Real Animal Attacks 2015!

CBS's Zoo television series began June 30, 2015. 

It is almost as if the program saw into the future.

Discovery's Shark Week, the real kind, apparently already began.

There is something going on with the animals. There have been recent attacks by sharks, alligators, sturgeon, lion, tiger, and leopard. Despite the warning signs, in some cases, the humans ventured forth into these encounters.


Sharks

An increase of shark attacks, especially along the Carolina coasts, during the summer of 2015 has not gone unnoticed. The number is large enough for sharks to become a media story. Last time this happened? In which sharks became a media focus? 2001.

The most recent attack was ironic because it was against a past member of the media.

A former editor-in-chief at The Boston Herald suffered serious injuries after he dramatically tried to fight off a 7-foot shark Wednesday [July 1, 2015] off the coast of North Carolina.
Andrew F. Costello reportedly came face-to-face with the monster while vacationing with his family at the coastal town of Ocracoke.
Costello, 68, was swimming with his son around noon when the attack occurred.
"I could see from where I was standing that he had a big baseball-sized chunk of flesh taken off of his leg right above his knee and there was a lot of blood everywhere," Jackson Fuqua, 15, who witnessed the attack, told The Boston Herald.
“I saw a big trail of blood from the water to where the man was laying down on a beach towel. There were a lot of EMS workers all around him and they were frantically trying to help him and work to close the wounds he had,” Fuqua told the paper.
Costello suffered wounds to his ribcage, lower leg, hip and hands, according to the paper. He is reportedly in fair condition at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville.

The synchromystic world actually started talking about the "shark imagery" back in February 2015.

Credit: Keys to Cosmic Doorways.

In 2015, on the Sunday after July 4th, it becomes "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel. 

Few remember that during 2001, the "Summer of the Shark" began on the 4th of July.

Shark attacks generally get more attention by the media than most news. Except for mass shootings, school shootings, workplace violence, and terrorist attacks.

Time Magazine in 2001 acknowledged it was “The Summer of the Shark,” even though statistically, there were less attacks than in some other years.

Alligators

But there was something more sinister waiting in the wings - 9/11, of course. First, however, another animal got the headlines; the "Summer of the Gator" happened too in 2001.

In my twilight language book, The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004), I noted the unfolding of the "if it bleeds, it leads" focus on shark and alligator attacks. The media, almost completely, forgot about animal encounters after the Twin Towers came down. Terrorism and war were the new wall-to-wall coverage for months.

The news for 2015 is now shifting to alligator attacks too.

Word reached me from the director of Southern Fried Bigfoot that a violent encounter with an alligator occurred on June 28, 2015, at Charlotte Lake, Cedar Hill Park, Wallisville, Texas. A 13-year-old boy, Kaleb, was swimming near the shore when bitten in the arm and leg by an alligator. The gator also began to pull him under the water. Kaleb's father, James Hurley, jumped in the water, kicked the alligator off his son, and pulled Kaleb to safety. Both Kaleb and James Hurley are recovering at the hospital. Source.

Seventy-five miles away, also in Texas, there was an alligator fatality early Friday morning, July 3, 2015.

Tommie Woodward, 28, (pictured above, from his Facebook page) suffered severe trauma to a limb when he was attacked early Friday morning at the private marina, which is along a bayou extending from the Sabine River near the Louisiana line, Orange, Texas, police Captain Robert Enmon reported. The alligator was estimated to be 11 feet long.

The owners of the marina recently had spotted a large alligator on a few occasions, and put up a sign warning people to stay out of the water, police said. Woodward reportedly when told this, yelled out "F*ck the alligators," and jumped in.

According to the Beaumont Enterprise, the incident was the first fatal attack by an alligator in Texas in about 200 years.

Cody

Then on Saturday, July 4, 2015, an 8-foot alligator grabbed Mike Karris' 11-year-old dachshund, Cody, at the boat ramp in the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. Karris and his girlfriend were unable to rescue their dog. The last attack on a dog was more than 15 years ago. Source.

Sturgeon

There's also a problem with leaping sturgeon. In Florida, boaters are infrequently, but routinely hurt by sturgeon jumping from rivers and colliding into people in boats.

On May 23, 2015, on the Santa Fe River, a sturgeon crashed through a boat windshield, injuring the driver of a boat. Early in June 2015, a sturgeon in the Suwanee River in Manatee Springs State Park jumped into a boat with 14-year-old Heavyn Nash and knocked her unconscious. Nash was fishing with her mother and grandfather when the 4- to 6-foot fish decided to join them.

A jumping sturgeon on the Suwannee River. Florida Fish and Wildlife

Then on July 2, 2015, a fatality took place. A 5-year-old girl was killed after a sturgeon leaped out of a northern Florida river and struck her while she was boating with her family, state wildlife officials said. Jaylon Rippy died after getting hit by the fish on the Suwannee River, south of Lake City, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said in a statement posted on the Suwannee Democrat Bulletin. Her mother, Tanya Faye Rippy, and 9-year-old brother, Trevor Rippy, were injured by the sturgeon, as well.

