Other primates haven’t yet the need to become such hunters. And other predatorial animals haven’t had to manufacture weapons either, since they were born with fangs, claws, speed and stealth enough to suvive without.
No, they haven’t…but my guess is that it’s only a matter of time for chimps. Already chimpanzees have been observed by a number of researchers using stone and wood tools to crack nuts and pick out the nut meats. These same chimp populations have also been observed organizing raiding parties into the territories of neighboring chimpanzee colonies, kidnapping females and killing males.
How long before some clever chimp figures out, like in 2001 A Space Odyssey, that the same rock that he uses to crack his nuts can be used to crush the skull of a prey animal (chimps are occasional predators), or another chimp?
How long before another figures out that the same stick he uses to pick the meat out of nutshells can be used to puncture the skin and organs of an enemy?
A thousand years? A hundred? Ten?[/quote]
They have also used sticks and stones as an intimidation method, slapping the ground with them when they see a threat comming.
At least that’s what I saw on the Discovery channel.
Crows and other corvids are skilled in these ways too:
Along with chimpanzees, crows are the only other animals known by us to manufacture tools.
I believe everything has all qualities, just in varying capacities, as differing expressions.
For instance, tortoises typically abandon their young. They hide the eggs well, but then split, and the hatchlings have to fend for themselves. But there is a tortoise in Kenya that has accepted the role of “mother” to an orphaned hippopotamus: http://www.digyourowngrave.com/tortoise-adopts-baby-hippo/
I believe part of the reason he was able to accept the hippos imposition is the many years exposure to care by humans, that whatever small capacity for care that is in a tortoise was aroused by this contact, and later brought out to a fuller extent by the baby hippos affections.
For those familiar with Samkhyan philsophy, this verifies for me the basis of the Tattwas system. Put simply, even a rock has memory.
[quote]Digital Chainsaw wrote:
Dirty Tiger wrote:
P.S. I am a recovering Vegan.
No shit? I, for one, would be very interested in hearing your story about how you made the transition to your current (greatly improved, IMHO) worldview.
Most vegans I’ve encountered (admitedly, not a very high number) are pretty fanatical about their lifestyle, which I suppose, is almost essential considering how polarized their diets are.
[/quote]
I was flabby in my early twenties, I knew several vegetarians/vegans who were kinda preachy…
At first I thought it was a healthy lifestyle, but my weight kept dropping.
One day I woke up and just felt ultra-shitty, I was 6’4" and 180lbs!
I started eating diary, then I spent a summer in Alaska where I gorged on salmon.
I decided to get serious about weight training and eating red meat 3-times a day.
I have heard that the hunting is easier out there. 180? Damn. I’m lucky to get 110 in a doe.
I bowhunt here in OK, and it takes a couple of months to find the areas you want, learn the patterns the deer have, find their beds. And you have to do this without disturbing an animal designed to avoid predators.
Then you have to get out into the area, unseen, heard or smelled, and then you have to get REALLY lucky.
Everything has to be perfect. Best meat I’ve ever eaten.
Of course, we have grocery stores as well. Damn good thing too. As much time and effort it takes for a successful hunt these days, we’d all starve.
-folly[/quote]
Man, thats tough. Around here the problem is finding a place where you aren’t encroaching on another persons ground. There are multiple shotings every year due to this alone. Has nothing to do with scarcity though. Usualy a property line or someone taking a second shot on your kill.
The whitetails love just about all of the cultivated landscape plants people use in their yards. They are now holding controled hunts to cull the herds within only a couple of miles of the city of Pittsburgh. With the fod supply what it is, those buggers get huge and numerous.
