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They’re called wild animals for a reason

What’s up with all the recent wildlife episodes involving children these days?

There was a 2-year old who was recently snatched by an alligator from shallow water and killed, a child falls into a gorilla enclosure at a zoo and receives some pretty rough treatment until the animal is killed in order to rescue the child; a mother who, with her bare hands, fought off a mountain Lion who had her son in its clutches.

People must learn that animals operate by a totally different system than humans do. There is a really big word for that process: It’s called anthropomorphism. Try springing that word to your friends and neighbors.

In the aforementioned events, I am not here to criticize the parents. Most of us are far too unaware of the dangers posed to us where we live when we expect wild animals to think and behave as humans would. I’m sure that the parents of the tot snatched by an alligator on the shoreline never suspected that an alligator would be anywhere nearby. It was tragic.

Locally, every summer comes the inevitable problem of people chancing upon young wildlife and deciding to raise them as pets. Thanks to the influence of Disney cartoons, we think they are so cute. But, wild animals are simply this: wild. They do not operate on emotion but by instinct. Often humans have to learn that lesson the hard way.

I remember the terrible account of a wildlife rehabilitator who raised a black bear from a cub. Every day she brought it food and cleaned its cage and saw that it had whatever it needed. She grew used to it. One day, after she had had the bear in her facility for a couple years and it weighed 350 pounds, she did what she did every day. She entered its cage, threw it food to one side of the enclosure to draw the bear over there while she cleaned the other side.

Only this day, something went awry. Without warning, the bear attacked her and before anyone could intervene, she was dead. Why did it happen? Those officials who were asked could only speculate. Apparently the bear interpreted something she did, or some way she moved as a threat. You see, the bear did not love her.

Bears in the wild fight each other over food, breeding rights and territory. A sow bear defends her cubs by instinct, but when they reach a certain age, she chases them away from her so she can take a mate. Wildlife conducts their lives by a different standard in the wilds, and humans don’t grasp that.

Consider the report of a woman who heard a noise outside her house and went outside only to see a pair of raccoons on her porch. How often does that happen in Pennsylvania? She meant only to shoo them off her porch but they didn’t want to go. They felt threatened so they attacked her. They jumped on her and bit and scratched her, inflicting some serious wounds. Suddenly, they weren’t so cute anymore. The woman, no doubt, had to endure a series of rabies shots as a precaution.

I have a friend who lives in the country. A chipmunk showed up in her yard so she decided to see if she could feed it peanuts. After weeks of offering peanuts, the chippie began to accept them from her hand. Now all she has to do is make some whistling noises and the chipmunk appears and comes for peanuts.

I cautioned her that it isn’t a wise practice.

“Suppose this chippie contracts rabies,” I asked her. “How will you know it before it’s too late? If it scratches or bites you one day, will you get it tested?”

This unwise practice is “cute” and a show for every visitor that shows up. But “tamed” wild animals are among the first to contract rabies. This chippie doesn’t “love” her, it simply wants peanuts.

A couple of my favorite TV channels are devoted to the subject of animals who “suddenly” turn on their owners, who were sure the creature “loved” them and would never do such a thing. Circus animals who suddenly go on a rampage, inflicting injury and damage. Remember the infamous Siegfried and Roy incident? A tiger they had had in their act for years, that they “loved” suddenly turned on one of them, severely wounding him.

There is a certain breed of humans who decide, for reasons known only to them, to live among wolves, bears, coyotes and one day wind up as news when they are killed by the very animals they thought “loved” them.

Jeff Treadwell was such a man, who lived among grizzly bears and declared he had a “connection” with them. He understood them, he said, they were his “friends” and so on. I watched several episodes of his show, and he was confident he was a friend of all the bears, that he had control over them and that he was safe.

Only one day, after no one had heard from him for a while, wildlife officials investigated and found he had been attacked and killed by one of his own favorite bears. Several books and magazine articles have documented this case.

Locally, we don’t have to worry about grizzlies. But, those we do have to worry about are black bears, raccoons, foxes, squirrels, and other small critters. This time of year, we go camping in or near the woods, take hikes, or find baby wildlings on the fringes of the farm and they are so cuddly, so cute and we can’t imagine they could ever pose a threat. It is illegal to take critters from the wild and try to raise them as pets and this internal instinct to the wild is one reason why.

They are not human. They do not think or feel emotions like humans. They think of you as just another one of them and when you overstep their natural boundaries, they will treat you as they would one of their own in the wild. They will lash out to teach you a lesson, claw and scratch, bite and squeeze and you will be the loser. Always.

For your own sake leave young wildlife alone. If you know for a fact that the mother has been killed, notify the Game Commission personnel.

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