Zebras, They Bite!

     As a scientist (sci-en-tist: noun 1. a person learned in science and especially natural science: a scientific investigator. -Merriam-Webster's Dictionary) I am forced to view all my opinions of the natural world through the objective and, presumably, biased free "lens of evidence", which filters out stray particles of hearsay and deflects rays of nonsense. Much of my thought process is governed by this principle, surely for the better, and this allows me to remain somewhat level headed in a world saturated by some really whacky ideas, such as the notion that caiman are closer in relation to crocs than alligators, or the borderline heretical theory that porcupines can actually shoot their quills. Believe it or not, I have even heard of individuals, some I know personally who will remain nameless, make the erroneous and outdated claim that cats make good house pets! Yes, I know what you're thinking. I denied it myself when I first heard the rumor, but I assure you it's true. As ridiculous as some of these theories may be, the simple fact remains that they are not proven false by a lack of evidence. Likewise, theories are not proven true because of the evidence supporting them. Ideas are either true or false based on the reality surrounding their respective situations, while the evidence, or lack thereof, is merely a byproduct of the reality of that theory being true or untrue, respectively. Take heliocentrism for example. It isn't true because of the evidence surrounding it, there is evidence surrounding it because it is true. Furthermore, it was always true, even before the evidence in favor of this "theory" was discovered. "What are you getting at?" you may ask. Valid question, so here's my answer. I have one such theory that, despite my very best efforts of searching for evidence first when faced with a new idea, I actually believe based solely on a gut instinct or inner feeling I seem to get when thinking about it. Keep in mind, there is no actual evidence for this theory, but as I have previously illustrated this does not necessarily prove the idea a fallacy. So when I present my pet theory to you, please view it with an open mind. Who knows, you might even find that you share in on my opinion! Here it is: I believe zebras are evil. In fact, one could surmise that God has forewarned America of its sinful ways by giving us the horse, warning us of the judgment to come should the country continue down its current path of self destruction, before delivering the final judgment, the zebra.

 

     While this idea may seem outlandish at first and may technically have no supporting evidence, it is, of course, based on an incident from my childhood involving a zebra that apparently disapproved of the way I parted my hair. While this was certainly not the first animal to give me the once over, nor would it be the last, it was however the first truly unique animal to do so. Everyone has been bitten by a cat or a dog at some point in their life, but very few people can lay claim to having ever been bitten by a zebra! I can. Here's how it happened...

 

     At some point in my life I learned to disapprove of most attributes and characteristics associated with the Southern way of life, more than likely through, as a Buddhist would say, "a moment of enlightenment". But at seven or eight years of age (I don't remember exactly which) that was not the case and I was having the time of my life, despite the cold night chill of the October air, at the Brazoria County fair and livestock show. I haven't been back for some time but I can remember every detail as if it were last week; cold air permeated by the blended scent of cigarette smoke and diesel; the effort needed to find even one person wearing anything but Wranglers and Justin's; the rickety carnival rides only slightly more stable than Charlie Sheen on a bad day; and of course, the livestock. In my opinion, and in the opinion of most others I could ask, the livestock show is the heart of the fair while the other attractions are merely built around it as ornamentation. Whether or not the practice and procedure of livestock shows can be, in certain circumstances, categorized as animal cruelty is a separate subject for debate, one that I am not entirely decided on myself. That subject, however, is not the focus of this article -perhaps I'll explore the idea at a later time. What I do know for certain though, is that as fascinating as pigs, sheep, and cattle may be, to an aspiring naturalist such as my young self, they simply do not compare to the exotic animals one could find in the petting zoo area. I'm not too sure the petting zoo is quite what it used to be (but then, what ever is?), but at the time, well over a decade ago, it was a miniature Bronx zoo! Ostriches, wallabies, white tailed deer, dromedary camels, and white-nosed coatis were always there, year after year, as were the usual petting zoo fare of pot bellied pigs, baby goats, and miniature ponies. But that's the only year in my memory of a zebra having been there. Before I go into detail as to what happened between the two of us that evening, perhaps an introduction to the zebra would be appropriate here.

 

     Zebras represent one of the three members of the equidae family, the other two being donkeys and horses, and unlike the other two species, are confined specifically to the continent of Africa. Though classification seems to change regularly, most experts currently categorize zebras into three separate species. The most common species is by far Burchell's zebra, more commonly referred to as the plains zebra or common zebra, which enjoy a healthy range from Southern Sudan and southern Etheopia to Southern Angola, Northern Namibia, and Northern South Africa. The other two species are the Equus zebra and the Grevy's zebra, the more interesting of the two perhaps being the latter based upon the manner in which it received its name. Apparently considered by some African countries to be among the most regal of animals, one was given as a diplomatic gift to President Jules Grevy of France from the country of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1882. I'm not sure which one is a better display of class among politicians, giving a zebra or accepting one! Zebras are, of course, herd animals, increasing their chances of survival by congregating in massive numbers. This strategy works on two principles, the first dealing with the odds game. Essentially, this strategy uses the same logic as a lottery drawing. The more individuals in the mix and the less likely you are to be picked, only in a zebra herd the price of being picked isn't excessive taxes on a slowly paid out cash prize, but being torn to bloody pieces by a pride of lions or dragged beneath the surface of some muddy river to drown in the jaws of a hungry crocodile. Nature is very unforgiving on those who must to die to provide life for others. The other advantage of living and traveling in large numbers is in the design of the zebra's camouflage. As most everyone knows, zebra's have a disruptive camouflage pattern which not only breaks up their outline and blends them into their surroundings, but blends them together with other zebras. This forms the appearance of one large animal, or a wall of solid pattern, again making it very difficult for a predator, such as a lion or pack of African painted dogs, to select a single individual for an attack. Because any further examination concerning the basic morphology of the zebra would be old news to most anyone who knows what a zebra is, we will leave it at that. Instead, I would like to examine a topic slightly more relevant to my loving disdain for the striped equestrians: their temperament.

 

     I find it very ironic that both horses and zebras, being so closely related, find themselves listed by many naturalists at opposite ends of the spectrum in their relationship to humans. On one hand, you have the horse -currently over 200 species due to selective breeding practices- which the American Museum of Natural History describes as having an unmatched influence among animals on human culture and development. I doubt anyone would attempt to refute that statement. Even I, who nearly had my own personal history brought to a screeching halt on a horse, or, should I say, had my own personal screeching horse brought to a halt with me on it, will acknowledge this simple fact of history. In fact, since their domestication some 6,000 years ago, horses have been man kind's primary tool for labor and transportation until as recently as the second industrial revolution, which began in 1870. Even in the early days of Henry Ford and his automobile, it would not have been uncommon to see horses being ridden through populated cities on a regular basis. My great grandmother, in fact, who was born in 1918, rode to school each day in a horse drawn carriage! I suppose it's our familiarization with the idea of using animals for transport that prevents most of us from pondering a very natural as well as interesting historical question: who first saw a wild horse and thought "Hey, maybe I could ride that thing!"? Whoever it was, though, apparently did not raise the same question concerning the zebra. If they did, they weren't very successful in their attempt. Historically speaking, the zebra is considered to be perhaps the most difficult of all herbivorous mammals to domesticate. This fist became apparent as European colonists began to set up shop across Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries, relying heavily upon grazing stock and working animals for maintaining farmland. Africa, however, had other plans and introduced the settlers to the tsetse fly, that little blood sucking insect slightly larger than a housefly that had managed to keep Africa strictly African for so many years. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation's Senior Officer B. S. Hursley, as well as the organization's Animal Health Officer J. Slingenburgh, estimate that tsetse transmitted Animal African Trypanosomiasis is currently responsible for a minimum of three million animal deaths per year. Keep in mind, that estimate applies to our current day and age of global cooperation in disease research, not the early 18th century when things would have been much, much worse. This is assuming, of course, that you can rely upon information coming from a guy who’s first initials are “BS”. The simple problem was that European livestock had never been exposed to African diseases such as AAT and had no immunity against them. However, the zebra had, and this logically made them the perfect choice for domestication for agricultural labor. Perhaps fortunately for the continent and natural history of Africa, attempts were completely unsuccessful due to the zebra's aggressive and unpredictable nature. One of the more interesting facts surrounding the unpredictable nature of zebras is the enormous adrenaline dump they seem to undergo in moments of panic. Throughout the last two centuries, this has been a fact of common knowledge among big game hunters, who cite the zebra as one of Africa's toughest animals to bring down. In his book Death In the Silent Places, Peter Hathaway Capstick recounts the incident where renowned elephant hunter W.D.M. "Karamojo" Bell killed ten zebras with ten rapid shots as a means to intimidate an advancing, hostile group of Karamojong warriors without having to take any human life. Capstick explains the impressive nature of this feat, which he refers to as "nothing short of a miracle", by stating that "The zebra is one of the toughest of all 'plains' game and impossible to kill instantly, unless hit exactly right". Considering that "plains game" includes wildebeest, Cape buffalo, and a wide assortment of antelope including the massive kudu and elands (which may be twice the size and weight of a zebra), that should give you some idea of just how tough they really are. In fact, I have witnessed captive zebra back down fully grown giraffes in food related disputes by backing up to them and kicking them in the legs repeatedly! Considering a large zebra will only break about five hundred pounds, this gives a large giraffe as much as a two-thousand pound weight advantage!

