NFL Quiz: 1) Who holds the record for most 50-yard field goals
in a season with 8? 2) Who are the only two to boot a 63-yarder?
3) What two made all of their attempts over the course of the
regular season…min. 30 attempts? Answers below.
Elephants on the Rampage
Charles Siebert has a fascinating, and unsettling, piece in the
Sunday Times magazine titled “An Elephant Crackup?” that
delves into the major changes taking place in “the fabric of
pachyderm society.” If nothing else, Mr. Siebert’s essay
vindicates yours truly for all the years of animal tales in this very
space. Some of what follows should look familiar.
Charles Siebert:
“All across Africa, India and parts of Southeast Asia, from
within and around whatever patches and corridors of their natural
habitat remain, elephants have been striking out, destroying
villages and crops, attacking and killing human beings. In fact,
these attacks have become so commonplace that a new statistical
category, known as Human-Elephant Conflict, or H.E.C., was
created by elephant researchers in the mid-1990s to monitor the
problem. In the Indian state of Jharkhand near the western
border of Bangladesh, 300 people were killed by elephants
between 2000 and 2004. In the past 12 years, elephants have
killed 605 people in Assam, a state in northeastern India, 239 of
them since 2001; 265 elephants have died in that same period,
the majority of them as a result of retaliation by angry villagers,
who have used everything from poison-tipped arrows to laced
food to exact their revenge. In Africa, reports of human-elephant
conflicts appear almost daily, from Zambia to Tanzania, from
Uganda to Sierra Leone, where 300 villagers evacuated their
homes last year because of unprovoked elephant attacks.”
As if that’s not bad enough, the elephants are exhibiting rather
abnormal behavior. At a game reserve in South Africa, elephants
“have been raping and killing rhinoceroses.” Three young male
elephants that were recently shot were said to be responsible for
the deaths of 63 rhinos!
What’s causing this? In a 2005 essay in the journal Nature,
author Gay (sic) Bradshaw argued that elephants are suffering
from a form of chronic stress. As Siebert writes in citing
Bradshaw’s research, “Decades of poaching and culling and
habitat loss….have so disrupted the intricate web of familial and
societal relations by which young elephants have traditionally
been raised in the wild, and by which established elephant herds
are governed, that what we are now witnessing is nothing less
than a precipitous collapse of elephant culture.”
Elephants live a long time, up to 70 years, and studies have
shown that young ones stay within 15 feet of their mothers for
the first eight years of life. Later…
“When an elephant dies,” writes Siebert, “its family members
engage in intense mourning and burial rituals, conducting
weeklong vigils over the body, carefully covering it with earth
and brush, revisiting bones for years afterward….If harm comes
to a member of an elephant group, all the other elephants are
aware of it.”
But with extensive poaching, calves are now being born to and
raised by ever younger and inexperienced mothers. “Young
orphaned elephants…that have witnessed the death of a parent at
the hands of poachers are coming of age in the absence of the
support system that defines traditional elephant life.”
Bradshaw writes, “The loss of elephant elders and the traumatic
experience of witnessing the massacres of their family impairs
normal brain and behavior development in young elephants.”
Siebert concludes with the following anecdote.
“I thought back to a moment in Queen Elizabeth National Park
this past June. As Nelson Okello and I sat waiting for the
matriarch and her calf to pass, he mentioned to me an odd little
detail about the killing two months earlier of the man from the
village of Katwe, something, that, the more I thought about it,
seemed to capture this particularly fraught moment we’ve arrived
at with the elephants. Okello said that after the man’s killing, the
elephant herd buried him as it would one of its own, carefully
covering the body with earth and brush and then standing vigil
over it.
“Even as we’re forcing them out, it seems, the elephants are
going out of their way to put us, the keepers, in an ever more
discomfiting place, challenging us to preserve someplace for
them, the ones who in many ways seem to regard the matter of
life and death more devoutly than we. In fact, elephant culture
could be considered the precursor of our own, the first permanent
human settlements having sprung up around the desire of
wandering tribes to stay by the graves of their dead….
