Meddling Envirokooks Unleash Plague of Giant Man-Eating Lizards
Once people on the islands of eastern Indonesia lived in peace with Komodo dragons, gigantic lizards that can recognize individual humans. They left the dragons deer parts after hunts, and tied goats to posts as sacrifices. In turn the semidomesticated dragons mostly left them alone. But then, Virginia-based Nature Conservancy was called in by the government to tell the villagers
how to conduct their affairs.Deer hunting and goat sacrifices have been banned. Now that the villagers are no longer allowed to feed them, the ten-foot lizards have adapted by eating children instead.
Dogs used to keep the dragons away from homes. But these have been banned too, for being an "alien species."
A 9-year-old named Mansur was eaten alive in broad daylight in front of his family. But Marcus Matthews-Sawyer, who works for a local subsidiary of Nature Conservancy, sniffs that the kid had it coming, because he "shouldn't have crouched like a prey species in a place where dragons live."
Widodo Ramono, the subsidiary's policy director, makes the priorities clear:
We don't want the Komodo dragon to be domesticated. It's against natural balance. We have to keep this conservation area for the purpose of wildlife. It is not for human beings.As
Ingrid Newkirk might put it, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy is a giant lizard's lunch.
via
Moonbattery