 

     Perhaps no other type of incident can demonstrate better, or prove more relevant to this article, than circumstances where people have found themselves on a zebra's bad side -which truthfully, is any side if you ask me. Here is a particularly good report from October 11th, 2010, published in The Telegraph, a popular British news paper. The headline reads "Zebra attack woman recovering after mauling". The article reads as such:

 

 

A woman is recovering in hospital after having her thumb and part of one of her breasts chewed off when she was attacked by her pet zebra, according to reports.

 

"Anne Mhidza, 40, said she felt lucky to be alive after the animal repeatedly bit at her during the attack near her home in Marondera, Zimbabwe.

 

 

The animal lover today told how she ran for her life when the domesticated zebra chased her across a field before charging at her and biting her chest.

 

She said: "I managed to run for about 40 metres but it caught up with me. It pounced on my chest, biting off part of my breast. While I was calling out for help I tried to force open its mouth using my hands and it bit off my thumb."

 

Ms Mhidza was rushed to hospital after the gruesome attack, which happened last Sunday.

 

Ms Mhidza told the New Zimbabwe website that her family had kept the zebra as a pet for a decade after taking it in as an orphaned foal and deciding to keep it alongside their herd of cattle.

 

The creature had always been calm until it turned on its owner after she stepped in to stop it attacking a cow

 

"We were shocked last week when the zebra bit one of the cows in the hind quarters as they were grazing," she said. "The cow bled profusely and later died.

 

"On Sunday last week, it attacked another cow. Instinctively, I threw a brick at it."

 

The zebra then abandoned the cow and charged at Ms Mhidza. Worried neighbors managed to scare the animal away after the incident. Wildlife officials later arrived at the scene and destroyed it.

 

Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management spokeswoman Caroline Washaya-Moyo told New Zimbabwe it was not sensible to try to domesticate a wild animal.

 

She added that doing so was illegal and dangerous."

 

     While I particularly like the last statement in the article, perhaps the most relevant fact disclosed by the report was that the zebra had been a family pet for over a decade. The type of behavior exhibited by the zebra by attacking its owner of over ten years reflects an almost non-mammalian behavior, the type of thing one would expect from a pet boa constrictor rather than a relative of the horse. I also find it intriguing that the zebra turned on its owner when she tried to stop it from, of all things, picking on another animal. While my own zebra incident is not by any means meant to be compared to the one mentioned above, I do believe it occurred for many of the same reasons. So let's go back to that cold night at the Brazoria County Fair, some fifteen years ago, and examine exactly what happened when I met my first zebra up close and in person...

 

     Walking through the various open animal exhibits, I felt as if I were on safari in some pre-historic landscape were species from around the world must have once lived together, armed with nothing more than a paper cup full of grain-based animal food. Noticing the different browns and grays of animal coloration around me, I was immediately drawn to an out of place image of black and white stripes across the petting zoo area. Immediately, I recognized the familiar pattern. It was a zebra! Suddenly, the host of animals around me became little more than distractions. Perception, you see, plays an enormous role on a young child's mind in a situation such as this. While all wild animals are, well, wild to say the least, some animals appear to be “more wild” than others. Llamas, for example, may have been roaming the Andes for as many millennia as zebra have been roaming the Serengeti, but one hardly sees Animal Planet highlighting the life of the wild llama. In addition to the idea that zebras are more exotic than other animals, they are unquestionably more unique in their appearance, sporting wild mohawks and wearing prison striped pajamas on their fur. I began my approach, completely unaware of just how dangerous the animal so casually displayed, the one I was planning to feed by hand, actually was. The zebra was held in a square enclosure made from rectangular mesh fence, the type of rig you might use to house goats in. Ignoring the small pigs begging for attention near my feet, I contemplated the best way to attempt feeding the zebra. Holding the paper cup in my right hand, I extended my arm towards the zebra's soot black muzzle. I should have fed the pigs instead. Suddenly, before I could even react, the zebra tossed its head to the side and bit down firmly upon my right forearm, pulling me forward and off balance. In shock, I dropped the paper cup to the ground and began to pull against the vice-like grip of the zebra. No dice. It actually tightened its hold on my arm and began to slowly rear its head, putting an enormous amount of pressure on my shoulder as that joint became the weakest link between my bodyweight and the unbelievable strength of the zebra. I don't know what that zebra wanted, but it seemed determined to take my arm as collateral! After what seemed like six months, but was probably only a couple of weeks, someone noticed that I had a striped horse attached to my arm. An older gentleman rushed over and, grabbing my right arm in one hand, began pushing against the zebra's muzzle with the other. Obviously frustrated and probably confused, the zebra finally relinquished its hold. Assuring the man that I was ok, I left to find my parents. I don't think I even looked back at the zebra.

 

     While I pretend to dislike zebras, the truth of the matter is that I greatly admire them, and viewing the incident in retrospect, I actually see the zebra as having been the victim. Here was a truly wild and dangerous animal confined to an enclosure barely large enough to accommodate it. It had been exposed to hundreds of loud people for hours on end, all trying to touch it and have their pictures taken with it. This would have been the zebra's routine for close to ten hours a day for almost two weeks. In fact, now that I think about it, I almost feel as if the zebra deserved to bite me and that by pulling free from it, I deprived it of some form of retribution for being viewed as an object of human amusement. Of course, I'm probably over complicating things with this point of view, and there certainly isn’t any evidence to support it. But that doesn't mean is isn't true, now does it?

 

 

Bitten, Scratched, and Banged Up: The Closest I've Come To Dying

     While many people I have met are completely convinced that at some point in my life I must have walked under a latter while breaking mirrors with my open umbrella in doors, tipped over a salt shaker on Friday the 13^th, or tread on a Native American’s pet dog’s burial ground, the truth is that throughout my entire life, I have remained extremely lucky when dealing with animals. Though I have suffered from countless bites, scratches, and assorted injuries, I have been fortunate enough to have never been stamped “cancelled”, let alone seriously injured. I’ve been hospitalized by a venomous snake, I’ve been submerged chest deep in alligator infested water, vaccinated by a brown recluse, and have been stabbed, bitten, and poisoned by countless other animals. And through it all, I’ve never come closer to death than the horse-back riding incident I’ve chosen to recount in this article. Though this piece does not actually include an animal “attack”, this was perhaps the only animal related incident I have experienced where I was literally within inches of death. Here’s how I remember every terrifying minute of it…

     It wasn’t cold, it was freezing. Winter was setting in and the temperature was dropping nearly as fast as the sun, which was now barely visible over the horizon, heavily obscured by the thick tree line directly behind the house. Sporting a pair of jeans and thick denim jacket, I stood on the front porch, arms crossed in my best Robert Redford impression. I had been suffering from a lot of anxiety related stress lately and I figured that perhaps the best thing to calm my rattled nerves would be a long horse-back ride. While never the type to don a Stetson, I had always enjoyed the cowboy vibe I got from riding horses. Growing up on John Wayne movies makes this inevitable, I suppose. The ground continued to swallow the sun, as if it were sinking in quick sand. The orange and gold lights that had filled the sky faded to a dull blue grey, and then plain grey. I had been waiting a while now as several of my siblings had each taken turns riding Penny, our five-year old quarter horse. We had only gotten her last Christmas, the year it snowed a solid six inches, and we were all keen to practice our riding skills.

     At last, one of my sisters walked her up to the porch and tied her off, wrapping one of the reigns around the top rail. I walked stiffly down the steps and around the horse, breathing deeply and rubbing my head as I tried hard to forget about the anxieties I had been battling for so long. I slid my left foot through the stirrup while grabbing ahold of the saddle horn. “Why does it have to be the left side of the horse when mounting?” I wondered to myself. “Who made that rule? And why does everyone obey it?”. “Was it the same guy who said women under the age of twenty-one shouldn’t cross their legs during dinner?”. “Does it bother the horse if I mount on the right side, and do horses even know the difference between right and left?” I thought, as I eased up and swung my right leg over the saddle. It took me a second to find the other stirrup with my boot. John Wayne had always made it look so easy. Taking both reigns in one hand, I began walking the horse out towards the three-hundred foot, gravel driveway. If I thought it was cold before, being elevated on horse-back, completely exposed to the chilling wind certainly didn’t do much to change my mind. It didn’t matter though because my mind was being occupied by nature, which was the entire point. We kept walking.

     Reaching the end of the driveway, I turned her off onto the grassy path that followed the gravel road nearly a quarter mile before reaching the asphalt paved public road. There were pastures occupied by cattle on each side, allowing for ten feet or so of grass between the pasture’s fence lines and the white gravel road. Continuing to walk her in the same direction, the fence along my left angled off at ninety degrees, just before we reached the first of three trailer houses that aligned the remaining road. This provided one with a little extra riding area, though I was careful to avoid veering off into someone’s yard. Forget whatever notions you may have concerning country hospitality. The people living in my neck of the woods are just as likely to call the police on you as say hello, assuming they don’t shoot you first. Keep in mind that this is the South, where water is only drunk after five o’clock and there are more shotguns than pretty women. I stayed very close to the road.

