Posted by:
Danny Conner
at Fri Oct 9 22:18:37 2009 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Danny Conner ]
Why? That's the easy part. They have an agenda. Job security. Prove a premise. etc.
I've said captive Burms are not domestic they are just captive.
I'm pretty sure if you were to ask a rabbit if it hurt less being bit and constricted by a captive Burm as opposed to a wild one...
I think they can be more docile in nature I think they probably are but being such a primitive animal I think most of their behavior is remarkably similar.
Crocodilians, another reptile I have no experience with in the wild but 20 years of observation in captive situations, are the Einsteins of the reptile world. Consequently I think they may display a few more subtle behaviors in captivity compared to their wild counterparts. Still in all I believe that basically their behaviors alter little from wild to captive.
And more importantly in a controlled environment you can create
artificial situations that you could waste years waiting in the wild to observe.So as important as wild observation is don't discount the knowledge that can be obtained through observing captive animals. I guess I think the nature of the animal is the primary motivator in it's behavior. I don't believe that changes just because the animal is captive. An anthropology class I took at school discussed an experiment with a remote tribe of Eskimos.
They gave them a hallucinogenic drug and then told them to draw pictures of what they saw. The people in the study were kept apart. They had no written language and had never seen a book, much less t.v. All the people dreamed/hallucinated the same thing. They drew pictures of big cats and snakes. Giant snakes.
They didn't have a word in their vocabulary for snake.
Humans are much more complex organisms than reptiles but something in the most primitive parts of their brain where fight or flee impulses reside lived memories they had never had.
From this primitive part of the brain behaviors are established and something as inconsequential as captivity isn't going to change that. And the more primitive the animal the less likely it is to change.
Finally my distrust of scientist I actually think comes from an open mind. Revisit the dolphin and the navy. The ship is traveling at x mph the dolphin is in front of the ship. Conclusion dolphins can swim at least x mph.
If the dolphin couldn't swim that fast the ship would run over him. This is simple you can't argue this experiment. Except the dolphin was surfing the wake and could never generate that speed on his own. Maybe that Burm traveled that distance. If so that proves 1 Burm can do it. I DON'T believe now, that it was some elaborate conspiracy. But my open mind demands me to allow the possibility of the greatest escape artist in the natural world to have hitched a ride UNKNOWINGLY back to his home ground. Afterall isn't that how most of the invasive species arrived here unwanted, unknown hitchhikers? D.C.
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RE: Well, as a matter of fact... - Danny Conner, Fri Oct 9 22:18:37 2009