Americans Fighting Animals

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A Fiery Flying Roll

Hating Dungeons and Dragons before it was cool
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How do they reckon they'd do?

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I have several observations here.

I reckon the evilness of Geese is massively understated here.

Who are the absolute nutters who reckon they could take a grizzly bear?

On the flipside, almost 1 in 3 people think a rat could kick the shit out of them.
 
How do they reckon they'd do?

View attachment 30873

I have several observations here.

I reckon the evilness of Geese is massively understated here.

Who are the absolute nutters who reckon they could take a grizzly bear?

On the flipside, almost 1 in 3 people think a rat could kick the shit out of them.
Those folks who believe they can't defeat a rat are all D&D players and have seen characters die to them..
 
How do they reckon they'd do?

View attachment 30873

I have several observations here.

I reckon the evilness of Geese is massively understated here.

Who are the absolute nutters who reckon they could take a grizzly bear?

On the flipside, almost 1 in 3 people think a rat could kick the shit out of them.
I was recently defeated in a fight with a feral cat that snuck into the house to terrorize our house cats. I managed to grab it by the back of the neck, intending to release it outside and lock the cat door. Little fucker turned around inside its skin and sank all its claws and fangs into me.
 
Yeah it's definately not just Americans doing stupid stuff like this
Back in the mid 1990s, I chased a dingo up the beach on Fraser Island after it stole a fish out of my bucket.
My mates and I were drinking beer all day and having our own fishing comp, and I was damned if a dingo was gonna steal my biggest fish.
They still tell stories of seeing me screaming at a dingo and chasing it up the surf beach like a drunken lunatic, which I suppose I was
The dingo got away from me with ease, and what was worse, the cheeky bugga was wagging it's tail, heh heh :grin:
 
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On the flipside, almost 1 in 3 people think a rat could kick the shit out of them.
A rat is a fantastic scavenger / survivalist, able to take advantage of animals supposedly higher up the food chain than them and the smallest of opportunities. They're incredibly smart and cunning, possessing metacognition (The ability to think about thoughts), indirectly responsible for some of the greatest losses of human life ever, and directly responsible for wiping out many, many other species when they've been introduced to new environments.

I can't see straight for an hour after I wake up, regularly spend five minutes staring at a full fridge unable to decide what to eat, take so many pills each day that I rattle when I jump, and sometimes injure myself while putting my clothes on. I really don't belong anywhere near the top of the food chain. I know my limits.
 
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The USA has Chuck Norris fighting Bears, but if he needs to learn a few tricks with Crocs he is more than welcome to come down here to our Top End and have a chat with this bloke :grin:


 
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A rat is a fantastic scavenger / survivalist, able to take advantage of animals supposedly higher up the food chain than them and the smallest of opportunities. They're incredibly smart and cunning, possessing metacognition (The ability to think about thoughts), indirectly responsible for some of the greatest losses of human life ever, and directly responsible for wiping out many, many other species when they've been introduced to new environments.
I saw a newer hypothesis, that it wasn't the rat that was responsible (and its ticks), but gerbils. Due to weather and climate conditions at the time. Which was more suitable for gerbils, than rats. Now, it was a hypothesis, I don't know if any more evidence was collected. It is of course possible, but I'm not sure if it was likely.
 
I saw a newer hypothesis, that it wasn't the rat that was responsible (and its ticks), but gerbils. Due to weather and climate conditions at the time. Which was more suitable for gerbils, than rats. Now, it was a hypothesis, I don't know if any more evidence was collected. It is of course possible, but I'm not sure if it was likely.
Not so sure about gerbils - they have a major, kryptonite-level vulnerability to Richard Gere.
 
This thread inspired me ti pick this book up on Kindle as I'm a sucker for the 'nature runs amuck' subgenre of the 70s and 80s.

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A rat is a fantastic scavenger / survivalist, able to take advantage of animals supposedly higher up the food chain than them and the smallest of opportunities. They're incredibly smart and cunning, possessing metacognition (The ability to think about thoughts), indirectly responsible for some of the greatest losses of human life ever, and directly responsible for wiping out many, many other species when they've been introduced to new environments.

I can't see straight for an hour after I wake up, regularly spend five minutes staring at a full fridge unable to decide what to eat, take so many pills each day that I rattle when I jump, and sometimes injure myself while putting my clothes on. I really don't belong anywhere near the top of the food chain. I know my limits.


Rats are pretty astounding. We are lucky, as a species, that they aren't aggressive, not the least because they outnumber us, by very conservative estimates, 1000:1. Some experts belief that it is closer to 10,000:1.