     Reaching the end of the road, I turned Penny around and stared back towards my house, which I could now barely make out through the imposing darkness. I don’t remember what caused me to decide on my next course of action. Perhaps I wanted an adrenaline rush. But more than likely, I had just always wanted to try this and now was as good a time as any. You see, I had never galloped a horse before. I had walked one, cantered, trotted, and even loped on a horse, but never once had I ridden one at full gallop. Crossing over to the left side of the road, which would have been the right side across the road from me on the way up, I took a deep breath. Before I even knew it, I quickly tapped the horse’s flanks with my boot heels and yelled “ha!” just the way Robert Redford would have done it. Penny exploded. She started off fast, much faster than I had anticipated and with each pounding step she quickened the pace. Within five seconds we must have been totaling forty miles per hour. Just as we were nearing the last house on the way back, my right foot slipped from the stirrup. Terror struck and panic began to swell up inside me as I flailed my foot around trying to find the lost stirrup, all the while, the horse began racing off course, veering across the road straight through a neighbor’s yard. Holding on to the saddle horn with my left, I grabbed ahold of the stirrup with my right and managed to slide it back over my foot. To this day, I am still unsure whether or not that saved my life or nearly ended it. Though my feet were now both in their propper place, we were still racing wildly off course. I thought for sure we would crash into the pasture fence. We never made it that far.
 

     The moment I secured the stirrup, I raised my body back to its vertical position and looked forward. I will never forget what happened next. There was what sounded like a sonic crack in both ears as the whole world before me flashed into a bright yellow wall. I had just galloped my horse forty miles per hour into a trio of parallel guidelines anchoring a telephone pole into the neighbor’s yard. For the next second, though it actually seemed like three or four, I felt the strangest sensation: no sensation at all. I felt nothing. I heard nothing. I saw nothing but blackness as the yellow flash disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Looking back on this moment, I do believe I might very well have been unconscious. The next thirty seconds however, woke me up in a hurry and remain the scariest moment of my life to date. I hit the ground chest first at forty miles per hour, my right foot still caught in the stirrup. I vividly remember actually bouncing off the ground like a tennis ball upon impact. The horse screamed exactly as they do in ancient battle movies just before they die, actually flipping in a complete circle through the air over me, while my foot was still caught in the stirrup. Because I hit the ground chest first with one foot in the stirrup, and the horse landed further from the wires than I did, this means that she actually twisted through the air about two feet over my body and landed about twelve inches away from my head. Strangely, as I recovered consciousness upon impact, I was actually unaware of how serious the situation was. Noticing a strange powdery substance in my mouth, I pulled myself up on hands and knees and looked forward to see Penny flailing on her back, covered in blood. I tried to stand. With one step I fell back down in agonizing pain, hitting the ground next to Penny, who had managed by this point to roll over. She stood and staggered, taking three steps in my direction, then collapsed. I was lying prone, nearly unable to move. She stood again, taking several more steps towards me, and collapsed again. I realized that she was about to walk right over me and I began clawing at the dirt, desperately trying to move out of her way. But I couldn’t. She stood back up and stepped right over me, her legs wobbling uncontrollably as if she were a new born foal. Her hoof brushed my face as I rolled over to avoid being stepped on. She staggered, and I began screaming for help as I relentlessly fought to stay out from under her. I looked towards the nearest trailer as I screamed “Is anyone there!? Help me!” But no one emerged. As Penny continued to stagger forward, I managed to roll out from under her and after several additional seconds, she had stabilized somewhat and I had managed to sit up. Suddenly I heard voices screaming my name, each one louder than the one before. Thank the Lord, my sister had been sitting on the porch swing and had heard the crash of the guidelines and the wailing of the horse! Somehow my brother made it there too, the both of them running on foot as fast as they could. Showing enough good sense to reserve all questions for after the tour, they helped me up to my feet. Completely unable to walk, they helped me up over the saddle, where I laid horizontally the entire way back.
 

     Sprawled out across the couch, there was very little I could do. Though the pain in my chest was severe and the entire length of my rib cage had begun turning a lovely black and blue, I concluded that nothing crucial was broken or ruptured. I was not coughing blood and no bones appeared to be cleanly broken. I had severely chipped two or three teeth though, which is what had caused the powdery sensation in my mouth. I knew that Penny was likely in more trouble than I was. After all, that wasn’t my blood I had seen. As it turns out, she had her neck cleanly punctured within an inch of her carotid artery. The cavity in her neck was filled with blood and there was a hole in the side of her neck as perfectly round as if she had been attacked by a giant hole-punch. I have looked over the area of the crash multiple times since the incident but have never found any object that could have made an injury like that. To this day I have no idea what punctured her neck. Luckily, we both survived the incident and are, even to this day, quite healthy. Interestingly, Penny now only grows white hair in the location of the healed neck wound. Even more interesting though are the questions raised and answered after a thorough inspection of the crash site.

     As it turns out, the bright yellow flash was a wide, plastic yellow lining on the top two wires. It seemed to be right in front of my face at the time of the flash. However, if the wires had hit me directly in the face it more than likely would have killed me as well as knocked me directly backwards rather than forwards over the wire, where I actually landed. Perhaps I had gone just under the top wires but had caught the bottom one. Maybe the horse’s legs had caught the bottom strand and her neck had caught the top two. Perhaps the top strands had caught the saddle horn, still flashing yellow in front of me as we were flipped over them. Who knows? The ground surrounding the guidelines was covered in a very thick layer of soft dirt, which more than likely saved my life. Had it been gravel or even hard earth, I would very likely have suffered from broken ribs and possibly even ruptured or punctured organs. What I find most interesting about the entire incident though, was the way my foot was caught in the stirrup. This had directly controlled the manner in which I landed. I had hit the ground on the left side of my chest while being swung by my trapped leg in a downward, diagonal arch going left to right. Had I failed to find the stirrup the instant before the crash, there is no guarantee that I wouldn’t have landed on my head and broken my neck. Perhaps it even kept me from landing underneath the horse, which would also surely have killed me. The little details, it seems, are always the most important.

          Looking back on the incident, it’s hard to find anything I did right. I was an emotionally taxed, un-experienced rider trying to gallop a horse for the first time in my life, at night. Does the situation really warrant further investigation? I clearly made one mistake after another and they very nearly proved to be my last. One positive outcome did come from that experience though. I completely forgot about my anxiety for the next few days! Perhaps there is a market in this…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bitten, Scratched, and Banged Up: Why These Things Happen To Us (but mostly to me)

     For this piece, I have decided to include several different incidents that happened over the course of several years. While the following incidents may not be worthy of inclusion on Untamed and Uncut, they were certainly of great importance to me, especially during the moments at which they occurred! Part of this article will be dedicated to the explanation of a point which I have always felt to be extremely important from the perspective of a wildlife educator and that is the simple fact that animal attacks or altercations with people never happen out of context. By this I mean that under any circumstance in which an individual finds themselves being hurt, injured, or killed by any type of animal, there are or were a specific set of circumstances in place that made it possible and likely to happen. While sometimes these circumstances are nearly unavoidable, they are always set in place by our actions. It must be understood that animals have one specific life goal, and it's not to win the lottery, compete in the Olympics, or appear on reality TV. Animals are all specifically and specially designed to survive and pass their genes on to the next generation of their species. Altercations with human beings are, for the most part, not part of their plan for fulfilling that goal. These instances only occur when we violate the rules for other specie’s completion of this purpose, such as the defensive bite of the copperhead I recounted in the last episode, or when the incidents actually serve as the completion of this purpose, such as the many crocodile attacks that occur every year in Africa. The former case demonstrated an animal defending itself from what it perceived to be a predator, whereas the latter demonstrates an animal executing its predatory instincts upon what it considered as just another prey animal. In each circumstance, a mistake was made on the human end that allowed the attack to occur. It is therefore important to remember that animals are never at “fault” for an attack on humans. The word “fault”, by its very definition, implies an agreed upon code of morality, one that animals are simply not subject to. There is no right or wrong within the animal kingdom, simply survival and the alternative. All animal behaviors are direct results of this dynamic. What follows are specific examples of how I managed, at one time or another, to upset the balance and pay the price in spades!

 

Polly Wants A Cracker… Or A Finger!

     Standing outside on my front porch, I could see the usual line of cars parked at the end of my long gravel driveway, each waiting as the minutes on their clocks ticked closer towards nine-thirty. Today was BLAST day, the bi-weekly class for my family’s private run science co-op. The focus of the semester was zoology and today was bird day. One by one, each car pulled through the circular driveway, dropping off our students. With the living room being fully converted into a classroom, everyone had a seat on the floor, anticipating the morning assembly that is taught by yours truly. With a childish grin on my face, I eagerly anticipated the day’s events. We had arranged for the parent of one of our students to bring two tropical birds for a demonstration that would serve as a fantastic visual as I introduced the kids to the amazing avian class. Mentally reminding myself not to rush through the topic introduction, I laid the groundwork for the day’s classes. “Tell her to bring them in now” I said looking to my sister and co-teacher, motioning towards the door with my chin. “Alright guys, just like the last two weeks, we have a live animal for you to see up close. Raise our hand if you can remember our rules we follow when we have an animal in class”. Hands shot up as each and every child immediately adjusted themselves to the “crisscrossed applesauce, hands in your lap” position and silenced themselves, already knowing what our animal handling rules are. Choosing the most still and quiet students to answer my questions, as I always do, I prepared them for our special guests.

