If You Meet A Mountain Lion

...chances are it's already had some bad encounters with humanity and it's not going to be happy to see you.  Protect yourself if you need to, but be respectful of the animal as an individual with its own motives and possibly its own family to protect.  (Parents come in all species.)

Some photos taken in the Wildlife section of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  What do you think?  IS there room for human people and the rest of the animal kindgom?  There could be.  The potential is there.  But with SEVEN BILLION humans on the planet and limited resources to begin with, it's up to us to find ethical solutions to live peacefully with other living things and we're doing a horrible job.

Increasing impact.  Uncontrolled slaughter.  Relentless slaughter.  Reduced habitat.  Near extinction.  Gone forever.  Completely vanished.

Incident at the Bronx Zoo

Maybe I'm cold hearted, but I have zero sympathy for the man who recently received a tiger smackdown at the Bronx Zoo.  I don't wish death on the guy, but he earned those swipes.  What could he possibly have been thinking?!  The man, who's motives aren't clear from this article, voluntarily invaded a tiger den in which cubs had recently been born.  Is it safe to say the adult tiger(s) involved were protecting their family and space?  I believe so.  I also believe they had the right.  I think it's just as important to protect the captive wildlife from the human people staring at them through the glass as vice versa.  There should be stronger measures to ensure the public can't pull stunts like this.  Have you read Marc Bekoff's Animal Manifesto?  Or Wild Justice?  Or The Emotional Lives of Animals?  You should.  It should be required high school level reading.

The caption headline of the article on MSN.com's homepage is entitled, "Man badly mauled by tiger attack".  It should say, "Man badly mauled by tiger after invading tiger's personal space, tiger protects cubs".