“When a group of villagers from Katwe went out to reclaim the
man’s body for his family’s funeral rites, the elephants refused to
budge. Human remains, a number of researchers have observed,
are the only other ones that elephants will treat as they do their
own. In the end, the villagers resorted to a tactic that has long
been etched in the elephant’s collective memory, firing volleys
of gunfire into the air at close range, finally scaring the mourning
herd away.”
“The Man-Eaters of Eden”
A few weeks ago I mentioned I had purchased a book with the
above title by a local author, Robert R. Frump. Frump has done
extensive research on the lions of South Africa and Mozambique
and the incredible toll they are exacting on humans.
Here at Bar Chat we write of the occasional tourist being eaten
alive or stomped on, but as Frump notes, the actual toll is
staggering. So over the coming weeks we’ll pick apart his book
and I’ll pass on some of the gory details.
Most of Frump’s work was conducted in Kruger National Park,
which straddles the border between South Africa and
Mozambique. Specifically, Frump attempts to come up with a
toll for the refugees in the area. No central records are kept.
“Amid the dozens of research projects and theses under way in
the park, there are no known biomass or scat studies that would
test lions for traces of human consumption. There is no cover-
up. It’s just that no government unit is in charge or wants to be.
And like the crazy aunt in the attic, the topic is not one for polite
discussion. It would be convenient to assert that the tourist
industry has swept the whole thing under the carpet.”
Peter Capstick, a hunter and adventurer, told Frump, “There are
several good reasons why, despite the surprising number of
maneating incidents that occur today in Africa, most are hushed
up like an epidemic of social disease at a bible school. It’s the
same reason that Florida Chambers of Commerce don’t go out of
their way to spread the word of shark attacks along their
beaches.”
Frump, though, notes that few tourists have actually been killed,
rather under the old apartheid regime, it was more about the fact
whites ran the government with little concern for the fate of
blacks, particularly refugees from Mozambique.
By the year 2000, the South Africa Tourist Board was expecting
1.8 million overseas visitors spending an average of about
$1,500 each. It was hoped both white hotel and lodge operators,
as well as black workers would benefit.
Nelson Mandela recognized Kruger needed to be saved from
years of neglect, but that a tangential issue was the treatment of
Mozambicans through the park. Unemployment in South Africa
was 40 percent and folks there were none too pleased that their
neighbors appeared to be crossing the border to take their jobs.
Enter man-eating lions. “Lions were good for business,” writes
Frump. “In fact, in some cases man-eating lions were very good
for business. Rangers note that a private game camp elsewhere
in Africa lost a careless tourist to a lion a few years back and
feared a slump in business. Instead, business boomed. ‘They
wanted to know the place was real,’ said (hunter) Steve Gibson.
‘Everyone was waiting for the camp to fold….It gave the place
an authentic feel.’”
Without big predators, much of Africa is pretty dull, come to
think of it. Doug Peacock, a former Green Beret and grizzly bear
lover, is fond of saying: “If there isn’t something big enough and
mean enough out there to eat you, then it’s not really big
wilderness.”
Ecotourists were never satisfied, it turns out, unless they saw
lions on their tours. “Lions were the rock stars that filled the
stadium….(And) if wild lions sold seats in the park, man-eating
lions could take the park platinum.” [Robert Frump]
In the past, though, when a lion killed a human, park rangers
found the beast and killed it. But now the idea is to preserve
wildlife and today’s rangers, while low-paid, love their jobs and
killing lions is just not a part of it.
But what of these Mozambicans traveling through Kruger? The
average per capita earnings of one is around $300 a year, while
the average Mozambican dies at age 43. Black South Africans
wanted strict controls on immigration because it was said a
Mozambican “would do anything for nothing.”