 

     You see, birds always present a unique challenge when handling them in front of a crowd. They don’t have what I like to refer to as the “compromised sense” as some animals do. By this I mean that while some animals see poorly and make up for it with excellent olfactory and hearing senses, or have a poor sense ( and in some cases, no sense) of hearing but make up for it with a strong olfactory senses and excellent sight, the simple fact is that birds excel at all three. While it is true that a bird’s olfactory system is the least developed of its sensory perceptions, to suggest that this implies a week sense of smell would be similar to concluding that Shakespeare’s early works sucked because they were less developed than Hamlet. The truth is that most birds have a better sense of smell than humans, as well as a phenomenal sense of hearing and perhaps the very best vision in the animal kingdom. In the case of animal handling within a large crowd, the combination of these three highly tuned senses triples the chance of some type of stimulus from the surrounding environment -most likely from a spectator- causing the bird to become nervous, irritable, or erratic in behavior. And while both reptiles and mammals may certainly experience similar discomfort while being handled, to this day I have never had either of the two fly away from me as a result. If that happens, you will be the first to know about it. Another interesting aspect of handling birds is the manner by which they are handled. With reptiles and mammals, you are able, in most circumstances, to secure the animal with both hands to ensure they remain safe. This also plays a pivotal role in both removing them from their carriers at the beginning of the handling session and placing them back inside their carriers when finished. If an alligator, for example, becomes upset or aggravated, it will twist and turn in your hands until given the chance to calm down or until it is placed back in the carrier. However, because you have a safe and firm cast mold –like grip on him with both hands, there is little trouble it can actually give you while doing this, assuming he is smaller than some of the dinosaurs I’ve been foolish enough to hold from time to time. The same can be said of lizards, turtles and tortoises, chinchillas, rabbits, tenrecs, and most other handling animals without feathers and beaks. If, however, an intelligent bird has cause to be upset, frightened, or feels just plain stubborn on that given day, then my friend, you are in for a terrible surprise! Because birds must be perched on your arm, wrist, or hand, and are therefore free to move around on top of it, placing one where it wishes not to be is a very difficult task indeed. In addition to making you look like an idiot in front of your students, peers, or supervisor, it has a dampening effect on the program being taught and does little to booster the “wildlife whisperer” image that you no doubt have of yourself. And sometimes they bite… really hard.

 

      Needless to say, when the birds were brought in, my excitement was well tempered, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at me, with a healthy dose of apprehension and caution. With both animal carriers now placed on the table behind me, our guest teacher introduced the birds. The first was a beautiful blue and gold macaw, which is perhaps the most common among the large, captive owned macaws. And Lord was he huge! Perched atop his owner’s forearm, he must have easily beaten three feet in length, including the tail. And as I anticipated, the large crowd began to have an immediate effect on his behavior. Luckily, the macaw merely became shy, uneasily shifting his weight back and forth, continually looking away from the crowd to his owner in the exact same manner by which a toddler shies away from an admiring stranger and turns towards his or her mother. Our guest speaker was no slouch though and anticipated the bird’s every move, calming it considerably with some salted peanuts still in the shell. As she fed the macaw one peanut at a time, the kids “oohed” and “awed” as the macaw grabbed each with its unique zygodactyl feet and perfectly shelled them in its massive, vice-like beak. About this time, some loud chirps and whistles began coming from the other carrier. Someone wanted some attention, or at the very least, some of those peanuts. “You can get the other one out” our guest teacher told me, looking at the second carrier. As I opened the carrier door, a beautiful green and gold caique stepped out onto my hand. This second bird was much smaller, a little less than half the size of the macaw. Displaying the caique (pronounced “ki-yeek”) to the class, the guest teacher and I took turns sharing information on our avian friends. Somewhere between the social hierarchy of macaws and the average body temperature of tropical birds, I realized that I still had my watch on while holding the caique, which, as the British say, simply isn’t done, old chap. Before handling any type of animal, it is basic procedure to remove all watches, bracelets, loose jewelry, and the like, to ensure that whatever animal you happen to be handling does not become entangled in them. I had left my watch on, but I wasn’t the only one who noticed. The caique noticed too and began nibbling on it with its powerful, scissor –like beak. Knowing the bird could, and probably would, bite clean through my watch band, I placed my other hand just in front of its legs, expecting it to step across to my other hand. I would then simply remove the watch and continue. At least that was the theory. The caique, however, had no such plans! As I reached my other hand up to the caique’s legs, instead of stepping over as I anticipated, it quickly reached down with its beak and grabbed onto my right index finger. At that moment, my world stopped. Here I feel it is important to note that I have, as the title of this series of articles implies, been bitten by a wide variety of animals. From the regular animals such as house cats and dogs to the not so regular animals, including, but not limited to, snakes, zebras, and alligators, I have experienced more than most in the form of an animal’s teeth clamping down on my sweet young body. I can say, however, without any hesitation or second thought that in terms of sheer bite force, none of them hurt as badly as that caique did. The best and most accurate way that I can think of describing the sensation of a caique clamping down on my finger is this: imagine a strong friend is trying to amputate your finger with a pair of dull bolt cutters. If you can comprehend what this might feel like, then you can understand the sense of panic that was flooding my mind as the reality sank in that I might actually lose the end of my finger to this bird and that it was about to happen in front of thirty children! Keeping a cool head as I have learned to do over the years, I remarked to the bird “Come now, that isn’t very nice”.  The kids thought that to be particularly funny, as I hoped they would. I didn’t want them to know that inside my mind, I was screaming! Using the composure one only earns through years of experience and hundreds of animal bites, I bet everything on performing the hardest action there is during an incident like this: I completely relaxed and didn’t move a muscle. Whether or not this deliberate action caused the bird to calm down, I’ll never know. What I did know, however, was that on some level it must have worked because after what felt like six months, the caique let me go. Miraculously, I wasn’t bleeding and my finger wasn’t broken. I even finished the lesson without breaking composure, if you can believe that.

 

     What went wrong? Well, several things did. For starters, it simply wasn’t an intelligent idea to handle a highly intelligent, emotional, and potentially dangerous bird in front of such a large group. Had her owner handled her, I doubt that type of incident would have ever happened. However, the caique had never seen me before that moment and her shyness and unease towards me, coupled with the anxiety of being held in front of a large group, was simply too much for her to handle. It would be the same as expecting a child to perform in a school play in front of a large audience, with kids she didn’t know, on her first day of school. Too many demands on the caique at once resulted in anxiety, which nearly resulted in yours truly missing every “y”, “u”, “h”, “j”, “n”, and “m” in this article. Not to mention the fact that I forgot to remove my watch. Had I not overlooked that simple rule, the incident would have been far less likely to occur in the manner it did. Perhaps the caique would have just attempted to fly the arm’s length back to its carrier instead of biting my finger. It was a lesson learned the hard way. Perhaps it could be chalked up to my own unique “compromised sense”. The common kind, that is.  

Tune in next time to hear how I nearly managed to kill myself and the horse under me... at the same time!

Bitten, Scratched, and Banged Up: The Copperhead Incident

     Having been bitten, scratched, bludgeoned, and mauled by a wide variety of wildlife, if there’s any one thing I can assure those of you who have the good fortune –and by this I mean “good sense”- to have avoided such one sided confrontations with nature, it is this: big or small, it provides for a most unpleasant experience. I cannot recall how many times I’ve come in second place in one of these animal altercations but I’m willing to bet that if I had a dollar for each one, I’d be listed in Forbes 400 somewhere between Warren Buffet and Donald Trump. While some people may chalk this up to a lack of caution, I do not. When you spend as much time with and around animals that can kill and, in some instances, actually eat you, as I have, you develop a great amount of caution and a good measure of respect for each and every one of them. I attribute my collection of injuries to a stipulation of Murphy’s Law which states that if you are in an environment long enough where a mistake or accident may occur, sooner or later it will occur. In fairness, Murphy’s Law has caught up with me a number of times and if I knew Mr. Murphy any better, we would probably have a weekly card game.  Despite my frequent dealings with Murph, several of my animal encounters can, in all fairness, be blamed on plain, grade –A stupidity. The following episode is one such instance.