On Friday, July 3, 2015, two adults traveling in a boat on the Santa Fe River between the Suwannee River and a Branford area campground were also struck by a leaping sturgeon, Fish and Wildlife Commission officials said in a statement.

Lion, Tiger, and Leopard

Big cats have been in the news too.

The lion that would kill was photographed moments before the attack, by another tourist (above) and by the victim (below).

On June 1, 2015, New Yorker Katherine Chappell, 29, was killed by a lion when she rolled her window down to take photographs. This occurred at the Lion Park, near Johannesburg, South Africa that had clear signs warning its visitors.

Clear signs prohibiting open windows are found at the park.

Chappell was as an Emmy-award-winning visual-effects artist on HBO’s Game of Thrones. She also had worked on Captain America and Godzilla.

The white tiger at the zoo before its escape.

An escaped zoo white tiger killed a 43-year-old warehouse worker on June 17, 2015. Police then shot and killed the white tiger in Tbilisi, Georgia. Severe flooding allowed hundreds of wild animals to escape the city zoo in this country that was part of the former Soviet Union. The tiger attack happened at a warehouse in the city center. The animal had been unaccounted for since the weekend floods destroyed the zoo premises. Doctors said the man was attacked in the throat and died before reaching the hospital. Source.

A leopard attack on July 2, 2015, also occurred in South Africa. A guide at South Africa's most famous national park, Kruger National Park, survived a leopard attack after a tourist scared the animal away with his car.

The incident occurred Thursday afternoon at the wild animal game park as the guide drove an Open Safari Vehicle (OSV) past some leopards. One of the leopards was the vehicle's group of people lost sight of it. The leopard had gone around to the driver's side and jumped at the guide, clamping down on his arm.
"Everybody in the OSV started hitting the leopard with any object they had with them," the park said.
A tourist driving another vehicle raced over and used the truck to scare away the leopard.
"We would like to thank the tourist from another vehicle for his quick and decisive action as he saved the guide and tourists' lives," park general manager William Mabasa said in the statement.
The guide was treated for his injuries. Source.

What's next? 

Crocodile Suicides, Alligator Attacks, and 9/11

On the afternoon after September 11, 2014, a woman from Bangkok died by suicide when she jumped into a crocodile pit at Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm. She had carefully removed her shoes before jumping into the water below. The "taking off and neatly placing shoes" behavior has been observed frequently by suicidal individuals jumping from bridges and buildings.

Crocodile Pit Suicides

This Bangkok pit contains hundreds of adult crocodiles, and the Samut Prakarn Crocodile Farm and Zoo houses a reported 100,000 crocodilians. Wanpen Inyai, the 65-year-old depressed woman from Thailand's Min Buri district, reportedly knew what she was doing, as much as anyone who dies by suicide can.

"A similar incident allegedly took place in September 2012, when a man lodged a complaint with the Crime Suppression Division after his wife went missing. He suspected she jumped into a crocodile pond because she had planned to visit the farm before she disappeared. That case is still a mystery as the crocodile farm has declined to comment," reported the Bangkok Post.

Ms. Wanpen's "death mirrored that of a woman who killed herself in 2002 the same way at the same farm, and another suicide reportedly took place a decade before that," said the BBC.

There, it turns out, have been several suicides by crocodile.

The 2002 story broke on August 11, 2002.

The Indian Express published an account on September 6, 2012, in which the 36-year-old wife of Sunai Jisathra, was seen by workers at this same crocodile farm to have "jumped intentionally" into the crocodile pit. Source.

Weird Universe lists the following compilation of crocodile suicides, with sources:

1990: A woman climbed the fence at the same crocodile farm, Samut Prakarn, and was swarmed by crocs as hundreds of tourists watched in horror. [LA Times]
1994: Following the death of President Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, a man declared that without the president life wasn't worth living and jumped into the crocodile-infested moat outside the presidential palace in Yamoussoukro. Crowds watched for two days as the crocs chewed on his body. [Glasgow Herald]
2002: Again at Thailand's Samut Prakarn croc farm, a depressed woman waded into the crocodile pit. A spectator later said, "The moment the crocodile grabbed her body, she even hugged onto him. It was horrifying." [The Nation]
2011: A South-African farm worker, depressed after a fight with his lover, waded into the crocodile-infested Lepelle river. No one saw him actually being eaten, but someone later reported seeing a human leg dangling out of a crocodile's mouth. [Daily Mail]

There could be many more.

Crocodilians include crocodiles, alligators, and in total, 23 different species. There is only one place in the USA to see all 23 known species - St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park.

While extremely rare, near fatal interactions with American crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus) do occur. American crocodiles are dangerous to humans; attacks in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Panama are not unprecedented. In May 2007, two instances occurred within one week of children being attacked and killed by this species—one in Mexico just south of Puerto Vallarta and one in Costa Rica. Even this year, on August 24, 2014, a man and his female companion were swimming in a canal in Gables by the Sea, a community in Coral Gables, Florida, when they were bitten in the shoulder and the hand by an American crocodile.

