Poll: Abducted Girl Rescued by Lions

[BloatedGuppy]

Possibly not the strangest story I've ever heard, but certainly the strangest story I've heard today.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8305836/ns/world_news-africa/t/ethiopian-girl-reportedly-guarded-lions/#.VE59SMm9aSp

A 12-year-old girl who was abducted and beaten by men trying to force her into a marriage was found being guarded by three lions who apparently had chased off her captors, a policeman said Tuesday.

"Everyone thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people," Wondimu said.

Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert with the rural development ministry, said the girl may have survived because she was crying from the trauma of her attack.

"A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they didn?t eat her," Williams said.

Reads like a super hero origin story.

I know this is more of a "cool story bro" than a discussion thread, but by all means feel free to post any interesting stories of times you were mauled by or saved by wildlife, possibly whilst abducting an Ethiopian girl. Did I ever tell you about the time my co-worker went to a lake near my house and got chased by a bear?

True story.

At least I assume it's true, he has an honest face.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Plot twist, the girl is now being forced into a marriage with one of the lions.

That's a horribly insensitive thing to say, isn't it?

 

[Lilani]

This is really interesting and all...but how did you stumble across a news article from 2005? Lol.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

This is really interesting and all...but how did you stumble across a news article from 2005? Lol.

Was browsing Imgur. It's still interesting damn it! It's news to me!

She was saved by lions! Lions!

 

[Able Seacat]

This is really interesting and all...but how did you stumble across a news article from 2005? Lol.

Because the OP was that girl!! Shock! (I choose not to check OPs profile as I prefer the illusion over the truth)

 

[Pinkamena]

How do we know the girl wasn't just a lion in disguise?

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yeah I agreed that it indeed a miracale.

As for animal related stories, well one time during my second year of Uni, a fox was pretty much sunbathing (it was a bright sunny day) at the entrance of my accomdation (small house which houses 11 other peoples). I had heard that foxes were living around the campus but it was cool seeing one in front of my door step. In saying so I had no idea how to approach it as I did want to entered to my room and I was paranoid that it would bite my balls if I step in closer. Eventually I give in and advance toward it and it simply move out of the way.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I was paranoid that it would bite my balls if I step in closer.

I'm going to need more elaboration on this point. Why specifically your balls? Is this a fox related thing I'm unaware of? Or do you have particularly nosh-worthy testicles?

 

[Scarim Coral]

I was paranoid that it would bite my balls if I step in closer.

I'm going to need more elaboration on this point. Why specifically your balls? Is this a fox related thing I'm unaware of? Or do you have particularly nosh-worthy testicles?

There is no specific reasons to be honest or I just don't remember the reason behind it. I think it was just some random paranoid thinking behind that one.

Also no there were no stories about the foxes biting people balls either althought I did heard that one of them did stole someone sandal when he or she left it outside but my sandals were inside my room back then!

 

[shootthebandit]

Perhaps its not a miracle and her cries didnt sound like a young lion. Perhaps they could tell she was in distress and showed some compassion and helped her.

Theres a case of 2 gay guys who bought a lion cub in the 60s. I got pretty big (they clearly didnt think this through) and they released it into the wild. They visited it when it was fully grown and it recognised them and ran over to them. It didnt eat them, it didnt attack them. It remembered them fondly

Maybe we arent the only animals who feel compassion. Just in the same way if we seen a lion cub in danger we would do our best to help it (or at least feel sympathetic) is it really hard to grasp that they feel the same about this little girl. Or are we going to be naive enough as the most violent destructive species on the planet to believe that we are the only ones capable of decency and compassion

I recommend watching a movie called 'instinct'. Its about a wild life photographer who ends up living with gorillas. The gorillas are hunted and he kills a poacher to protect them. Its really interesting (albeit fictional) and it shows how the gorillas simply welcomed him and protected him but the humans poached or put the gorillas in captivity

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Perhaps its not a miracle and her cries didnt sound like a young lion. Perhaps they could tell she was in distress and showed some compassion and helped her.