 

     I had the terrarium prepared. The traditional ten gallon fish tank had been converted nicely for all manner of small reptiles, complete with soil, foliage, and leafy debris forming the natural interior. Like a motel, it had been the temporary home for countless guests before. Tucked safely away within a cotton sack was the next tenet, a medium sized Eastern ribbon snake I had caught less than twenty minutes before. What I didn’t have was a lid for the terrarium, which was essential to keeping a snake. Snakes are a heck of lot smarter than people give them credit for and will, if there is even the slightest opportunity provided them, escape a new enclosure. With me on that summer day of 2003 was my cousin, Chris. The two of us had been busy elsewhere until we crossed paths with the ribbon snake and decided to catch it. “Give me a second” I shouted to him from across the yard, “I know where I can get a lid!” Where there is now a blank sheet of concrete to the side of my house, just between the back corner and the side gully which runs into the creek, there was at one time a large wooden shed. Nicknamed the “chicken shed” due to its function as a chicken coop for several seasons’ worth of livestock shows, its second purpose was to hide the large amount of scrap wood that we would eventually burn –when we got around to it, of course. The scrap wood consisted of many plywood sheets and timber boards, stacked just behind the shed, out of sight. That’s where I would get my lid by custom cutting the plywood sheet to my exact specifications. Turning the corner of the shed, I examined my selections the best I could through the ankle deep leaves that had fallen and dried out that summer. Showing an extreme lack of better judgment, I had ventured over to the leaf buried wood pile barefoot, not having bothered to put on a pair of shoes. I was in a hurry and couldn’t be bothered the time it would cost me to find my set of New Balance track shoes. It would have taken two minutes from my busy schedule. It ended up taking two months instead.

 

     Lifting each board for inspection and eventual rejection, I was careful to look the ground over for snakes. Apparently, I wasn’t careful enough. In another classic blunder, I merely scanned the ground over once for each piece of wood I lifted, knowing full well in the back of my mind after so many years that a well camouflaged snake could avoid visual detection from a jeweler, if hidden in the right substrate. And I was ankle deep in the right substrate. One particular board caught my interest and I gave it a careful examination. Holding it upright the length of my body, I decided that as sure as politicians lie, I could make a lid from this board. Deciding it would be easier to chop up on the ground, I let it fall. That was the last second the board was on my mind. As it hit the ground, I was mildly alarmed to feel a sensation similar to being pinched by a crab on the right edge of my right foot, halfway between the toe and the heel. Turning in surprise to face what I thought must have been a very large crayfish or perhaps one of the blue crab that swim in from the coast having strayed too far upland from the creek, I was completely shocked to see what had so neatly punctured my foot. With a feeling of what I can only describe as surrealistic astonishment, I looked down to see a small broad banded copperhead sitting partially coiled mere inches from my bleeding foot. It’s very strange what thoughts will course through your mind in a particularly dangerous and urgent situation. “I can’t believe that snake just bit me” was the only thought that coursed through my head as I watched it slither away to the safety of the jungle thick gully, practically gliding over my foot in the process. I didn’t move. I wasn’t afraid, but rather, I was simply shocked that I had, after so many years, actually been bitten by a venomous snake. As it vanished into the thick bush, a second strange and surrealistic thought passed through my head as I stood there, still motionless: “There’s more blood than I thought there would be”. It was now streaming down my foot in three directions, bathing the brown and gold leaves beneath my feet in a bright crimson red. As I watched the flow of blood, the reality sank in that the majority of my blood was still coursing through my body, only now it was carrying dangerous hemorrhagic venom that had already began its work of breaking down my blood vessel walls and the cells of the surrounding tissues. My mind began racing. “Stay calm and walk, you know what to do. Whatever you do, don’t panic” I told myself as I began the noticeably awkward and slow walk back to the house. “The faster you move, the faster your blood flows with that venom in it, spreading it through the body” I remembered. Being insightful enough to realize that I was not miming the actions of a tight rope walker for the fun of it, my brother Nolan asked what was up. “I just got bit by a snake”, I told him. There must have been a serious look of urgency on my face or in the tone of my voice because I had been bitten by hundreds of non venomous snakes before and, though I had not specified this one was venomous, he seemed to understand as he ran inside to alert out mother. By this point my sisters were in tears, obviously mourning my nearing and unavoidable death by copperhead. Slightly more confident in my chances, knowing only four percent of all copperhead bites resulted in death and most of those being the very young or sick, I calmly informed my mother that I had been bitten by a copperhead and that if she didn’t mind, a trip to the hospital would cheer me up considerably. To this day, I’m still unsure if her near disciplinary response of “Get in the car…” was a sign of the calmness with which she was handling the situation or the result of her aggravation that her son had finally gotten himself bitten by a snake. A combination of both, I suspect.

 

     In the car, my mentality began to change and for one moment, and that moment only, I began to lose my nerve. “What if I really could die from this?” I thought. Fighting back the emotional build up of fear, I reminded myself that cool heads prevail and that if so many people I had seen on the Discovery channel could survive the truly lethal bites of taipans and black mambas, I would surely survive the bite of a copperhead. Marveling at the speed my mother could crank out of our van, I toyed with the idea of a tourniquet, eventually deciding against it. A good decision too, as that legitimately could have resulted in the amputation of my leg, causing far more damage than the snake bit itself and would have severely affected my mile time. Pulling up to the doors of the Lake Jackson hospital, an orderly was waiting outside for us with a wheel chair. By this time, several notions I had held concerning snake bites were crushed. For starters, I had always heard the tales of fangs feeling like hot hypodermic needles upon impact, followed by an immediate and intense burning sensation. I experienced neither of these. The bite itself, as I mentioned before, felt so nearly identical to the pincer of a crab that I had abandoned the obvious logical conclusion of a snake bite in favor of this idea before actually seeing the culprit with my own two eyes. The burning sensation on the site of the bite never came at all, much to my surprise and immense delight. However, if any one thing had proven true and on schedule, it was the immense amount of swelling that was caused by the hemorrhagic venom possessed by the copperhead and his pit viper counterparts. This venom specializes in destroying tissues, specifically blood vessel walls, muscle cells, blood platelets and erythrocytes. This I first noticed making the transition between the van and the wheel chair. My leg had literally begun to look, feel, and act as if I were wearing a large sock full of jell-o.   Any defining features of the metatarsals and ankle bones were now gone. As the orderly wheeled me into the emergency room I realized that it would be quite some time before I received any serious medical treatment. The emergency room was packed and I was given an IV full of antibiotic fluids. Eventually I was moved onto a stretcher and wheeled into the emergency room, which turned out to be a cubical of curtains less than ten feet from where I had been waiting. I had expected to be treated with antivenin, the ingenious antidote for snakebites that came from the venom itself. Injecting diluted samples of venom from various snakes into the bloodstreams of horses caused the experimental equestrians to develop amazingly resistant antibodies. These antibodies are extracted from blood samples and with a little work, were manufactured into antivenin. The problem with antivenin, however, is that you can’t safely administer the serum without first knowing the type and quantity of snake venom injected through the bite(s). Easily identifying the snake was no problem for me. The urine test required to identify the quantity of venom my liver had broken down and filtered through my kidneys turned out to be a little more complicated. The actual urine test procedures were not what worried me. It was getting off the stretcher and on to the wheel chair and then repeating the reverse process that worried me. My leg had literally swollen to twice its normal size and some very real discomfort had begun to set in. Carefully, and with plenty of help, I completed the urine test, unfortunately rattling my leg several times on the way there and back, eventually finding myself atop the stretcher again some fifteen minutes later. Five minutes passed before it happened. A slow, creeping pain began to take over my entire leg from my toes to my hips. It escalated sharply and became so intense that I began to make audible groans and exclamations of pain. It became sharper and more intense with every second until I was literally gripping the sides of the stretcher in tight fists, tears streaming down my face as both my mom and dad tried, as gently as they could, to hold me down on the stretcher. Within forty-five seconds the entire stretcher was shaking with me as doctors, God save their souls forever, administered a pain killer just in the nick of time. That was the last time I ever cried over physical pain and remains, to this day, the most painful sensation I have ever experienced. Calmed somewhat by the medications, I had nothing to do but sit and wait before the test results came back and I could be treated and moved to a hospital room. I watched the clock as four hours ticked by. They next time you think you are bored, may I recommend you lie on your back, on a table, and watch a clock count off four hours? I guarantee your outlook and definition of boredom will experience a complete renovation. If you are still not convinced, I recommend you try it again, only this time, be sure to inject something toxic into your leg first.

