I am. Ya know car oil is great at getting the wife's hair down the drain and just declogging in general?
Okay so after he puts it to sleep what do they do next? It's not some simple task to just move a elephant. A lot of animals are thinking feeling things also and take care of their own You know ants as a collective are pretty intelligent. They even farm other insects like Aphids, what other creature on the planet does that? Humans use the milk from Cows and in return protect them and feed them. Yet no one thinks twice before getting rid of that ant bed outside of their house. IMO the only thing that matters is what the villagers wanted. This elephant was being a pest to them and they claim ruining their lives. As humans began to take more land from the wild, they are finding out that it is harder to co-exist with elephants. For the elephants, unless they somehow find a way to make guns it's honestly tough luck on them. No one seems to care too much about the Bison(AKA Buffalo) which once roamed the great plains in great numbers and are now endangered. I COULD SEE if Parsons was going out shooting random elephants he saw, but that is not the case. The story is poor villagers ask for hunters to help with their elephant problem, hunter does so, hunter happens to be rich CEO Bob Parsons.
I can't believe some of you are still clinging to the belief that Parsons killed the elephant for humanitarian reasons.
When you join the Tea Party, they quite naturally issue you TWO cards and a head device so you can strap them on either side of your head to block prephrial vision. That way you can have tunnel vision AND two cards for that heightened sense of self esteem.
He was part of an elite group of elephant assassins. Not just anybody can do this job. He saved the freakin' village! It's even more impressive that this was just a sideline to his full time gig as CEO.
I don't think many people here see Parsons as a humanitarian. He goes to Africa to hunt elephants, specifically. Villagers have a problem with some elephants, so they contract Parsons's group of hunters to kill it. Parsons gets to hunt an elephant. Villagers no longer have a problem. Both parties that are directly involved are satisfied from this, and at least an innocent elephant wasn't needlessly hunted down. Why is this situation so outrageous?
Because Obama didn't say it was ok. Meanwhile.... Gunman Kills 2 US Troops in Afghanistan http://www.voanews.com/english/news...lls-2-US-Troops-in-Afghanistan-119185474.html
Parsons is building himself up as a hero. That's part of the problem. He presents the case as if he had to do it in order to save the village. He didn't. There are other ways to prevent elephants from damaging the crops. He wanted to kill an elephant and he did. Yes the villagers were helped somewhat by that. But it wasn't something that had to be done. And he certainly isn't a hero.
They also ate the elephant. We apologise for these images but they speak more eloquently than any politician of the plight of Zimbabwe's starving people For us it is a saddening sight - a magnificent bull elephant struck down in his old age. But for the starving of Zimbabwe, it was little short of a miracle. The carcass provided a vital source of food, and hundreds of desperate villagers in the Gonarezhou National Park descended on the dead animal within minutes of its discovery. Using machetes, axes and knives made from tin cans they set upon the six-ton carcass, which was found deep in scrubland. The women formed a ring around the elephant and the men stood inside, fighting and stabbing each other to get to the meat.' He added: 'The meat was taken back to homes. Some was eaten immediately but most was dried on washing lines and stored to eat later. 'There were celebrations in the surrounding villages for the next two nights.' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...esperate-plight-starving-people-Zimbabwe.html
It was the media who hyped him up. All he did was make a video to share his experience. He never called himself a hero. He claims to have helped the villagers which he did. Methods that the villagers have tried and failed to prevent the elephant stampedes. So what can the villagers do now? Name some alternatives the villagers could have tried, given their resources.
What he's saying is shooting the elephant was good because it was destroying crops AND they didn't need to use a valuable resource like a generator to accomplish its removal. I guess we'll just have to disagree. I believe that protecting crops and feeding hungry farmers and providing some small amount of other money or goods they might get from the crops is worth shooting an elephant and saving a generator for someone else. And you keep talking about the other possible ways this could have gone down, but what about the actual, effective way it did go down? Elephant threatens crops, elephant gets shot, elephant doesn't threaten crops anymore. And if other elephants come looking for "revenge", they're still just elephants, and we still have guns. This argument is not if Parsons is a humanitarian or hero (he isn't). It's not about if there were other ways to handle the elephant problem (there were, but this was quickest, cheapest, and easiest, that's what happens when you ask an American businessman to accomplish something). It's not about if Parsons had any business in Africa helping a farm in Zimbabwe (other people could have come from around Africa that were professional hunters instead of CEOs; Parsons just wanted to kill an elephant). This argument is about an animal's right to exist in the wild. I'm very liberal when it comes to human rights. I believe mar1juana should be legal, abortions should be given no questions asked, gay people should be able to get married, the government should provide health care for all citizens, and rednecks have no need to own an assault rifle. But when it comes to animals, i don't care nearly as much. I believe that they shouldn't be hurt for no reason at all, but if there is a benefit for a human gained by violence on an animal, I'm all for it. People take precedence for me. When poor people in Africa have to expand into animal territory to preserve themselves, but the elephants don't want them there, one of those groups has to go. I know what team I'm playing for. We have big brains, big guns, and big plans. I'd hate to be an eleohant against that.
I keep wanting to change my domains. (asif I knew how). But then Danika stares at me with those beautiful eyes....I'm so torn.
And I can't believe some of you are trying to spin this story. Here it is. Elephant threatens people livelihood, people would like it if someone got rid of the elephant and someone comes to do it. That is unfortunate for the elephant. Fact is, when the human population grows in a area it is very likely there will be some animals that suffer from it. This is natural. As Argentinian ants continue to dominate, the coast horned lizard suffers. In the end, human lives are more important than the elephant. Endangered or not.