Theres a case of 2 gay guys who bought a lion cub in the 60s. I got pretty big (they clearly didnt think this through) and they released it into the wild. They visited it when it was fully grown and it recognised them and ran over to them. It didnt eat them, it didnt attack them. It remembered them fondly

Maybe we arent the only animals who feel compassion. Just in the same way if we seen a lion cub in danger we would do our best to help it (or at least feel sympathetic) is it really hard to grasp that they feel the same about this little girl. Or are we going to be naive enough as the most violent destructive species on the planet to believe that we are the only ones capable of decency and compassion

I recommend watching a movie called 'instinct'. Its about a wild life photographer who ends up living with gorillas. The gorillas are hunted and he kills a poacher to protect them. Its really interesting (albeit fictional) and it shows how the gorillas simply welcomed him and protected him but the humans poached or put the gorillas in captivity

While I am totally in agreement with the sentiment that animals have complex emotions and can feel compassion and even demonstrate altruistic behavior, I think we need to hesitate before we anthropomorphize them. As nice as it is to think of a bunch of lions bursting from the trees all "U WOT M8?" because a human girl was being mistreated, I think we need to accept they would have had their own lion reasons for doing what they did and those are going to be faintly understandable to us at best.

I believe it was Wittgenstein who once proposed that if a lion could talk, we still wouldn't be able to understand it, because we'd have no common frame of reference. Its thoughts and beliefs and motivations would be utterly alien to us. From a Times article on the subject:

Those who seize on such tales as proof that animals are far more remarkable than science has given them credit for have, ironically, adopted a profoundly self-centered definition of intelligence. What invariably provokes comment is how closely the animal seems to have resembled man's capacities for thought and emotion. Tales of elephants grieving for their dead, of red foxes as doting fathers full of parental love for their cubs, of chimpanzees that silently watch sunsets -- such are the stories that animal rightists invoke in their effort to knock man off his anthropocentric pedestal at the top of creation. What makes an animal worthy of special consideration, they are effectively saying, is how closely its behavior resembles that of a human (or at least a human on a good day). In their battle against anthropocentrism they have adopted the most anthropocentric stance imaginable. It is an argument as curious as it is revealing.

If the modern sciences of evolutionary biology and ecology have taught us anything, it is that life generates diversity; the millions of species on earth each reflect millions of years of separate adaptation to unique enviromnents and unique ways of life. The mind is no exception to the facts of natural selection; it makes as little sense to expect that other species should share the uniquely human thought processes of the human mind as it would to expect that we should share an elephant's trunk or a zebra's stripes. And as we shall see, evolutionary ecology, the study of how natural selection has equipped animals to lead the lives they do, is beginning to tell us much about how the minds of animals process information in ways that are uniquely their own.

 

[shootthebandit]

super snip

I agree. We cant possibly say that the logic of the lions was the same as ours. As we have a different frame of reference it is only really possible to experience it from our point of view. A human under normal circumstances wouldnt last in a pride of lions for much the same reason that if a lion entered your home you would probably kill it to protect your family. Obviously its a different motivation to killing it but on a basic level its similar

I guess her cries sounded like a lion cub but it would be insulting the lions to say they mistook her for a lion cub. In our frame of reference the cry of a dog or a cat is fairly obvious as we anthropomorphise the cry and associate it with a human cry and hence we feel sympathy. Perhaps the lions lionpomorphise the child's cry and in turn feel sympathy for her

 

[BloatedGuppy]

...for much the same reason that if a lion entered your home you would probably kill it to protect your family.

No way man. I would give the lion a baller hat and some fire threads and we'd hang out and get into misadventures. Would be a fantastic basis for a sitcom. Could call it Lion Around or something.

Perhaps the lions lionpomorphise the child's cry

That is fantastic. 5/5.

 

[Euryalus]

Well I was sitting at the bus stop with a friend waiting for the bus once, and a bunch of deer came running out of some bushes right next to us. It scared the bejeezus out of us at first, because all we saw from the corner of our our was some brown "monster" lunging at us.

When it saw us it kind of did a little jump turn thing and ran away across the street, and we proceeded to do that awkward laugh after being scared thing.

...That's my story... Yep... Better than the lions one I'd say... >.>

*slowly walks out of thread having contributed very little*

 

[Someone Depressing]

There's a story in the news like this in Britain every few months, usually involving a British girls.

I suppose Lion Prides Need British Teenagers, presumably to get citizenships and run nightclubs over here.

Someone make a movie about this.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Plot twist, the girl is now being forced into a marriage with one of the lions.

That's a horribly insensitive thing to say, isn't it?

It's not insensitive if it's funny! I still don't know why my friends choose to stick around with me.