abcnews.go.com/International/wir … o-31793565
There was a flood in the Republic of Georgia, its south of Russia, likely soon to be part of Russia. The flood killed all the predators who got loose from the zoo, including the lions and all save for one missing jaguar (they think its dead somewhere). All the dogs in the pound next door in the pound… didn’t go too well for them. One of the lions had its skull shot up, carcass found inside of zoo… no one knows who did it… motive seems rather obvious.
Yet, statistically, half the penguins survived.
Penguins are predators, but aquatic. Flightless, so can be kept in open environments. Flood waters go up, they go up. Flood everywhere… they swim and eat fish.
Eat fish… Predators. Yes, we don’t often think of them as that, but predators they are. We look at them like tiny tarded humans in Tuxedos.
Penguins have a knack of picking locations humans… just don’t fucking wanna live. They have very little interaction with our food chain or environment compared to other creatures we are fond of. Not just Antarctica, but south america, south Africa, Australia, New Zealand. In Southern New Zealand, the Maori ate one species to near extinction, then abandoned the otherwise worthless area… another less appetizing species came, penguined around till the present. In South Africa, the Apartheid Government kept Nelson Mandela on a island, all he could see was penguins swimming by. Desolate, lame, unattractive. Humans dislike such areas, Penguins like it.
When we build zoos, Bears and Lions, they are going to drown, or get shot up. The hippo survived (saw pics of it enjoying a muddy street corner prior to getting tranqualized)… but honestly wasn’t too much of a threat. It liked the mud.
Its all the creatures we like, our closest mammalian kin be it genetically or in heights of intelligence… they get fucked bad. Monkeys and apes are caged in… no escape. Lions and bears… no escape. But in the Oahu Zoo in Waikiki, the Peacocks could fly in and out at will. Why? Cause they look pretty, and tourist like them. No one wants the orangutans or bears running loose during a Tsunami though.
So its the stupid fucking animals that barely are like us, that pose little flight risk that coincidentally are the most likely to survive. Mans best friend just drowned. Penguins had little issue.
The long term implications. Africans are unlikely to want to keep lions around in their backyard suburban neighborhoods anymore than farmers in north america want wolves and mountain lions about. Conservation or not, they are gone. Hyenas… gone. Jackles might make it. Coyotes might make it. Vultures … scavengers will thrive on road kill.
But its the penguins who already gave their corner marked out. They like the arctic, and we hate it. We only gave one village in Antartica. Very little threat to them.
From this, they can start adapting to the periphial areas of the human world. Kill off the sharks, cuddly looking, increasingly larger looking penguins take over. The movie jaws looks so much less impressive with them doing the attacks. Slowly moving up the coasts, then the rivers. Penguins demanding French Fries in a thousand years in Duluth, or Moscow at a McDonalds. Population of Britain and Netherlands going away, Penguins move in seamlessly… already wearing suits, know how to stand around a water cooler instinctively. A head mount display guiding penguins through tasks, paid in fish as if they are Finnish illegal immigrants.
Its just going to be Penguins and Humans soon, and not all humans are going to make it. Goodbye Nietzscheans, hello Ubermensch Penguins.
Half the penguins survived, when so many more impressive animals drowned or were shot. How many more floods shall happen over the years, countless years ahead of us? Earthquakes? Plagues? Wars? That poor Lion, loose all those years in the Fallujah countryside. Someone ate it. There are no winners save the penguins. Its a ironic side effect of the human condition.