Jul 02 2008
catextortion (or) While Rome burns…
People all over the world respond with strong emotion to the losing of an animal. Just like Maasai who develop strong bonds with their livestock, westerners (it seems) are passionate about their cats. See for yourself here.
Whilethe catnapping story is a farce beyond belief, it brings out a thread: the use of animals to define people’s social or political relationships. This south Florida woman wanted her dog back, so she abducted someone’s cat. Similarly here in east africa wildlife has been either killed outright, or threatened, to elicit a reaction from the powers that be. A few years ago when the lions of Nairobi National park were massacred it was said that the perpetrators wanted to attract attention to their discontent with widllife, rather than target specific problem animals. There was a great deal of polarisation in how the killings were interpreted as you can imagine. The end result seems to be that there has been more attention paid to people’s losses to wildlife. And there is some form of consolation for losses to wildlife.
Technorati : cats, conservation, lions, looney americans
One response so far
Restorative justice is a wise and good thing, like everything, it’s always about the money in the end. Fair’s fair.
Perhaps language will eventually evolve to accommodate the ever changing predicament of wildlife, new collective nouns, new terms of venery? No more “herds” or “prides”
A “hostage” of Rhino? A “ransom” of Lions? A “scam” of Hyaena? A “memory” of wildlife.