed to inform the Dam Yankees about the foibles and predilections of gators.  One less Yankee, or even SEVERAL DOZEN less Yankees, is no significant loss to God's creation.
 
By Mark on July 24, 2010 10:08 PM
And BillT is ABSOLUTELY correct.  Dumb cow deserved what she got, if not more.  But don't expect the MEDIA to report that.  After all, she voted for The One.
 
By SFC D on July 24, 2010 10:12 PM
If you think what this BUFF did is bad...have ya ever seen what happens when ya feed the bears? 
 
By BillT on July 25, 2010 5:02 AM
I saw the results of what happened when a "raised-on-Disney" mother thought it would be "cute" to have a vid of a black bear licking honey off the hand of her six-year-old daughter.

Her daughter lived, and she's become very adept at using her prosthetic arm.
 
By John of Argghhh! on July 25, 2010 7:38 AM
Hummingbirds are very assertive when they determine that the service to which they are accustomed is lacking in attention to detail.  So too are chickens and guineas.  Peafowl are polite.

 
By BillT on July 25, 2010 8:08 AM
Peafowl bought into that whole "lends dignity" deal thousands of years ago.

Which gives further credence to the theory that Finley *was* thinking of a peacock when he drew the guy with the glass of bubbly on That Poster...
 
By BillT on July 25, 2010 8:15 AM
Reptiles aren't smart enough for all that subtle psychology to work on them.

They're smart enough -- they just don't care to cooperate. Gators and crocs tend to view *anything* in the neighborhood as lunch...

 
By John of Argghhh! on July 25, 2010 10:28 AM
And yer one of us, too, Bill.  Add to that the whole flyboy thing, with a whiff of Air Cav-ishness, and you're the poster child.
 
By BillT on July 25, 2010 12:01 PM
Did I say it was a *bad* thing?
 
By John of Argghhh! on July 25, 2010 12:16 PM
The Auld Soldier knew Finley.  The print that hangs behind the Castle Bar is an artist-signed from the first printing.
 
By BillT on July 25, 2010 2:53 PM
I hope it's behind Denizen-proof glass.

We've *heard* about those Castle-meets, yanno...
 
By John of Argghhh! on July 25, 2010 5:47 PM
Yeah, seeing as how you're so hemmed in by luddite that you'll never see the Castle...
 
By Justthisguy on July 26, 2010 10:23 PM
Yup, they did call them Aerial Rocket Artillery!