first, a big "too soon, mate, too soon!" shout-out to the crocodile hunter. as you all know by now, steve irwin met the sharp side of a sting ray earlier today and died from the resultant trauma. all in all, i wouldn't have predicted that. after all, this was the guy who swam with hundreds of bull sharks, caught thousands of crocs, wrangled sea snakes (the most poisonous on the planet), and pulled off any number of other "you couldn't pay me a million bucks to do that" on his always popular, once must-see show. and as i'm certain dear friend, fellow yalie and ocean-lover elibzeff b. of st.thomas can agree, hearing that a sting ray killed steve produced an immediate WTF?!!!!
my bet is it takes all of 30 minutes for cnn and fox news to come up with some hideously overblown "when stingrays attack" special. but, in terms of actual danger to someone's life, a stingray falls somewhere between fire coral and a stone wall. sure, if you roll on top of fire coral for a good long while, you might die from toxic shock, and if you mess with a stone wall for a while, sooner or later it's going to topple on top of you, but in general, both are neatly avoidable and, barring your stupidity to bother them, they tend to give you plenty of warnings to stop before you do actually die. but there you are. instead of swimming away like every other stingray i've ever observed (and sometimes touched...), this one throws its tail up and gets him in the heart. what a pity. what a shame. and seriously, that's some bad luck. he will be missed.
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Not missed by me... that shithead condescended to his wife on national television, he gave biologists/ecologist the worst of names, perpetuated the idea that human interactions with wildlife is acceptable and harmless, and lastly he tried to steal my shaggy hair/ short shorts signature look!
Good riddence to SI!
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