A self-inflicted death by crocodile

To go swimming late at night in an area famous for crocodiles and full of warning signs about them, that is truly a self-inflicted death -- for which little sympathy is appropriate.  Reading between the lines, she was probably drunk at the time.  In any case it was a Darwinian end.  Nature deals with maladaptive behaviour.

Pebbles Hooper got into trouble for referring to death from folly as "natural selection", so it will be amusing to see if my note here will get any reaction.  I think that what Pebbles said was a reasonable comment  -- but obviously too dispassionate for many.

Do we always have to pity folly?  Can we not sometimes speak of it objectively?  Unless we can, there will undoubtedly be more of it


Pebbles Hooper


A woman who went missing after she was taken by a crocodile during a late-night swim was on holiday to celebrate the end of her childhood friend's cancer battle.

Cindy Waldron, 46, was swimming with her friend, Leeann Mitchell, at Daintree, north of Cairns, about 10pm on Sunday.

Ms Mitchell, from Cairns, had just completed a bout of chemotherapy and Ms Waldron, from Lithgow in New South Wales' east, was in north Queensland to support her friend, the New Zealand Herald reported.  There are crocodile warning signs on the side of the Daintree River near where the attack took place

Following the attack, federal MP Warren Entsch said the attack must not spark a hysterical debate about crocodile management in his electorate.

'You can't legislate against human stupidity,' he told AAP on Monday.

'This is a tragedy but it was avoidable. There are warning signs everywhere up there.'

'People have to have some level of responsibility for their own actions.'

SOURCE

1 comment:

  1. I lived up north for a few years and on one occasion when it was very hot I observed a large group of about twelve aboriginal children swimming in an inlet. They were bunched together laughing and splashing about. There were crocodile warning signs on the banks. A group of adult parents were sitting nearby socialising and watching the kids. I wandered over to chat with the parents and ask them if they had any concern about the kids swimming where crocodiles are likely to be. They said it was alright because the kids were in a big group and making a lot of noise and its people on their own that get eaten. I strongly doubt that is correct. I think that as well as visitors, the locals up there too, including the aborigines, can sometimes get complacent.

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