Samwise rides again

From ninemsn.com.au …

A Spanish marine park’s killer whale has lived up to its name with a frightening attack — smashing a female trainer with its snout, biting her arm and dragging her underwater repeatedly.

The trainer, Claudia Vollhardt of Germany, remains in hospital with a broken arm and a badly bruised chest.

The 1.36 tonne male orca, named Tekoa, unexpectedly turned on Ms Vollhardt while rehearsing a trick at Loro Parque, a zoo in the Canary Islands.

But suddenly the giant animal slammed her in the chest with its snout and took her arm in between its jaws, park officials said.

The whale then repeatedly dragged her underwater in the 12m deep tank before finally letting her go.

Despite the ferocity of the whale’s actions, Zoo spokeswoman Patricia Delponti said the animal meant the trainer no harm.

“The whale did not bite her. If it had, she would have lost her arm,”

From the AP …

A Denver man seeking to eliminate the public airing of video of killer whales attacking him 20 years ago at Sea World cannot expect privacy after he once licensed rights to the footage to two television programs, a judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin wrote in a ruling dated Monday that it was unreasonable for Jonathan E. Smith to expect that footage of the March 4, 1987, attack by two killer whales in San Diego would never be seen.

Smith had sued NBC Universal, MG Perin Inc. and Universal Television Networks. Scheindlin dismissed the claims against NBC, saying Smith had offered no evidence to show the network violated his copyrights.

“As a matter of law, Smith could not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a video that he had previously licensed for broadcast on national television,” Scheindlin said, rejecting Smith’s claims that once-public facts can become private again.

“He doesn’t want his kids to see him being attacked by the big fish,” Stein said of the attack at Sea World in San Diego that left Smith with broken bones, a damaged spleen and occasional flashbacks to the moment when two whales tried to crush him against the bottom of the tank.

Smith gained ownership of a five-minute video after an audience member who recorded the attack with a camcorder visited him in the hospital and assigned him the copyright. Smith licensed the video for broadcast on two occasions, in 1987 and 1988, the judge wrote.

In 1994, Smith filed a copyright lawsuit after MG Perin distributed a segment of the television series “The Extraordinary” containing several portions of the Fox interview and 37 seconds of the video, the judge said.

The case was settled in September 1996 with Fox and MG Perin agreeing never to duplicate or distribute the video again without a license from Smith. The judge said Smith was paid $40,000 in the settlement.

In August 2003, MG Perin violated the agreement by accepting $200,000 from Universal Television Networks to license 10 segments of “The Extraordinary” including one containing portions of Smith’s video, the judge said. Smith brought the current lawsuit in February 2006.

UPDATE : Another incident caught on YouTube …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-I40PpmOY4

From the Honolulu Advertiser …

Finley, 32, said he was floating on his back and thinking, “It’s so nice to be out here all by myself in the ocean, alone.”

Except he wasn’t alone. Without warning, a shark chomped into his left leg and just as suddenly disappeared into the deep.

Finley yesterday described the sensation as “a hard bump.”

Monday’s shark attack was the sixth in Hawai’i this year. A previous shark-bite case on Maui occurred May 7, when a woman was bitten while snorkeling at Keawakapu Beach. Three other incidents were reported this year off O’ahu and one off Kaua’i.

Four of the six cases resulted in leg injuries, and two involved bites to surfboards.

On average, there are three to five shark attacks annually in the Islands. By comparison, Florida reported 23 cases in 2006, and South Carolina and Oregon reported three each, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Hawai’i had four shark incidents last year.

Hawai’i shark expert John Naughton said Finley’s experience “sounds like a very classic ‘bite-and-test.’ It’s just a way that these sharks have of testing something they see on the surface. They bite and release when they suddenly realize it’s not what they thought it was.”

Naughton said tiger sharks are evenly distributed throughout the Hawaiian Islands, and there is no indication they are more prevalent in South Maui than anywhere else. However, the Kihei-Wailea-Makena coastline is host to a string of reefs that provide habitat to fish and sea turtles. The same abundance of sealife that attracts snorkelers also attracts sharks, he said.

“These things just happen. It’s nothing to be concerned about. Sharks are part of a healthy eco-system,” Naughton said. “Swimmers should use a little discretion when the water is dirty.”

