Possible fatal
mountain lion attack in Vista.
Ominous tidings, these!
That was the headline to a web story I encountered (Feb. 3,
2016) while perusing the events of the day.
The story was reported on my ATT/Yahoo! home page. The teaser linked back to a story reported by
the local FOX station. Their headline
read, Owner believes mountain lion to
blame in dog’s death. Quite a
difference, hmm? I know people in
Vista. I was a bit concerned at first
blush. It would distress me considerably
to think a friend or acquaintance had become puma poop.
Now I am not anti-dog.
I believe that among God’s creatures dogs perform their assigned role
very well for the most part. But I will
admit that I would not have clicked to read the whole story had I first read
that the victim was of the genus canine (or is it phylum… I only got through
biology because one of the football coaches taught the class. That same scenario played out in driver’s ed
as well, but with a different coach. The
driver’s ed coach also taught math, so he probably figured the odds of me
killing someone in a fiery crash before he gave me a passing grade). But I digress. |
| Afraid of me? IDTS |
Back to the focus of this story; the so named journalist who
penned the teaser headline should be stripped of their English language privileges. Yet we see this kind of stuff all the
time. But nobody invokes the tradition of
journalistic integrity to change anything.
Everybody is just looking for hit count.
Those of us from a law enforcement background have all worked with
someone who was punished, sometimes to dismissal or prosecution for “padding”
information in an arrest report. I am
not suggesting they shouldn’t have. But
how often do you hear of journalists that have been fired for misleading
reporting?
Then there is the press relations nerd over at Fish &
Game: …if you see a mountain lion, remember
the animal is more afraid of you than you are of it. The best advice is to take off your jacket,
wave it above your head and make loud noises.
Ninety-nine times out of 100, it will run away. Earlier in the story, this person quoted a
statistic that there were 6,000 mountain lions (I sure would have had a lot
fewer keystrokes invested in this post if he had called it by its proper name,
cougar… or better yet it’s Spanish and rightful name, puma) in California. Let’s see, that’s one percent of 6,000, or
sixty. So I am betting that this
particular cat is not one of the sixty ill-mannered ones. And this is Southern California;
how often am I going to be wearing a jacket?
And I challenge the statement that they are more afraid of
us than we are of them. I think they
look at us and just figure we’re just not worth the trouble, what with all the
family pets in the offing.
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