But a lion is a thing of value. One lion was said to be worth
$120,000 in tourist revenue over the course of its ten-year
lifetime. [A leopard was said to bring in $50,000 annually in
tourist dollars.]
And so the theory evolved that lions were to be spared at the
expense of humans. But how to measure it?
The most famous cases involving man-eaters were the lions of
Tsavo and Tanganyika; 140 dead humans in the former, 1,500 in
the latter, the “All-Africa” record.
There are some, though, who say the two man-eaters of Tsavo
only killed 28 between the two of them. But the Tanganyika
mark goes back to the 1930s and 1940s, where “a large pride of
lions is said to have specialized in humans and handed down that
specialty from one generation to the next.”
It’s actually possible to calculate the number of humans killed by
talking to villagers and reading police reports on those who were
missing husbands, wives and children. But in Kruger you have
the Mozambican refugee issue. “If they are missed, the families
do not inform the South African police that their husband, wife,
daughter, or son illegally entered South Africa and now is
missing.”
Today, it’s estimated 16,000 Mozambicans move through Kruger
each year. But just ten years ago the figure was far higher before
the South African government cracked down on the traffic.
During the 1980s, a civil war in Mozambique pushed more than
350,000 refugees through the park. A U.S. group says 1.7
million over the 1980s and 1990s, or over 80,000 a year.
In other words, lots of opportunities for the lions, where the law
of “easy prey” often applied. “Whether the lions prefer antelope,
zebras, buffalo, or giraffes, a sick refugee stumbled upon will do
nicely,” writes Frump. “We know too that at least some lions are
not opportunistic killers but according to credible rangers display
a preference for and specialty for humans, waiting along the
power lines….We know they see six times better than humans at
night.”
So if the lions nailed just one percent of all refugees, then by
Robert Frump’s calculation, from 1960-2005, total fatalities
may have been over 13,000. In other words, we have a new
“All-Africa” record, sports fans!!!
More next chat.
Stuff
–Like I said last time, Joe Torre is a good guy but he’s been a
failure the last six years and probably should have been canned
as Yankees manager. But George Steinbrenner isn’t the man he
used to be and he gave Torre a reprieve. Or as one sportswriter
surmised, it came down to the fact Torre was owed $7 million for
the last year on his contract, Lou Piniella would have cost $5
million, so it was about economics.
Steinbrenner did, however, issue this statement.
“I spoke to Joe Torre today and I told him, ‘You’re back for the
year. I expect a great deal from you and the entire team. I have
high expectations and I want to see enthusiasm, a fighting spirit
and a team that works together. The responsibility is yours, Joe,
and all of the Yankees.
“Yes, I am deeply disappointed about our loss this year, we have
to do better. And I deeply want a championship. It’s about
time.”
Think about it. 30 teams in baseball, 15 or so of which start the
season with cause for real optimism and hopes of winning it all,
but there can be only one winner…the Yankees.
The Joe Torre deathwatch will thus be in full swing by about the
10th game. Or, here’s a likely scenario. The Yankees, having
gone out and acquired some good pitching in the off-season, only
start out 45-35 next year. What do you do if you’re Boss
George? [35-45 it’s a no brainer.]
And in the end, though, it’s also all about A-Rod. He’s gone.
Of course the preceding is more than I’ve ever written about the
Yankees and today it should be all about my Mets.
[Post-script….the above was written before the Cory Lidle
story hit.]