 

     Eventually, a room became available and I was moved off the stretcher and onto a bed, crossing all fingers and one set of toes, hoping the medication would hold out during this trip, which it did. One of the nurses elevated my foot with a stack of pillows, to which I immediately protested. Despite the fact that the venom had already been circulating in my blood for the better part of five hours, I wanted whatever venom was left in my leg to stay in my leg, rather than flow downward to my vitals and, err…um… very vitals. Both of my parents knowing that even at thirteen years of age I had a much higher and more practical knowledge of venomous snakes and snake bites than the nurse, the pillows were removed upon my request. Besides, telling me “no” after the incident on the stretcher might very well have left me the healthiest -and by healthiest, I mean only living soul- in the room. About this time, the test results came back. For starters, I would not require the treatment of antivenin, which was a major plus as it indicated that my bite was not as severe as it might have been. After all, by this time I had examined the bite mark. The copperhead, due to the angle and placement of the strike, had only penetrated with one fang, the other missing completely, reducing the amount of venom that would surely have been working to destroy my bodily tissues by fifty percent. While it is true in many recorded cases that younger snakes have a more toxic venom than adult specimens, this being due to the fact that the younger, smaller and more fragile snakes cannot hold onto their prey but must kill it with one swift injection, the fact that a smaller snake will inject smaller quantities of venom, added to the bonus of the my snake’s lack of accuracy, seemed to equal this out nicely. I would however, have to stay the night in the hospital. While I was not excited about this, I decided things couldn’t get much worse than they had already. Boy was I wrong! Most people who know me are aware that I have a legitimate fear of needles. What most people don’t know is that this was where it all started. Maybe that nurse was just an intern on her first day. Perhaps she was trying to convince me to re-write my latest best-selling novel the only way she knew how. But anyway, either way, if that simple IV injection was an interrogation, you can bet the alimony I would have talked! Without noticing, she had injected the IV in the right vein, but at the terribly wrong angle. What should have been a straight IV was jetting off to the side of the vein on the inside of my elbow, causing me immense discomfort, a mistake that would not be corrected until the next day. In the meantime, I tried to take my mind off of my situation by watching a little TV. Having a limited number of channels, I started watching a show on custom mechanics who designed their own super cars. It was here that I learned what a cruel sense of humor the universe can have at times. While one mechanic showed off his favorite car to the camera crew filming the show, someone asked what he called it. All kidding aside, this is what he said: “Well, I call this one ‘The Copperhead’ because you never know what’s under the hood until it’s too late!” Remember that delirious laugh Richard Dreyfus does in JAWS, when can’t believe his ears as he listens to the lunatic mayor dismiss his warnings of a killer shark? Closing my eyes and doing my best to appreciate the cruel irony, I replicated that laugh to perfection. Calling it a day (and what a day it had been!) I did my best to fall asleep. It didn’t last long however, as I was about to discover my one and only allergy: whatever type of painkiller the doctors had given me earlier that evening! Doing my best not to touch my swollen foot to the floor, I vomited uncontrollably throughout the night.

 

     Eventually, I must have exhausted the substance from my system, or perhaps I just exhausted my system, because I somehow managed to fall asleep. The next day I was severely dehydrated but with a steady intake of water, my body began to operate on normal levels again, save for the swollen leg. Eventually a close friend dropped by after having had his appendix removed and the two of us took a photo together that I still have to this day. More friends came to visit, somewhat easing the pain and misery I had experienced the day prior. Eventually, I was allowed to go home that evening. I would spend the next two months on crutches, not even being able to stand without them and it was a full two years before I built back the lost strength and stability in my ankle. While the lessons learned were broad and many, the hardest learned was that I committed what is the cardinal sin when working with wildlife: I failed to respect a dangerous animal while in its territory. Interestingly, while I have seen more Southern and Northern copperheads since that time than any ten people will see in the entirety of their lives, I have never seen another broad banded copperhead since. Why that one broad banded copperhead made an appearance on that particular day, never to be seen again remains a mystery. One thing’s for sure though: the next time I see Mr. Murphy I might have to suggest that card game to him. In fact, I know where he can find some wood to make the card table with…

The Big Cat Series

     Generally speaking, I do not like cats. They are devious creatures with a knack for deception and suspicion. They are concerned only with their own wellbeing, the problems of others being of no consequence to them whatsoever. Could one ascribe human morals and character traits to them, they would no doubt be labled as dishonest, sexually deviant, self-centered, thieving scoundrels. Yet while this makes them, in the opinion of this individual, among the worst and least enjoyable pets one could possibly have,  these are precisely the traits that have allowed them to become the most widespread and dominant predatory mammals on planet Earth. Though my general lack of love for house cats remains unwavering, I must admit, rather ironically or perhaps hypocritically, that I am well and truly fascinated by big cats: that exclusive group that formally includes the tiger, lion, jaguar, and leopard and informally includes the cheetah, snow leopard, clouded leopard, and puma.

 

    
The annals of history and the individuals that wrote them share my fascination and awe of these large felines. This much is evident in the fact that perhaps no other animal group holds such a revered place in the hearts and minds of cultures world over: the Mayans of South American worshiped the jaguar as a god; the Chinese zodiac honors the “year of the tiger”; and as long as man has carried the sharp stick, hunting the lion has been the truest test of his mettle. The reason for this, I suspect, is that as far as wild animals are concerned, big cats are and have always been human kind’s biggest reminder of its own mortality. Big cats are designed to perfection to kill medium sized, warm blooded prey. Take a wild guess who that includes. Welcome to the club, brother!

 

     There is of course much more to these amazing animals than their perfect capacity to kill and eat human beings, although it certainly does happen on a far more regular basis than conservationists, myself included, wish to admit. They are great hunters, yes, but they are also great survivors and serve as perhaps the greatest of all predatory ambassadors to the natural world. Their social lives, hunting skills, survival techniques, taxonomy, anatomy, and role in their respective ecosystems make them among the most astounding of all animals. What follows are scientific essays (if one wishes to dignify my writing with the term) on each of these cats. Let’s start with the big four, of course, and then follow up with each of the smaller bodied cats mentioned above.

Teaching Means Improvisation

Of all the skills required to be a great teacher, this one is my favorite.

I have always been interested in the relationship between creation, perception, and delivery. When forming a sentence, the end of the sentence is not thought out, it just comes along seamlessly, one word at a time. This is because we have a high understanding of the skill required (talking) and of the point which is to be made via the skill (the meaning of our sentence). The brain allows us to create and perceive the words, structure, and meaning of a sentence, as well as support a point of view, simultaneously. This is the simplest form of improvisation. It occurs so naturally, subconsciously in fact, that we do not even perceive we are improvising until something new is introduced to the creativity/perception/organization/delivery relationship: a subject which is not easily processed by our brain due to lack of functional practice.

Ever talk to someone (remember, speaking is improvising) and speak fluidly until you try to express deep emotion? It becomes hard to do and we usually get hung up on our words, failing to organize a functional sentence, or we organize a sentence with great effort that may not deliver the exact meaning we want or feel. This is because we are attempting to process emotions that are not regularly processed as words in a fluidly constructed sentence. I other words, we do not have a complete intuitive and technical understanding of what we are attempting to deliver as well constructed thoughts. There is a break down within the creativity/perception/organization/delivery relationship. The better functional understanding we have of our surroundings, emotions, structural material (to be delivered) and delivery process, the better we will be able to process and apply the information as we "create" it or remember it on the spot.

As a public speaking competitor, I was always obsessed with the ability to improvise. Improvisation was always a necessary part of my competition arsenal because it added spark and life into my presentations. It let the judges know I wasn't a robot reciting a script in my head, but that I had talent and could deliver a great speech. It also served me well in the case that I saw my competition use a speaking technique I liked or if I had a new idea just moments before going before the judges. After a while, if I felt my judges were not emotionally invested in my performance, I would begin improvising to change or improve the speech as I spoke. Eventually, I started practicing giving speeches with no prepperation at all. I was obsessed with determining how well I could create ideas in my head that I understood, structure a sentence, and deliver it, all the while building on to a bigger structure: that of the fully formed and functionally structured speech. This skill has served me well. As early on as age eleven, I was giving speeches and science presentations. I improvised every chance I had. Like any skill, you only get better with practice and that practice must be done in a variety of settings under multiple conditions.

When I was fifteen, I began teaching high school science classes at a private co-op. Many of my students were older than I was. Ever since that first class, I have realised how important this skill is. Here's why.

(1) It adds life to your class and reassures the students that you aren't reading from a script. The last thing you want is a lifeless teacher who never chases rabbit trails or adds spice to the class by changing the routine. I guess when you hear "Bueller....? Bueller....? Anyone....? Anyone....?" you know it's too late.

(2) Possibly most important of all, classes don't always go your way. Heck, what ever does ALWAYS go your way? Nothing, that's what. When a problem occurs it's best if you don't fight it, but roll with it and find a way to not only keep teaching, but use the problem to your advantage and make your class/speech/presentation the better for it. I have seen countless (I'm not talking 50 or 60, but thousands) classes or speeches hit a problem and stop in its tracks. Teachers freak out and have no clue what to do. If you ever want to see how people usually fail to improvise, watch a state level public speaking competition. I have always believed in watching my competition, which is something I learned from combat sports. When you watch fifty speeches in a day, you will see at least fifty things go wrong. At least...

This occurs for the same reason vacations are postponed, we get sick before important events, microphones fail, flights get delayed, and fish don't bite. It all seems so shocking; "How could this go wrong?" or "Why does this have to happen now?". But it's actually quite simple: you can't control time and space, period. Things happen all the time without our permission, scheduling, or approval. We only notice it when we make plans in such a manner that we begin to think we can actually, through our plans and schedules, control the chaotic environment around us. There's a lot more than just us in the mix. What happens in life is a result of a complex web consisting of God, me, you, the other 6,000,000,000 people on the planet, the 3,699,653,106,579,668 pathogen species that exist along side us and infect us every day, the weather, the geology of the planet, the spin of the Earth, the sun and moon, the tides, gravity, the 30,000,000 animal species on the planet, the climate, modern technology, the coriolis effect, the different biomes that cover our planet, the second law of thermo dynamics, and some good old fashioned random chance to name a few. Who are we to think we can have perfect, uninterupted plans? Better learn to improvise.