Here's an exerpt from a term paper I wrote on rats:

The success of rats as a species is largely based on their exceptional adaptability. Jerry Langton notes that it “doesn’t take long for rats to adapt to any environment, no matter how inhospitable it seems...Colonies of rats have even been known to thrive in meat lockers, where constant freezing temperatures would kill humans in a manner of minutes.”(2006) Rats also reproduce at an alarming rate. With a gestation period of roughly 3 weeks and litters between 6 -12, “it's possible for a three-year-old rat to have given birth to forty-three different litters, up to 516 separate births.” (Langton)

Rats possess exceptionally acute senses, a rapidly-evolving immunity to poisons, preternatural agility, and the ability to squeeze through holes no larger than a quarter by collapsing their rib cages at will. (Langton) Though rats will prefer to flee rather than fight, their nails are capable of rending human skin and bone and their bite is an evolutionary wonder. “The hardness of the enamel on the front of the rat’s incisors is comparable to some grades of steel,” notes Langton, “[and they] can exert a force of 7000 PSI in a bite, much greater than the 1000 or so for a dog.” There are actually three types of rat bites; besides the ordinary one for eating, a rat can gnaw through materials including brick, concrete or lead by sliding down a protective membrane, and, when aggressive, their incisors “separate to create a wider wound and more damage.” (Langton) This is to say nothing of the deadliness of a rat’s saliva, host to numerous communicable diseases, with bites "fatal in 13% of cases in humans, despite antibiotic treatment” (Langton)

...

They are considered the world’s worst invasive species, with evidence that rats are to blame for 40 to 60% percent of all seabird and reptile extinctions. (Science Avenger, 2007) According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, “each year, rats destroy approximately 20% of all agricultural products in the world.” (2008)
 
Rats are pretty astounding. We are lucky, as a species, that they aren't aggressive, not the least because they outnumber us, by very conservative estimates, 1000:1. Some experts belief that it is closer to 10,000:1.
They say that in London, you're never more than three feet from someone who will tell you that, in London, you're never more than three feet from a rat.
 
They say that in London, you're never more than three feet from someone who will tell you that, in London, you're never more than three feet from a rat.
Having worked in the City for quite a few years now, I can concur that both of these statements are, in fact true.
 
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Yeah it's definately not just Americans doing stupid stuff like this
Back in the mid 1990s, I chased a dingo up the beach on Fraser Island after it stole a fish out of my bucket.
My mates and I were drinking beer all day and having our own fishing comp, and I was damned if a dingo was gonna steal my biggest fish.
They still tell stories of seeing me screaming at a dingo and chasing it up the surf beach like a drunken lunatic, which I suppose I was
The dingo got away from me with ease, and what was worse, the cheeky bugga was wagging it's tail, heh heh :grin:
Yeah, but if you didn’t go drunkenly chasing a dingo, wouldn’t you lose your Australian citizenship?
 
So, yeah, I live in the 3rd-largest city in the U.S., but I also live two blocks from the Chicago River, so there's plenty of wildlife about. One night, around 3 AM, I saw, in very dim light, what appeared to be a cute kitty-cat, so I started to come closer to get a better look... and then realized there were multiple white stripes down the back of this "cat." I yelled possibly the most absurd thing that has been said in the English language... "FUCK YOU, SKUNK!!!" and ran away at top speed.

There may have been a fair bit of alcohol involved...

Thankfully, I did run far enough & fast enough to avoid the spray.
 
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I hope you mean that as "a warm up before I put on a bear costume and take them on in one on one battles"

I’m not allowed to hold gladiatorial games in class anymore….

Some poll result highlights, of those who responded to the poll:

Rat 55%
House cat 55%
Goose 36% We had a good discussion over how evil geese are.
Eagle 9%
King Cobra 27%
Kangaroo, Elephant, and Gorilla 5% each
Lion 9%
Grizzly 9%
 
I’m not allowed to hold gladiatorial games in class anymore….

Some poll result highlights, of those who responded to the poll:

Rat 55%
House cat 55%
Goose 36% We had a good discussion over how evil geese are.
Eagle 9%
King Cobra 27%
Kangaroo, Elephant, and Gorilla 5% each
Lion 9%
Grizzly 9%
Wait, half of your class doesn't think they can win in a fight with a rat? How old are these kids?
 
How bad do skunks smell? They're not a thing in my country, so I've never experienced one personally. The internet has shown me that they squeak adorably and eat grapes, but the internet may have a pro-skunk bias.
Think like the smell of marijuana on steroids.
They're also like racoons, getting into garbage.
 
spittingimage spittingimage I don't really know how to put the smell of a skunk's defensive spray into words, but it's very bad. I guess rotted cabbage is the closest smell I can think of. It's also difficult to get off of you.
 
Yeah, but if you didn’t go drunkenly chasing a dingo, wouldn’t you lose your Australian citizenship?
Back when I lived in Newcastle, the local "alternative club" was really close to a rabbit warren. So every Thursday at 2.30 am you had the site of very drunk goths running round unsuccessfully trying to catch a cute bunny rabbit.
 
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