–Golf Digest has a story in the November issue on money in the
sport and what various folks earn. For example:
Tim Finchem, Commissioner, PGA…$4,067,000
David Fay, Exec. Dir, USGA…$575,000
Carolyn Bivens, Commissioner LPGA…$525,000
Tiger…$90,000,000; est. all in
Michelle Wie…$20,000,000
Jim Nantz…$4,375,000…and that’s just golf
Nick Faldo…$900,000
Jim Thompson, CEO, Golfsmith…$568,000
Butch Harmon…$600 an hour for a lesson…$50,000 for full-day
outing
David Leadbetter…$10,000 for a half day!…$50,000 an outing
Jim McLean…$3,000 for five hours
Brian Trumbore…$9.95 an hour to drink three beers with him
[beer included]
National median salaries
Head Golf Professional…$63,000…of course at the best clubs it
is much higher
Superintendent…$62,500
PGA Tour caddies
$1,000 per week plus 5-10 percent of earnings. [7 percent top
ten finish, 10 percent for a victory.] Caddies who work with
promising rookies usually ask for a higher percentage – about 10
percent of earnings – and get paid $500 per week.
Real Estate
Admiral’s Row 2 BR oceanfront condo, Hilton Head Island…
1981…$99,900…2006…$424,900
Greens fees, Pebble Beach
1981…$50…2006…$450
Golf Digest also asked some people in the game how much cash
they had in their pocket and why.
TV analyst David Feherty: $845. “I carry a lot of cash because
one morning I woke up with someone else’s tongue in my
mouth, no money, no shoes, and to make my tee time I needed
cab fare to Stockholm. From Helsinki. Or it might have been
Oslo – details are sketchy.”
And what does a beverage-cart girl make? Golf Digest asked
one who has worked several courses in Southern California.
“As tipping goes, we’re paid minimum wage plus tips. I don’t
expect a dollar for a $1.50 candy bar, but if you hand me $2 and
try to figure out what 18 percent of $1.50 is, you’ve got
problems. A couple of bucks is fine for drinks and snacks, and if
you tip more, like $5 or $10, I’ll be back in a hurry, I promise.”
She also says the flirting line that guys think is original, “Do you
come around here often?” has been heard a million times. “It
was cute – once.”
–Now this is gross….we have a ton of wild turkeys in my
neighborhood these days as the population has risen from zero to
62.4 million in just the past few years, or so it seems, and the
other day I saw a big one with a full squirrel in its mouth!
Goodness gracious. As Dr. Bortrum and I observed, we didn’t
know these beasts were such carnivores. I used to worry about
mountain lions when picking up the morning paper in the
driveway, but from here on it’s turkeys.
–And now, kids…it’s time for your PICKS…TO…CLICK!
Putting my 5-4 record on the line, as well as my home…
Take Louisville, giving 26 ½ to Cincinnati
Take Texas, giving 29 to Baylor
Take Miami, giving 28 ½ to Florida International
We’re talking sweep this weekend. It’s the Bar Chat Guarantee!
–Here are the remaining undefeateds in college football.
Ohio State, Florida, USC, Michigan, West Virginia, Louisville,
Missouri, Boise State and Rutgers
Florida plays Auburn this weekend, a bit of a test, while Rutgers
is actually an underdog to Navy.
But looking ahead, these are the games to circle on the old
calendar. Rearrange your schedules now with the spouse or
girlfriend, guys. [Girls, if it’s you that wants to watch these
games and your hubby or significant other doesn’t, you may
want to take a closer look at just who you’re with.]
Nov. 2…Louisville / West Virginia [7:30 ET]
Nov. 18…Ohio State / Michigan [3:30]
Nov. 18…USC / Cal [8:00…what a day!]
Nov. 25…USC / Notre Dame [8:00…uh oh…my 30th high
school reunion is that day….and I’m the one setting it up!]
Meanwhile, Missouri just isn’t going much further, possibly
going down to 5-1 Texas A&M this weekend; let alone it still has
games with Oklahoma and Nebraska.
As for Boise State, it’s going to run the table and find itself in the
BCS, which will be great fun.
–Two conclusions thus far on the NFL season. The NFC is great
and the AFC sucks. The wildcard battles for the NFC in
particular should be super come the final weekend, while in the
AFC, 8-8 could get you a playoff slot and the scorn of the
sporting public.