The first step to mastering improvisation is simple: do your homework and know your material better than anyone. You could be the best improvisation artist in the world, but if I asked you to give me, without any preperation, a five minute speach on the practical application of the "Wigner Distribution" within Quantum mathematics, something tells me you won't be able to do it. You won't be able to do it because you have no idea what I'm talking about (if you are reading this Joel, discard that last comment..). Our minds cannot create new information. Our minds can only connect pieces of information, combine pieces of information, change existing information, or rearange the way in which information is processed. Improvisation is like living in a big city, like New York. The better you know the city, the more ways you can get around in it. The better you know your subject material, the more ways you can deliver info on it or make connections with it to other information stores within the mind (comparrisons and examples are born from this).

Another important thing to do is to intentionally put yourself in demanding teaching/speaking/presentation positions and intentionally go in unprepared. It forces you to improvise, to react and create from the stores of knowledge in your head and from impulses from the environment around you. When I was working as a substitute teacher, I would walk into a class (all grades but mostly high schools) and teach actual lessons the entire day on whatever subject they were studying, without preparation. I would try something a little bit different each class period, experimenting to see what teaching methods worked best. This allowed me to improvise better and better each time, both in teaching the lesson and in dealing with the students. I consider that year the time when I really learned how to adapt on the spot. When someone causes trouble or something goes wrong in your class or program, don't panic, but thrive on it. Love the moments when you are challenged to adapt. I would often ask what other teachers thought the hardest classes were and who the worst students were, then I would specifically ask to sub for those classes. I did this to test my skills and improve. When you think about it, adaptation has always been the most crucial quality to the survival of any living organism. It's so important that it's even listed as one of only six current qualifications for life. It's by far one of the most important qualifications to be a teacher.

Scully vs. Mulder: Do Giant Snakes Exist in The Wild?

This is part two of my post on the scientific accuracy concerning the legends of giant snakes in the wild. Part one was dedicated to laying out the ground rules on how to determine which species of snake grows to be the "largest", as well as documenting the largest snakes on scientific record. Part two will focus on the legends of giant snakes in the wild and will take a scientific look into the validity of such reports.

The world is divided into two types of people and only two: Fox Mulders and Dana Scullys. Yes, I'm referring to the X-Files. The Fox Mulders of the world believe in the strange and wonderful without evidence to back them up and, in some instances, despite the evidence against them. Fox Mulders are not necessarily wrong on their views and tend to have more faith to carry them through hard times when they need it. However, Fox Mulders are often led astray and can be blinded by their own faith in the unseen. Dana Scullys on the other hand are natural skeptics who believe only the scientific evidence they can observe for themselves. Stories and strange phenomena are no match for simple logic and accurate data in a Dana Scully's eyes. Dana Scullys are much safer investigators and don't fall prey to false data. However, Dana Scullys tend to turn a blind eye to events they cannot explain and can lose hope without a Mulder. As much as it pains me to say it, I am a Dana Scully. Plain and simple.

I feel very qualified to write a bias free post on something as controversial as the existence of giant snakes because I have, at different points in my life, held both viewpoints: that of the Mulder and that of the Scully. Having said that, zoology is a science and works off of data that can be verified and tested. It's from this point of view that we will examine the possible existence of giant snakes in the wild. Now it is important to understand, keeping with the World Conservation Society's definition, that the term "giant snake" is generally accepted as referencing a snake fifty or more feet in length. Such a snake has never been accurately documented or accepted by any zoological facility or organization as being real. This is not evidence against their existence but merely a starting point in understanding where we currently are in the search for giant snakes.

The idea of giant snakes reaching lengths of fifty feet or more is mostly restricted to the tropical regions of South America, though some reports of giant pythons do surface from time to time. Essentially, though the reticulated python is the longest snake officially on record, reports and legends of giant snakes seem to be centered almost entirely around the Green Anaconda. The idea of giant snakes is an old one to say the least. Indians of the South American tropics have long histories and stories of giant snakes and these stories are often woven into their religious beliefs. Among most tribes and villages, this supposed animal is referred to as "Sucuriju Gigante". It is believed by some native tribes and supporters of the giant snake theory to be either an extraordinarily large green anaconda, or an unknown subspecies of the green anaconda that enjoys such lengths as its average size. The idea of there being an entire undiscovered subspecies of anaconda is in itself a subject of debate, let alone whether or not such a snake would grow to such tremendous lengths. For now, let's treat the supposed Sucuriju Gigante as an extraordinarily large specimen of the green anaconda.

Though the earliest claims of giant snakes can be found in the religions practiced by various tribes of the Amazon region, I want to begin with reports of the early explorers instead. My reasoning here is that although the native Indians of those regions are more familiar with their homeland than anyone else, they are also incredibly superstitious and attribute supernatural powers to these snakes of myth and legend. In many of their tales, for example, this snake is a type of deity responsible for carving out the Amazon river as it slithered across the jungle. What I'm interested in is not legend, but finding perhaps what is the source of that legend. When dealing with these ancient tales, sorting myth from fact becomes impossible. When dealing with the reports of early explorers, while there may be just as much myth, it's easier to separate from the facts.

The most commonly cited report of giant snakes is the supposed encounter of Lt. Colonel Percy Fawcett, a British Royal Army officer who had retired to do survey work ("survey work" here refers to exploring uncharted territories in South America, not the typical road side survey work you might think of). This reportedly took place while he and a team of men were near the Bolivian/Peruvian border on a charting mission for the Royal Geographic Society of London in 1907. The only source of the report, despite the fact that multiple men supposedly experienced the incident, is Lt. Colonel Fawcett's diary. In his diary he wrote:

We were drifting easily along the sluggish current not far below the confluence of the Rio Negro when almost under the bow of the igarit'e [boat] there appeared a triangular head and several feet of undulating body. It was a giant anaconda. I sprang for my rifle as the creature began to make its way up the bank, and hardly waiting to aim, smashed a .44 soft-nosed bullet into its spine, ten feet below the wicked head."

He continues...

"We stepped ashore and approached the reptile with caution. It was out of action, but shivers ran up and down the body like puffs of wind on a mountain tarn. As far as it was possible to measure, a length of forty-five feet lay out of the water, and seventeen feet in it, making a total length of sixty-two feet. Its body was not thick for such a colossal length-not more than twelve inches in diameter-but it had probably been long without food. I tried to cut a piece out of the skin, but the beast was by no means dead and the sudden upheavals rather scared us. A penetrating foetid odour emanated from the snake, probably its breath, which is believed to have a stupefying effect, first attracting and later paralyzing its prey. Everything about this snake was repulsive."

Fawcett's description of the snake is interesting to say the least, especially considering that he positively states the snake was an anaconda. Though in fairness, Fawcett was a military officer who served with distinction and was known by close friends and colleagues as a meticulous recorder of facts, I am convinced that this incident is something less than accurate.

Both species of anaconda, the green anaconda and the smaller yellow anaconda, are both extremely thick and heavily proportioned to their length. Fawcett states that the snake in question was no more than twelve inches in diameter. I'm sorry, but even a 16 foot anaconda will have a body diameter pushing nine or ten inches and a twenty foot anaconda, though extremely rare and for the most part, poorly documented, will easily beat a twelve inch diameter. Fawcett does act surprised, stating that perhaps the snake had "been long without food". However, even allowing that a snake could somehow reach the incredibly length of 62 feet as Fawcett claims, no amount of starvation would cause it's body size to shrink down to a diameter of 12 inches. The body proportions that are possessed by the green anaconda, as well as the smaller yellow anaconda for that matter, would dictate that a 62 foot specimen would have to be several feet in diameter at the very least, even despite it's best attempt to play Gandhi. As Dana Scully would put it, "A sixty-two foot specimen of a green anaconda with a twelve inch diameter just isn't possible, Mulder!"


(Even this anaconda specimen held by snake researcher Jesus A. Rivas and associate,
despite being only around the twelve foot mark, has a width pushing ten inches)

The reason that no zoological facility has yet to accept claims of a giant snake is because no documented specimen has ever been brought to light. Like the many instances before and since where supposed giant snakes are concerned, Fawcett was unable to accurately measure the specimen with any real degree of certainty. He states very clearly that it was difficult to measure and that half the body lay in the water. Although it is possible for estimates under such conditions to be correct, it is not likely and certainly not substantial evidence. This leads me to my next point: Fawcett himself.