Being alone also may make swimmers more susceptible to shark attacks, he said. A group of people thrashing around in the water might scare off sharks. “They realize it’s something different, it’s not turtles or a school of fish,”

Statistics from the Division of Aquatic Resources indicate a slight increase in risk during the months of October through December, perhaps because of rainy weather that washes dead pigs, freshwater fish and other debris into the ocean, attracting scavenging tiger sharks to areas also frequented by surfers.

High winter surf also stirs up the ocean bottom, creating the kind of murky conditions that can lead sharks to mistake humans for their usual prey of seals and sea turtles.

Finley, a music industry sound engineer, said he didn’t realize he had been injured until he began backstroking toward shore and lifted his leg to the surface. The shark left a half-moon gash on both sides of his left calf and on his thigh above the knee.

Finley waited until he was in shallow water before calling for help. “There’s nothing quite as embarrassing as being out in the middle of the ocean and having to yell for help,” he said.

Two resort workers helped carry him onto the sand.

Maui surgeon Dr. Peter Galpin said the bite wound on Finley’s calf is particularly deep and nicked the bone, although there was little tissue loss. Galpin has treated eight previous shark attack victims and said Finley’s injury was typical of “catch-and-release” shark behavior.

“If this shark had wanted him, it would have had him,”

From CBC …

The inquest in Prince Albert, Sask. into the death of Kenton Carnegie, who died in a suspected wolf attack, is also hearing the possibility that a bear may have been involved.

Witnesses said there were wolves spotted in the area and they could hear wolves calling when they went to look for Carnegie, who went missing after going for a walk. One witness said it looked like wolves were nearby when Carnegie’s remains were found.

An expert witness said there were bear tracks visible in one of the photographs taken in the area, although none of the witnesses said they saw a bear.

The focus of the inquest also shifted Tuesday to the role that an unregulated garbage dump may have played.

When unregulated garbage dumps attack ?

Signs had been posted noting that wild animals feeding at the dump were losing their natural fear of humans

Trottier said wolves around the work camp were acting as if they had no fear, something that could make them dangerous to humans.

Harold Johnson, the lawyer for the Carnegie family, said he doesn’t think the unregulated garbage dump is an important part of the puzzle.

“It’s a straw man argument,” he said. “There’s garbage dumps everywhere. Wolves don’t kill everywhere … there is a garbage dump. They are trying to draw a connection.”

That back ground in the photo of the wolf is obviously painted.

Thanks to CanSpice for this Canadian edition.

From Aunty …

A Sussex policeman has been discharged from hospital after an attack by about 50 cows left him with four broken ribs and a punctured lung.

Insp Chris Poole, 50, said the cattle repeatedly butted and stamped on him when he was out walking his dog on the South Downs earlier this month.

One cow butted him in the back, forcing him to the ground, before the others joined in, he recalled.

Mr Poole said he managed to escape when his Golden Retriever, called Zak, fled, distracting the cows.

He was taken to Eastbourne District General Hospital by air ambulance after attracting the attention of another dog walker.

He suffered bruising from his thigh to his shoulder, and faced a life-threatening situation three days later when one of his broken ribs severed an artery.

Mr Poole, who spent 11 days in hospital, said he wanted to warn other walkers to give cows a wide berth.

The RSPCA said cows could become protective of their young to the point of becoming aggressive, especially if a large dog was nearby.

The cows were unavailable for comment.

Thanks again go to the Binary Ape.

From Aunty …

A man out hunting in Iowa was shot in the leg after a hunting dog stepped on his gun

The accident happened after James Harris, 37, put his gun on the ground to retrieve a fallen pheasant.

One of a pack of hunting dogs following behind stepped on the trigger, and up to 120 birdshot pellets hit Mr Harris in the left calf at short range.

A local official told a news agency the injury was “not life-threatening, but will give him trouble for a long time“.

Alan Foster, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, told the AFP news agency it was not uncommon for hunters to be shot by their dogs.

“I hear about it a couple times a year,” somewhere in the country, he said.

“They’ll step on the trigger assembly and, if the gun for whatever reason wasn’t on safety, it doesn’t take a whole lot to trip a trigger.”

