Check out the video "Battle at Kruger" below, if you haven't already done so. It is from YouTube and can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM it is almost an eight and a half minute video. So have patience and watch the full video. There are unexpected twists and turns and a happy ending (well... happy for who?).
I guess you will agree that it is a pretty interesting video revealing one of nature's amazing spectacles. This reminds us of Charles Darwin's theories about 'struggle for existence' and 'survival of the fittest*'.
The lions chasing the buffalo, the crocodiles trying to steal and the comeback of the herd kicking the shit out of the lion pack, were all interesting but they did not grab my attention as much as the background voices did. One could find quite a few such chases and hunts on National Geographic or Discovery but the curiosity, excitement and concern of the people who shot this video raised a lot of questions in my tiny little mind.
You could feel the sadness and concern in the voices when the lion grabbed the calf. Now take a step back and think. What is veal? Where is it coming from? I'm sure most of you out there know how the calves are abused before they are magically transformed into that expensive mouthwatering dish on your plate in the restaurant. One doesn't mind paying big bucks for this piece of meat but feels sorry when a lion tries to catch it's prey, which is what nature made it for. You can hear one voice say "come on buffalo, go" almost at the end of the video clearly indicating the person's support for the buffalo and hatred towards the lion. It surprised me. I'm sorry but I don't think we can take sides here. It's the freaking nature and that's what animals do. If you don't want the lion to kill the calf and eat it, would you then mind being it's food? Come on now, the lion should survive as well. But no. You would rather kill the lion and make a blanket or coat out of it's skin and pendants out of it's finger nails.
By now you might have concluded that I'm a meat-eater hating vegetarian. You are correct on the vegetarian part but I have nothing against non-vegetarians. As a matter of fact, I don't call myself a vegetarian as everyone wants to get into argument as for the definition of the term. So I very clearly indicate I'm not a meat-eater. All I want to point out here is the human approach to packaged meat versus the raw flesh. We don't mind abusing animals to satisfy our palate but feel terribly sorry when animal hunts it's prey. In this context, let me also bring up the recent tiger attack in the San Francisco zoo. I feel really sorry for the kid who the tiger picked. But regarding the discussions after the incident whether to put the tiger down and if he is a threat to others and stuff were ridiculous. Of course damn it! He is going to be threat to others as he is a freaking tiger. He is wild, supposed to be wild and not made to be sitting in a hole or behind bars. Why the hell does everyone think of "putting him down" and to leave in the middle of a forest or something where he actually belongs?
* survival of the fittest is actually a term coined by Herbert Spencer motivated by the Origin of Species by Darwin.
