Death On The Dove

[DAVE COOPER]

I have never seen anything like that. The pre-meditated way in which the big cob swan attacked and battered the smaller one was truly incredible.

Anyone else witnessed the cruel side of nature while out fishing?

 

[Andrew Miller]

I did remember on the River Yare watching a pair of swan holding a smaller swan head under the water as they floated by. The pair took it in turn to hold the smaller swan head under the water not allowing it to come up for air at all! I had a fight with a big cob once when the cynets were resting in between 2 lakes. I was using my chair as a shield and my landing net handle as a prodder but the strenght of the cob was frightening!
Have anyone else seen the sytemetic gang rape of the female duck while it partner is kept away by the other drakes It horrific!!!!
Windy

 

[Ron Clay]

A big angry cob has got nothing against a sharp weighty machete or weed hook at the end of a strong landing net pole.

It is, however, extremely rare that a swan will attack a human

 

[Ron Clay]

The cruel side of nature?

The most cruel in my opinion is a pack of African Wild dogs chasing and biting bits of an antelope as it is fleeing.

 

[Andrew Miller]

Ron, I was not trying to hurt the swan, after all it was only protecting its youngsters but it was smack in the middle between 2 lakes and the way out. A sharp weighty machette or weed hook at the end of a pole is not a sensible thing to use!
Hunting down prey is a necessary way of life. I did not realised that the systemetic and deliberate way of hurting their own species that is so common in human actually existed in other animal.
Windy

 

[GrahamM]

I once watched a swan grab a young, but fully grown, canada goose by the neck and drown it, then it dragged it onto an island and set about doing as much damage to the body of the goose as it could.

Revered by many, royal status, and nothing but a bundle of bread and lead-shot gobbling viciousness dressed in fluffy white feathers.

I don't like swans. They're to waterways what magpies are to hedgerows.

 

[Andy Thatcher]

Undecided then Graham ?

As I said on another thread watching a mink track down 4 cygnets was fierce. It was going to have them no matter what and left the lifeless bodies in the margins. That was the part that gave me the hump. If something is going to kill, eat it.

The cruelest but most fascinating thing in nature I have seen was in Spain. Saw a family party of deer and noticed them being stalked by a Lynx. The deer knew it was there but it herded them into a small ravine that they couldn't get out of without passing the Lynx. The Lynx sat watching the deer for half an hour before deciding which member to kill.

Absolutely mesmerising. The oddest thing was the feeling of privilege at seeing it happen.

 

[Ron Clay]

During the 70s I used to visit the Kruger Nation park quite a lot. In one occasion I was privilaged to witness a kill - a lioness with a wildebeest. The lioness was on top of the Wildebeest with teeth in it's neck. The blood flowed and the wildbeest died slowly.

An American woman in a nearby car started screaming hysterically. "Oh my God, Oh my God she shrieked, can't somebody stop it!!!

Who knows she could have been one of the founders of PETA.

 

[John Spink]

Hi All,
Animals etc are not cruel...It's only humans that are cruel!! Creatures just act instinctively and do not act calculatingly as our race does (although I agree it looks like that sometimes).All the examples given do demonstrate the harshness of life in the real world, a world that we as humans probably would striggle to survive in without our technologies.Ron...I saw an excellent programme the other night which had a bit about the Kruger lions scoffing the illegal Mozambique immigrants trying to get into SA...They are obviously desperate and brave....I would not walk in the bush at night with lions who know they have found an easy prey Huh?..
I too have seen much natural grief...leopard seals eating penguins.Killer whales scoffing and playing with various marine mammals....Not cruel,just nature...

P.S.I was fishing last week and watched Mallards catching and eatind small roach (when they weren't gang raping...That is horrible I agree)...never knew they ate fish though!!

 

[Ron Clay]

Ducks will eat anything when they are so minded.

Some years ago a famous crocodile that lived in the Crocodile River near Malalane at the Southern border of the Kruger NP was found dead. It was a huge beast and quite well known; nearly 24 feet long I beleive. In it's stomach were numerous human remains including false teeth, bangles and other native adornments as well as bones, a skull and several pairs of shoes.

The moral of the story is not to walk in the evenening next to a croc infested river.