>>> The News: JAY KAY!
By staff writer Amir Blumenfeld
July 7, 2004
The real news (for boring people)
The breakdown (for college people)
Wild Leopards on Human Killing Spree in Bombay
BOMBAY (Reuters) – As rampant population growth blurs the divide between city and countryside, it appears man is not even safe from nature's predators in the middle of the world's fifth-largest metropolis.
This article seems so much more well-written if you read that first paragraph in a British accent.
Leopards have killed 14 people this year, and 10 last month alone, in Bombay, a city unique in that it almost entirely surrounds a verdant forest.
Yes, that does make the city unique. That and the fact that curry baby is considered a delicacy.
On Sunday night an 18-year-old was dragged from the hut where he slept and a 50-year-old priest was mauled near a temple on the outskirts of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, a 40-square-mile forest in the northern part of India's financial capital.
Ah yes, because nothing says “financial capital” like sleeping in a hut! Oh and Gandhi, nice last name. *Jerk off motion*
“This is a conservation disaster. We have to study why the animal is coming out. It never came out before,” said J.C. Daniel, 73, former director of the Bombay Natural History Society who has tracked forest fauna for 40 years.
“Which is why I set up this trap,” Daniel said, pointing to a flock of 5-year-olds he let free in the city of Bombay. “I simply cannot wait to study why these leopards eat little kids.”
Only last year, a 4-year-old boy was killed when a leopard scaled the wall of a housing complex and dragged him away while he was playing in the garden.
To be fair the little kid WAS making faces at the leopard, calling it second only to the cheetah in regards to smelly jungle cats.
The leopard problem goes to the heart of a debate about population growth and expansion in a metropolis that the United Nations says is home to more than 16 million people.
In regard to population growth, it seems as if this “leopard problem” is a “leopard solution!”
Environmentalists blame a shortage of prey in the forest, which forces an estimated 35 leopards living in an area 30 times the size of New York's Central Park to hunt in the city.
I wonder if Indian people are spicy.
Bombay's national park is within just a few miles of several factories and the epicenter of its huge Bollywood movie industry.
You know Bollywood cranks out more movies per year than Hollywood? Also, half those movies are directed, produced, and co-written by leopards.
And in a solution that could be out of a film script, officials plan to start releasing around 500 pigs and dozens of rabbits in the forest in the hopes that will satisfy the hunger of the big cats.
Wouldn't it be funny if two years later, 3500 pigs then attacked the city, eating humans. Kosher humans. Ironic humans.
EASY PREY
A tribal man's body was recently found mutilated outside the hut where he slept, while a 55-year-old lawyer was mauled during a morning walk in the deep jungle.
Lenny where are you going? ANOTHER morning walk in the deep jungle! AND You're wearing your suit made out of raw beef? Ugh you are simply asking for it!
The forest's 100-odd ancient Buddhist caves and stone carvings are a big tourist attraction and its scenic hills are popular with trekkers, even though large parts remain off-limits.
100-odd? You wrote an entire article, did mounds of research but when it comes to counting the caves it's like “Hmmm 'bout a 100. No big deal. Here you go REUTERS! All the approximate facts you need! Or so.)
“Villagers move in with buffalos, chicken, fowl and their pets. Naturally they become easy prey,” said Ashok Khot, senior forest secretary for the western state of Maharashtra, of which Bombay is the capital.
“Villagers that live inside of the asshole of cows and sheep have put themselves in harms way as well.”
It is illegal to kill leopards, an endangered species in Africa and Asia often hunted for their spotted fur.
The rule states that the leopard must have 3-5 babies in his mouth before it's legal to shoot it with a tranquilizer dart, and 8-10 babies before you can pelt it in the eye with a BB gun. They should really update their rulebook which predates the Bhaddaghavita. Am I right or am I right?!