Re: A little blackbird

Cats are simply doing what they were designed to do ... be predators on small animals. They also keep down mice, rats, shrews and voles. As do hawks, owls and other raptors. Survival of the fittest.

Re: A little blackbird

'I don't know how many wild animals have rescued humans or prevented us from being injured. Can you give factual examples ?'

http: //paranormal.suite101.com/article.cfm/wolf_shadow_guardian_during_blizzard[/URL]

http://famewatcher.com/2009/07/belug...oto-video.html

You have not upset me Aerolo I was just pointong out some flaws in your statement.

Re: A little blackbird

Cats do predate,that is why when Cleo finally goes I am not sure we will get another cat. Cleo has never hunted and we have birds nesting in our garden.

It`s unusual for a cat but I have often seen Cleo rolling around basking in the sunshine with birds feeding on the food I put out not three feet from her

Re: A little blackbird

Thank you for posting these two links Antibrown - I found them interesting. However, I do have problems accepting them being facts.

I think the link about the wolf is from a paranormal interest site, and the article refers to parapsychology, and how this may relate to animals, in this instance the wolf. Therefore, I do not think it can be taken as factual. The person struggling in the snow says he was, at times, unconscious for a while and drifting in and out of of sleep/conscious - brought on by exhaustion and extreme cold. The article says that he said the wolf "from his gaze conveyed the fact that he was here to help - I would argue that this is a fact it is what the man thought or felt. People have strange experiences when they are in extreme situations, particularly so when periods of unconsciousness are involved. A wolf may have been following him and when he fell been curious, and came close for a while, before moving on. I can accept that. Wolves throughout history have been much maligned, persecuted and exterminated by men. They are not the monsters that many believe them to be. There are shelves full of books on man and his relationship with the wolf. (A particularly good - non fiction - book is "Of Wolves and Men" by Barry Holstun Lopez. I can highly recommend it.

The link on the beluga whale is also very ineresting, but the comment I would make is that this animal was in an aquarium (a twenty foot pool) in a place called "Polar Land" in Hakin, NE China. I would think it something like the SeaWorld in California, where marine animals are exhibited and perform to an audience. The girl in the pool may have got into difficulty, and I accept that the whale helped her by getting her to the surface. Have you considered that the beluga may have been reacting to what it is trained to do (dolphins and Orca do perform and interact with humans in this way). The beluga may well have been conditioned by training to do something similar as part of a performance and reacted voluntarily when the girl was in difficulty as it would if it had been asked to do so by a trainer. The video depicts the fact that the beluga helped the girl, but we must remember to take account of the oher fact that it was in an aquarium and the animal was captive and an exhibit, more than likely trained as part of a spectacle and part of a human free-diving ineractive contest.

Like wolves and many animals there is a fine intelligence and sensitivity there (of that I am sure). Animals can and do interact with humans, particularly domesticated animals, but it is very easy to project our own emotions into an animal, thinking that they are feeling the same. We are then guilty of anthropomorphism and trying to make them into something they are not.

This has come a long way from the original post, and coming back to the blackbird, I am sorry it has not survived - but from Old Git's post, I would not have expected it to (with or without human help). Human intervention very often only prolongs the suffering and adds more stress to a bird's situation. Vets do say this about wild birds - there was a little raptor on the Wild Vet TV programme only this week (the Flamingo Land Vet). He said that with injured birds it is so difficult to help and very often intervention is so wrong. Death is the better option, rather than to be kept captive in a cage with an injury that will not repair enough to allow them to survive in the wild. Infections quickly set into bones, amputation is impractical and no wild bird should have to spend its life in captivity in a cage. They are not born for that. That is why I said that it is the Law of the Jungle - it is for wildlife.

Re: A little blackbird

OK. I've read the whole thread now.
I believe that at times if we try to help wildlife we may make matters worse for them but I for one could not just look out of my window at a struggling bird and just leave it there suffering daily and would have to try at least to keep it safe from its predators.
We had a young crow which kept flying into our windows, about 5 or 6 times he bashed his head, it was dazed and hid behind our bin, the parents were circling and squawking overhead. Upon phoning the local wildlife sanctuary they advised me to put it into our shed and then release in the morning and that its parents were most likely feeding it while on the ground as it could not properly fly yet. About 5am next day we set it down in the field below mum and dad and although they squawked from high in their tree they ignored it all morning. I was fearful that 'he'd had his chips' and would die. Eventually they fed him and the next day too.
It was a gamble - would he die overnight from the sheer fright of us and the shed (likely) or from a fox during the night (most definately). We can only look at the animal's injury, the possible outcome and do our darned best to ensure it suffers as least as possible.
Mary

Re: A little blackbird

Just read through my above post and I want you to know OG that in your shoes, with the little blackbird, I think I would have done the same as you did. At least he was eating and drinking and sort of getting to where he wanted to be before he went missing. Didn't want you to think I was disagreeing with you, sorry.
Mary