"Summer of the Gator" - 2001

Youth with trident personifying a thriving new country spears an American alligator on the Washington Monument in Eakins Oval; photographed near the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Cable television has institutionalized "Shark Week," in which programming and documentaries take the "fear factor" within humans regarding sharks and translate it to the small screen. Of course, it all goes back, during our modern era, to Jaws, for before the successful movie Steven Spielberg made in 1975, there was Peter Benchley's 1974 book Jaws.

They seem to have not discovered "Croc Week," or "Gator Week," per se, yet.

Beginning in 1976, when the first records in Florida started, fatal alligator attacks have been on the increase. Some occur in the late summer and early fall. For example, on September 28, 1977, George Leonard, 52, was killed by an alligator while swimming in the Peace River Canal, Charlotte County, Florida. On September 10, 1978, Philip Rastrelli, 14, was killed by an alligator while swimming across the Hidden River Canal of Bessie Creek, Martin County, Florida.

But still, shark attacks generally get more attention by the media.

There seemed to be so many shark attacks on humans right after the turn of the century that Time declared, in the Northern Hemisphere, at least, that 2001 was experiencing “The Summer of the Shark.”

But there was something more sinister waiting in the wings. First, however, the "Summer of the Gator" was about to happen.

In my earlier twilight language book, The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004), I noted:

The summer of 2001 began quietly enough, with local newspapers in Florida talking about some deathly events, which before it was over, had everyone wondering if every lagoon in the Sunshine State was crawling with human-eating alligators. At first, the stories were only of local interest. On May 4, 2001, an 8-foot alligator in a Venice pond killed Samuel Wetmore, 70, near his home in Sarasota County, Florida. On June 23, 2001, little Alexandria Murphy, 2, wandered from her Winter Haven back yard, then was dragged into Lake Cannon in Polk County, Florida, by a 6 1/2-foot gator and killed.

Then all hell broke loose, with the media engaging in epidemic reporting, taking up the thread of 'gator and crocs as the next big new threat on the horizon. Alligators were popping up everywhere. By the end of that month, I had accounts crossing my desk of out-of-place caimans, alligators, and crocodiles being seen and caught in downstate New Hampshire (a 2.5 ft caiman), Central Park New York City (a 2 ft caiman), and on the same day, June 27, 2001, from Buffalo, New York (a 4 ft alligator caught) and off an island in the middle of the Rhine River, Germany (a 5 ft “crocodile” sighted but not caught).

The alligator attacks concentrated in Florida, however. On Sunday, July 1, 2001, a human arm that “appeared to have been bitten” off by an alligator, was found in a canal west of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The rest of the body could not be found. A sort of high sad comedy was reached when the Florida papers published this kind of remark from a member of the Broward County Sheriff’s Department: “We're sure if they survived and they're missing a right arm, they would have come forward by now. Detectives have no idea what happened with this body part, whether it was some sort of accident and the person was eaten by an alligator and this is what's left.”

During the next week in July, echoes of the Florida ‘gators were heard in the Midwest again. Authorities were reporting the sightings of three alligators near Andrews, Indiana, in the Wabash River close to the Highway 105 bridge. No one was hurt but armed officers were trying to locate the critters.

Back in Florida, Tammy Woehle, 22, was out walking her dog, Lady, before dark, on Big Talbot Island, near Jacksonville, when an 8-foot-long alligator attacked her, according to a report from July 9, 2001. The gator grabbed and ripped part of the muscle out her leg, and pulled her to the ground. The news accounts almost made you feel the gator was a sneaky bastard because it crept up to her as she stood on a sandy beach, away from the water’s edge and away from high grass. She escaped with a six-inch wound on her thigh. Before the attack, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had held a news conference to calm the public. They had noted that the seven alligator attacks in Florida in 2001 were slightly below average. Talk about bad public relations timing. The media would have nothing to do with it. The Woehle attack was widely reported, and it was clear to the public, from what they were hearing in the press, this was a dangerous summer. Then drumbeats announced that a much more sinister danger was lurking just offshore.

A few pages later, I wrote:

Ellen Steele, 81, heard the screams of her 81-year-old husband Robert on September 11, 2001, and couldn’t do anything to save him. But most people never heard about Robert, and how an 11-foot-long alligator near Sanibel, Florida, fatally attacked him as he walked his dog that day. There was something much larger on the media horizon that day. On September 11, 2001, four jet airliners, with Flight 11 being the first, were involved in the largest single homicidal-suicidal effort in history to bring bloodshed, death, and terror to the core of American society.

The Southeastern Outdoors Florida fatal alligator attacks site gives Mr. Steele a different age:

Sanibel, Florida – September 11th 2001, 82 year old Robert Steele was attacked and killed while walking his dog on a trail between two wetland areas in the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge. FWC officers later killed a 10’9″ and 6′ alligator.

The State of Florida’s “Alligator Attacks – Fatal” sheet has this:

Robert Steele, 82, was attacked near his house on Rabbit Road in Sanibel on September 11, 2001. Steele was walking his terrier on a narrow path that ran between two wetland areas close to JM “Ding Darling” National Wildlife Refuge when a 10’9″ gator attacked him and dragged him into the water severing his leg. FWC officers destroyed the gator. Another six-foot alligator was also removed.

Robert Steele is no longer a forgotten deaths of 9/11.