Originally published at: Ohio man hospitalized after "pet" zebra nearly bites off his arm | Boing Boing
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The animal then “continued to charge at deputies and fire crews, as well as other members of the victim’s family” as deputies blew air horns to try to scare it away
Wow. They resisted the urge to shoot it. Thats a surprise.
Sadly, the zebra — which is thought to have been trying to protect some female zebras on the property — was shot and killed by a deputy, for everyone’s safety.
Oh.
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I read somewhere that Zebra bites are one of the most common animal injuries for zookeepers because they look so much like horses that even experienced animal handlers can forget that they don’t behave much like horses.
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“moose bites can be very serious.”
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This also shows the fact there are relatively few domesticated species because the others just didn’t work out. No doubt our ancestors tried to domesticate just about any potentially useful animal, but it only worked out with the ones we still have.
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I still want to meet the first neolithic dude who looked at a gigantic hooved beast and told his friends “I’m gonna go sit on that guy’s back.”
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“Here, hold my fermented yam juice!”
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Thank you thank you thank you.
I rant about this is in every related thread, but don’t keep wild animals. This includes things people don’t think of as “fully” wild, like squirrels, raccoons, bobcats, etc.
Domestication is not “being really nice to something and it’ll be nice back”. It’s a genetically bred personality that means the animal won’t maul you when it gets tired of you, or at random with no warning. I really wish people would stop learning about nature from Disney movies.
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You’re right, but if the cheerful woodland animals would help with household chores I would go for it!
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Exactly right! We tried really hard for millennia to domesticate everything we could. It only worked on a few things because the species has to be genetically predisposed to it.
That recent Russian experiment with forced-domestication of foxes proved this with flying colours. They went about it in a very rigorous scientific way, following the genetics and trying to create domestication in a species that had never had it, but seemed like it might be amenable to (because some individual foxes are really calm and gentle). Even then, it only kinda worked. What they ended up with was a generation of very calm and gentle animals that were still basically wild. They weren’t really domesticated because there was a chance that one of their offspring could be wild again. Not like a cow or dog, where you can breed millions of them, and none will ever revert to wildness. That is domestication.
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And they ended up looking way more like dogs than foxes as well.
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Yup. It is not infrequently that I look around at the dogs and cat napping on my furniture and think “Wow. This is actually pretty weird that I am sharing my living space with these other species.” It is kind of amazing how well it has worked out, especially with Canis familiaris. (Huh. Maybe Canis lupus familiaris now.)
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I’ve read some pretty convincing anthropology studies that argue that the genetic luck of domesticated dogs was crucial to the rise and success of human civilization. We wouldn’t be where we are without them helping us for tens of thousands of years with hunting, guarding, alerting, warmth, and…uh… occasional emergency rations. ahem
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It was definitely a teenage boy.
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Adolescent neolithic guy #1: I’m gonna go sit on that monster. (immediately mauled by bear)
Adolescent neolithic guy #2: I’m gonna go sit on that monster. (immediately gored by rhinoceros)
Adolescent neolithic guy #3: I’m gonna go sit on that…
Adolescent neolithic girl: Hey these ground-dwelling jungle birds are pretty chill and I think I can convince some to lay their eggs in our village if we build a little shelter and sprinkle some grain around, you guys want to help?
Adolescent neolithic guys: We’re busy!
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I don’t put much stock in the notion of an afterlife but if there is one, I’m going to spend about the first 10,000 years looking this kind of shit up.
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Well, Zebras are both black and white; leading to confusion among the police.
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I mean, who in the blazes has any interaction with zebras and thinks “Hmm, this would make a great pet!” ? They’re mean on the best of days. I’ve been to the drive-through feeding parks and the zebras are gangsters that will hold you car in place until you’ve fed them sufficiently and they’ll still try to bite you.
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