And in case you wondered about us Jets fans, I took note of the
local television ratings for the New York market this past
Sunday. Jets-Jaguars drew a 3.8 while at the same time Eagles-
Cowboys had an 11.9. I chose to watch the Eagles game….a
most entertaining affair. By the way, when was the last time Bill
Parcells enjoyed his job?
As for teams covering the spread thus far in the NFL, if you’ve
been taking Miami each week you have my sympathy. You’re
0-5! And if on top of this you also bought a Miami area condo at
the top of the market there, well, let’s just say you’re a candidate
to commit a major crime.
[Chicago, Minnesota, New Orleans, Philly and St. Louis are all
4-1 against the spread.]
–The fallout over the Brian Vickers affair continues. Vickers,
who just about ruined teammate Jimmie Johnson’s chances for
the Nextel Cup title by steering him into Dale Earnhardt Jr. on
the last lap of last week’s NASCAR race, is declining extra
security for Saturday night’s affair in Charlotte. Understand, if
you’re not a fan of the sport, the fan base for top drivers such as
Johnson is rather rabid.
–Lance Armstrong is running in the New York City Marathon,
Nov. 5, and Runner’s World had a few of his thoughts.
“For me it’s not about running fast….If I’m an hour behind the
winner, I’ll be happy.
“I think if I gave myself two or three months of serious training,
I could do a 2:30.” [But his travel schedule has precluded this.]
[A six-minute mile pace would be about a 2:38…Armstrong has
been running 6:30’s in practice.]
Runner’s World asked three marathon runners, Rod Dixon, Ed
Eyestone, and Bill Rodgers for their predictions on Armstrong’s
time and they ranged from 2:45 to 2:55.
And in case there is someone out there who is curious,
Armstrong has 8 percent body fat while defending NYC
Marathon champ Paul Tergat of Kenya has 4 percent.
But could Lance pass a drug test?
–It’s been over 40 years (yikes!) since Jim Ryun’s historic
3:51.3 in the mile. I was 8 then and remember this, but what I
didn’t know is that it was such a big deal, national news
broadcasts interrupted regular programming to report it.
And I didn’t realize that it was Marty Liquori who dreamed up
the idea of a sporting-goods store that sold only athletic shoes.
Finally, in 2005, of the 402 performances for men under 2:15 in
marathons worldwide, 200 were claimed by Kenyans.
–Elizabeth Allen died at the age of 77. And who was she?
Allen was the girl who said “And away we go!” on “The Jackie
Gleason Show.”
Top 3 songs for the week of 10/9/65: #1 “Yesterday” (The
Beatles) #2 “Hang On Sloopy” (The McCoys) #3 “Treat Her
Right” (Roy Head)…and…#4 “Eve Of Destruction” (Barry
McGuire) #5 “The ‘In’ Crowd” (Ramsey Lewis Trio) #6 “Catch
Us If You Can” (The Dave Clark Five) #7 “You’ve Got Your
Troubles” (The Fortunes) #8 “Baby Don’t Go” (Sonny and Cher
….easily my favorite of theirs) #9 “You Were On My Mind”
(We Five) #10 “Do You Believe In Magic” (The Lovin’
Spoonful)……some day we’ll have to examine which year was
best…1964, 65, 66 or 67.
NFL Quiz Answers: 1) Morten Andersen holds the mark with 8,
50-yard field goals in a season, 1995 with Atlanta. [Andersen is
still the greatest kicker I’ve seen and he’s back at age 46; second
oldest player in NFL history.] 2) Tom Dempsey (New Orleans,
1970) and Jason Elam (Denver, 1998) are the only two to boot a
63-yarder. Dempsey’s kick still one of the great moments in
NFL history. 3) 100% on field goal attempts, min. 30 attempts:
Gary Anderson, 35 (1998 / Minn.) and Mike Vanderjagt, 37
(2003 / Indy). [Of course Anderson famously then screwed up in
the NFL title game that year, if I recall correctly.]
Next Bar Chat, Monday PM.
