Living Planet

[voice]

There's a certain genious to what he did.

[mids]

Otter attack!

"A group of wild otters viciously attacked a woman jogging in an inner-city park in Malaysia.



Mariasella Harun, 40, was chased and mauled by eight of the mammals on Wednesday morning in Tanjung Aru, in the northern Sabah state of Borneo island."




www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/09/11/wild-otters-maul-jogger-harun-tanjung-aru-malaysia/

[perrykneeham]

Apparently, they were outraged when the woman ordered lunch at local curry house.

"Oooh,  I could murder a tarka, doll." She is reported as saying to the waitress.

She meant a tadka dall, of course.  There is a tarka dall, which is much the same, but ..... <altogether now>

[mids]

Cows can be a bit disconcerting. I walked through a field with a couple of dozen cows in it the other week and they all turned to look at me and kept looking until I was gone.

"There is something particularly shocking about members of the public – most often walkers using public footpaths – being killed or severely injured in cow attacks, but farmers are also victims: cattle are the most common cause of death in the UK agricultural industry. Are they the most dangerous animals in Britain? Figures published by the Office for National Statistics show dogs were responsible for 16 deaths in England and Wales between 2019 and 2023; the calculation periods and geographical areas are not identical, but HSE statistics for some of those years, combined with evidence to the Agriculture Industry Advisory Committee, show that from March 2019 to March 2023, cattle were responsible for 22 deaths in England, Scotland and Wales – of farm workers and members of the public. So, possibly?"

www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/12/the-hell-and-horror-of-cow-attacks-i-told-my-husband-to-leave-me-to-die

[flatandy]

Cows are f**k**g terrifying. Even sheep are pretty terrifying when they get scared, but cows are huge. I hate when I'm on a footpath in a field of cows and the cows are close to the path.

[voice]

When hiking I've been chased by cows, they are surprisingly fast, I got lucky and hurled myself over a wall, but yeah they can be terrifying. Sheep not so much, the worst sheep related thing was once when hiking in the Lake district I stepped in an afterbirth (lambing season) gross as fcuk

[mids]

Ew.

[flatandy]

I was walking in the Peak District and climbed over a stile onto a narrow path between two field, with barbed wire fence on one side and dry stone wall round the other and, few hundred meters ahead, another stile. Once in this enclosed alleyway a sheep emerged and had clearly got through the barbed wire and couldn't get back to her flock and her lamb and was freaking the f**k out and then freaked out even more when she saw me and was charging around and bleating like crazy and there was no way for me to get through. I would have survived, I think, but would have ended up pretty beaten and battered if I'd tried to finish my walk where I had intended to go so I retreated and added and extra couple of miles to the walk to find a way round. It wouldn't have been like Death By Cow, but it would have been unpleasant. Sheep are actually fairly big.

[perrykneeham]

Kuh! Townies.

[mids]

I was on a walk/picnic with the family in Derbyshire a few years ago. We stopped to eat in a big sloping field just in front of a small lake/ big pond. There were heifers in the field up the hill a couple of hundred yards away so we didn't pay them much attention. After a while, we heard a noise behind us and turned round and they were suddenly right behind us in a bunch. They'd definitely been sneaky because we hadn't heard a thing. They didn't exactly charge but they were moving very deliberately through us and being quite frisky. One of them tried to headbutt my brother to which he responded by punching it in the face, which was pretty funny. Anyway, they got past us- they just wanted to get to the pond for a drink and we were in the way. We had a dog with us which probably didn't help.

[mids]

Sept 12, 2024 14:50:24 GMT mids said:

Ew.

Oh come on!

[perrykneeham]

Haha. Very good.

[flatandy]

Sept 12, 2024 15:27:37 GMT mids said:

One of them tried to headbutt my brother to which he responded by punching it in the face

The Scots, eh? They never change, not even on a bucolic rural picnic.

[perrykneeham]

See ewe, Jimmy!

[voice]

Its strange, I don't think I've hiked anywhere here were there was pastured animals, its all wild stuff, bears, racoons, cayotes and lots of little rodent type creatures (which are the worst cos they nibble through anything to get at food)

[flatandy]

That reminds me of this which I will always repost:

www.nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/marmots.htm

[perrykneeham]

"Two years ago, Kirsti Hadley was a self-professed "workaholic" running a successful business, and working with international clients such as Google, Nike and Samsung.

However, the single mother says she has since been forced to give up her job to look after her son and is "only just holding on to my house by the skin of my teeth".

Her son, 13, has been diagnosed with autism, ADHD and OCD and he struggled to adapt with the transition from primary to secondary school.

Miss Hadley, from Brighton, said the lack of suitable provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) at her son's secondary school left her with no choice but to withdraw him from education".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg328x73reo

Dunno. I'm not sure we're getting the full story here. I feel sympathy that she's got a difficult kid, but it sounds like she chose to remove him. I'm sure she's trying to do her best, but she comes across as a bit disingenuous, sharp-elbowed and wah!

Life's like that, I'm  afraid.  No guarantees and it often seems unfair.

[mids]

Why doesn't his dad... oh, I see...

[Repat Van]

I presume because he also has to work too.

You seem very confused at the idea of couples splitting up. Is your relationship experience that non-existent?

[mids]

Anyway, there's fuckall wrong with the kid that a bit of fatherly discipline couldn't put right.