Lt. Colonel Percy Fawcett was a man of exaggerated ideas. Even Agent Mulder would raise an eyebrow at some of the Lt. Colonel's claims. It's important to understand that Fawcett was well aware of and very educated on the folklore of giant snakes. He believed whole heartedly in these stories before ever setting foot into the Amazon jungle and it isn't unreasonable to suspect or even suggest that he let these beliefs influence his judgment. In addition to this giant snake incident -I say "this" because there was supposedly another- Fawcett also made claims of finding giant spiders the size of dinner plates capable of killing a human victim with one bite and turning their blood black. While, just like the anaconda incident, the spider itself may very well be an actual documented species such as the Goliath bird eating spider (a tarantula subspecies that grows the size of a dinner plate), Fawcett greatly exaggerates the attributes and characteristics of those animals based upon myths told in native South American communities. And as I mentioned above, there is something that most people are not aware of concerning Fawcett's snake adventures: the other snake incident. In Fawcett's writings, he tells of finding yet another giant snake in the jungle, only this snake was supposedly 80 feet long and made what Fawcett described as a loud roaring noise. While the size that a snake may attain is certainly debatable, the simple fact is that snakes are not equipped with vocal cords that would allow any vocalizations that could be described as a roar. The only snakes that produce audible noises or, more specifically, vocalizations, are the rattlesnakes and cobras, respectively. Rattlesnakes obviously produce their trademark sound by rapidly vibrating the excess skin that forms the rattle at the end of the tale and do not actually produce "vocalizations". The cobra on the other hand merely hisses at an elevated volume, producing a sound similar to a deflating tire. Being that all snakes are deaf, both of these noises are used specifically to warn predators and alert large foraging mammals to the snake's presence, allowing the snake to avoid being crushed (as opposed to being used for communication between members of the same species as in other animals). An eighty foot anaconda would not only lack the biological requirements for such vocalizations, but would have no biological need to develop such an adaptation in the first place. The simple fact of the matter is that Lt. Colonel Percy Fawcett greatly exaggerated in the majority of his claims and because of this, neither giant snake story can be taken as much more than that, a story.


(The popular sketch of Fawcett's supposed encounter with a 62 ft. anaconda)

While there are many more stories and reports of giant snakes, in all likely hood they suffer from the same exaggerations as the Fawcett incidents or were simply distorted by poor observational skills and inaccurate estimates concerning weight and length. Guessing the length of an object alone is very difficult to do. Consider that I spent six years living in my current house before my front porch was added. I had seen the front of my house every day for six years straight and estimated it to be 20 feet from the corner to the front door. When it was finally measured to build the porch, that distance turned out to be 27 feet. After seeing that section of my house every day for six years, I had missed my estimate by nearly 25%. Don't think for a second that one glance at an unfamiliar animal such as an anaconda or reticulated python as it moves through the water or dense undergrowth of a tropical jungle will yield a perfect estimate. Consider that the professional reptile keepers at the Pittsburg Zoo inaccurately estimated the length of their largest python Colossius, who they cared for and observed on a daily basis for several years, by nearly eight feet.

Not only is there a severe lack of proof for the existence of giant snakes, but there is what I believe to be substantial evidence against their existence as well. As Bill Nye The Science guy would say, consider the following...

(1) Though supposedly residing in the Amazon for thousands of years, not a single snake carcass has been recovered measuring even half the supposed length of Sucuriju Gigante. I understand that in the hot tropics of the Amazon jungle anything that gives up the ghost is soon decomposed by scavengers and high levels of humidity. But to suggest that not even one of the 400 vertebrae or pairs of ribs that would be possessed by not just one, but each individual representing an entire population of giant snakes mind you, would be discovered after so long is somewhat impractical. Researchers discover countless species measuring mere centimeters living in the dense rainforest every other day, and many of them are discovered by complete chance. How is it that researchers are completely unable to find any remains of an 80 foot snake when they are specifically searching for it?

(2) Anacondas have a variety of prey to choose from in the dense tropics and wetlands of Central and South America including capybara, caiman, and even turtles. A typical anaconda will eat a small meal about once every week or a large meal once every month or so. As with all animals, the larger the snake, the more energy it requires and therefor, the larger or more abundant it's food suply must be. An anaconda measuring fifty feet would need to consume a prey animal as large as a small to moderate sized cow on a monthly basis. It would be nearly impossible for a 50 foot anaconda to attain a constant food suply of this type in the wild, let alone an 80 foot anaconda. This leads me to my next point.

(3) The largest snakes that have been reliably documented are those in captivity, the largest of which was Samantha, the 26 foot reticulated python housed in the Bronx Zoo until 2002. I mentioned above that it would be very unlikely that a snake could find sufficient amounts of prey in the wild to attain and then sustain a length of fifty feet. On average, animals in captivity attain a larger size and greater weight than specimens of the same species in the wild. Considering that captive snakes that are well fed on a regular schedule and receive quality medical treatment to ensure their survival will rarely reach a length of 20 feet and are not known to exceed 26 feet, it is highly unlikely that a wild specimen that might fall victim to disease, drought, predators, and a lack of food would live to grow three times that length.

(4) Anacondas are, of course, reptiles. As with any reptile, anacondas grow relatively slowly. Unlike many reptiles however, snakes are relatively short lived and usually have a maximum life span of 20 years. Keep in mind, that's a maximum life span for captive anacondas that receive the free food and expert medical care I mentioned above. Not only do anacondas reach greater lengths in captivity, they reach a greater age too. My point here is that anacondas in the wild will generally live less than 20 years and this is not nearly enough time for said anaconda to reach even half the supposed length of the mysterious Sucuriju Gigante.

(5) Any debate student can tell you that an obvious hoax, however elaborate, is not proof against the existence of a mysterious animal. However, I believe that in this instance, one specific type of elaborate hoax can actually serve this purpose. At the very least, it serves as the catalyst for what I believe to be the false rumor that is Sucuriju Gigante. In many parts of the world, constrictors such as anacondas and pythons are hunted for their meat and skin. While the meat is consumed, the skin is sold and highly prized as decoration. As with most products, the larger the skin, the higher the cost. Generations of fur trappers and skinners from around the world have made an honest living from their trade, no doubt. But I can only imagine the temptation that came with the discovery of that most unusual and highly lucrative property of snake skin: it stretches. I don't mean it slightly stretches, or it stretches a few inches. I mean you can take the skin of a 15 foot anaconda and stretch it an additional 10 or 15 feet, nearly doubling the size of the original skin without any distortions. This is a common practice anywhere the skins of large constrictors are sold and it has been happening since the first day an anaconda skin found it's way into the local market and fetched a price. It's not unreasonable at all to suspect that this form of hoax is not only responsible for helping spread the rumor of the giant snake, but partially responsible for starting it as well.


(Snake skins, like this green anaconda skin, are easily stretched during the
tanning process and are not sufficient evidence of giant snakes)

Since I proposed that I would write this article from an unbiased view point, it's only fair to mention what is thought to be proof for the existence of giant snakes. Having already discussed the most common citation of evidence, which is eye-witness testimony, I will focus here on the remaining two pieces of often cited evidence: photographs and unusually large snake spoor. I'll begin by discussing the latter.

People native to the regions that make up the habitat of the green anaconda often sight unusually large spoor (tracks) of snakes that measure several feet in diameter. This would be the correct size for a snake measuring fifty feet and would certainly serve as a form of physical evidence, if not for one detail. Although it cannot be proven that these tracks do not belong to the supposed Sucuriju Gigante, they can't be proven to belong to the mysterious giant either. While venomous and non venomous snakes go about killing their prey differently, all snakes consume their prey the same way: swallowing the animal whole, usually head first, by stretching their incredibly elastic jaws and inching their mouths over their prey. This allows snakes to consume prey animals many times the size of their head and girth of their body. The reason that such large snake spoor is insufficient evidence for the existence of giant snakes is because an anaconda measuring 20 feet can consume prey as large as caiman and in some rare instances, deer. A twenty foot snake, having eaten a sufficiently large prey animal will bulge in the middle during the digestion and leave a track at the widest point of its body. A 20 foot snake that has consumed such a large animal would easily leave a track two or more feet in width and would likely be the source for the supposed giant snake spoor.

Photographs of giant snakes do surface from time to time and while some are certainly fakes, models, or photoshopped, some do show real anaconda and python specimens. Unfortunately for those who believe in the existence of giant snakes, none of these photographs offer any means of scale. A snake shown in a photograph may appear to be quite large, but if there is no scale of comparison, it is impossible to determine the size of the animal shown. While there are many reports of supposed giant snakes, no suitable photographs exist. I say "suitable" because there are two regularly cited photographs of supposed giant snakes.


(A supposed 60 ft. anaconda)

The first photo shows what is reported to be a 60 foot anaconda that was shot in the water. Although the photo is genuine in the sense that it was not tampered with and certainly shows a genuine anaconda specimen (most likely dead at that), there is no scale of comparison. This snake could be sixty feet long. It could also be sixteen feet long. Or six feet long. There's no way to know for sure.



(This snake was supposedly shot by a military squad in South America in 1948 and was
reported to be 115 feet long)

The other photo also shows what I believe to be a genuine anaconda specimen, but unfortunately the scale of comparison in this photo is precisely what leads me to believe the snake, though genuine, is not nearly the size it was reported to be. Three men are shown behind the snake at what is clearly a distance and different level of height. The snake is in focus and the men behind it are not, which, as any photographer will tell you, is typical of a camera's inability to capture clear images of multiple objects at different distances. This photo shows little more than a normal anaconda on an elevated platform with several men positioned rather far off behind it.

Although the idea of giant snakes will always exist and continue to intrigue people around the world, it is unlikely that it will ever come to be more than just that: an idea. Evidence is a stubborn thing and is completely indifferent to either side of an argument. It is what it is.

Of course, let's not let the idea of a giant snake spoil us. Anacondas and pythons have been well documented at over 25 feet in length. These snakes are true giants of their species and are just as fascinating as any mythical creature. Let's not allow our interest in the unseen to destroy our love and fascination for the incredible creatures we do have.

It looks like Dana Scully was right on this one, Mulder. Now what is this about a "fluke man", you say?