Mr Harris was treated at Grinnell Regional Medical Center and later transported by helicopter to University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City, following the accident in Poweshiek County on Saturday afternoon.

An investigation into the accident is under way.

The dog was not available for comment.

Thanks to the Binary Ape for this one.

From the Beeb …

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys.

The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by.

The High Court ordered the city to find an answer to the problem last year.

One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques.

The city has also employed monkey catchers to round them up so they can be moved to forests.

But the problem has persisted.

Culling is seen as unacceptable to devout Hindus, who revere the monkeys as a manifestation of the monkey god Hanuman, and often feed them bananas and peanuts.

Urban development around the city has also been blamed for destroying the monkeys’ natural habitat.

So … these Langur monkeys aren’t going to prove a problem … right ?

Cheers to the Binary Ape for bringing this story to my attention.

From the SouthBend Tribune …

Most days South Bend police officers go up against such adversaries as robbers, thieves and vandals.

They probably never thought they’d have to go up against fleas.

Patrolman Paul Strabavy was the first to notice the “brown and black” fleas while walking out of the house.

“They were all over the place — in our socks and even in our shorts,” Stuart said. “It was disgusting.”

It was the third time this year Strabavy has been called to a vacant house on the northwest side for a burglary and ended up with fleas

To avoid infesting their squad cars, the police station or family members, the officers went through a “flea decontamination process.”

A van was called to Fremont to take them back to the station, where they changed outside.

Cpl. Will Johnson provided flea/lice shampoo and soap, so the officers could shower at the station.

As many as seven officers spent time on the case.

“That killed the whole shift,” said Sgt. Chuck Stokes, who was the supervisor on scene. “It takes several hours to take care of the problem.

“The guys were very angry. The last thing they wanted to deal with was fleas.”

Stuart said there are more important things officers need to be concerned with when patrolling the streets, especially when seven were involved in this call and there are typically only 18 to 21 officers patrolling the entire city at a given time.

Stokes hopes an officer will not have to go through this again, but acknowledged it will probably happen.

“It can come up at any time,” he said. “We have to check the houses to see if there are any possible victims in the home.”

“Something needs to be done about it,”

long-vacant houses do not usually have a constant food source that draws in bugs.

Most houses with insect invasions are either occupied or have been only recently vacated

Nelson said it is possible that homeless people staying in vacant houses from time to time could bring insects such as lice and fleas.

“Fleas can jump from a couch to a person walking by,”

“I don’t know if that’s a threat to public health, but it’s a threat to the individuals who enter the home,”

Nelson would advise officers to use precautions when entering a possibly infested house, such as wearing boot coverings and a hair covering.

He said officers are welcome to contact the Health Department for further guidance or to accompany them if they believe a house is infested.

“I don’t ever want to go inside a vacant home again,”

From the Telegraph …

Matt Martin was camping alone near a beach in northern Queensland when he decided to go for a dusk swim, despite having drunk what he later admitted was “half a slab”, or 12 cans of beer.

When the 35-year-old construction worker dived into a wave, he butted heads with a submerged saltwater crocodile.

“I thought I was dead. It was sort of like when you hit rocks but the rocks had give and movement in them,” he told The Cairns Post.

“The next moment, I’m standing up and something in my head was screaming ‘it’s a croc’ and I just started to back-pedal.”

The giant reptile, apparently as surprised as he was by the encounter, lashed out with its formidable jaws, inflicting deep gashes to Mr Martin’s face.

He managed to scramble out of the water but instead of seeking immediate medical help, decided to sleep off his drinking binge.

Rested after a night’s sleep, he then drove himself to hospital in the town of Mossman but had to hold a blanket to staunch the bleeding to his face, which was “pretty messed up”.

“I had to drive with my left hand on my face and my right hand changing gears,” he said. The deep cuts to his face required more than 40 stitches.

He believed the crocodile could have done far greater damage had it wanted to. “[It was] a backhander…a bit of ‘you’re in my territory’. He wasn’t serious, he had all the cards and he played it soft.”

The bizarre encounter happened at Cow Bay, on the wild and rugged Cape York peninsula — a region famed for its burgeoning population of ’salties’.

Despite their name the species lives in salt and freshwater, lurking in rivers and estuaries and ranging far out to sea.

http://xkcd.com/327/