Tag: Missouri

Categories
Critters

Tiger Tales

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

This is Missouri’s week for tigers, but not all the tiger tales are happy ones.

Today, the St. Louis Zoo will introduce five Amur tiger cubs to the public for the first time. The Amur tiger, also known as the Siberian tiger, is one of the rarest tigers in the world. At one time, they numbered only about 50 in the wild. Thankfully, rigorous conservation has increased this number to close to 500 tigers in the Amur district in Russia.

Breeding programs like the one for Amur tigers at the St. Louis zoo also help add to the numbers. Unfortunately, though, Siberian tigers raised in captivity don’t typically survive when released into the wild. The only hope for conserving the wild Siberian is to maintain strict conservation.

The St. Louis Zoo is an accredited and highly respected animal preservation center, but the same can not be said about two other animal parks in the state, also in the news this week because of tigers. The tales from these two parks, though, are not happy ones.

In Branson, a 16 year old is in critical condition after being *attacked by three tigers while he was in the cage taking photographs for visitors.

I am amazed that this park would encourage its employees to enter a tiger enclosure just to take a picture for some idiot tourist. I hope the young man lives and sues the park for everything it owns. And I hope our state closes this park down.

Not as much, though, as I hope it closes Wesa-A-Geh-Ya, near Warrenton. The day before the Branson attack, a tiger jumped a fence at Wesa-a-Geh-Ya and attacked a worker cleaning her cage. The worker lost his leg below the knee, but is expected to survive. The animal farm people actually tried to cover up the nature of the attack, saying the man was attacked by pit bull, rather than a tiger. Of course, the attacked man is not supporting this lie.

This exotic animal farm has been under investigation in the past, and has had its public display license revoked. PETA and others have been critical of the establishment, because of the animal enclosures.

Supposedly the owner has offered to give up their animals and have them euthanized (animals from these establishments typically can’t be integrated into zoo populations), but then has changed her mind. The decision should not be up to her, if her cages are such that animals can escape that easily.

I absolutely loath and despise these “roadside zoos” and believe, strongly, they should be closed. Most are poorly managed, and the animals badly cared for. I also do not agree with having exotic animals for pets. We have domestic cats and dogs needing homes that would make wonderful pets; exotic animal pets are nothing more than ego trips for the owners.

update The Branson folks are claiming that the tigers did not attack the boy. That they were trying to help him, after he fell and hit his head, which is why he has severe puncture wounds to his neck.

I hope I will be excused for greeting this with a great deal of skepticism.

Categories
Weather

Thankfully, Homeland Security is not interested in Missouri

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

From MarketWatch, in light of today’s Hurricane Dolly landfall along the Texas/Mexican border:

As Hurricane Dolly bears down on the Texas Rio Grande Valley, the chairman of the Texas Border Coalition (TBC) today protested construction of the border wall by the Department of Homeland Security during the hurricane season and urged the government to refocus its efforts on rebuilding the levees that should protect the people of the Valley.

“It is unbelievably foolish for the government to be attempting to destroy and rebuild the Rio Grande River levees in the middle of hurricane season,” said Eagle Pass Mayor and TBC Chairman Chad Foster. “The footings of the levees are being destroyed in the construction process so that the Department of Homeland Security can erect 18-foot concrete walls in their place. It is incredibly short-sighted that the government would open the levees at the same time that the danger is highest for devastating floods in the middle of hurricane season.”

Illegal immigration is a big thing here in Missouri, for some unknown reason. Like the folks in Texas, we are also more at risk for floods than the possibility that some terrorist will cross over the border between Mexico and the US.

Dolly is set to hit directly on the border between the US and Mexico, at the mouth of the Rio Grande. Along the Rio Grande are the colonias, including Cameron Park outside of Brownsville, considered the poorest community in the US. The people there make an average of $4,000, annually. Most live in shacks without electricity and running water, on land sold by shady developers who promised these hard working people a decent community with all the utilities, took their money, and then skipped town.

What’s sadder, is this is the community that now President Bush wouldn’t visit, or even acknowledge, when he was governor of Texas.

Ignored then. Ignored now.

Categories
Weather

Stories week of June 27

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

second update Unfortunately the Hesco barrier erected by the National Guard failed. Though I admire the tenacity of the Guard, I’m not surprised the barriers failed.

Winfield is now, more or less, cut off, and many homes will, unfortunately, be damaged. How many, no one knows for sure at this time. The town gave it their all, but the Mississippi is one big river.

update This NECN in Boston shows how fast the water flows through a levee break, and how widespread the flooding is now. The National Guard is disheartened by the break, as they worked on the levee for nine days. This levee was also the destination for the sand bags I helped fill.

The flood crest has been raised at St. Louis, and there’s a possibility of flooding south of Lemay Ferry Road from River Des Peres. This is the drainage river that runs through St. Louis, and is also the waterway that puts us most at risk during a flood. However, the Mississippi would have to crest about 13 feet higher to put us at risk.

We will have to rethink how we manage our waterways in the future. We can’t keep putting our fingers in the dike, and hoping for the best.

The last levee in Lincoln County still holding back the water breached this morning. I don’t think anyone was surprised when a sand boil, a mix of water and sand, appeared in the side, signaling that water was undercutting the foundation of the levee. The folks in Winfield and surrounding areas made a mighty effort to save the levee, but it was not enough.

The waters should be cresting this weekend, though we have more rain in both the Mississippi’s upper river basin, and along the Missouri river basin. Whether this means the flooding will continue hasn’t yet been determined.

Another major event impacting on St. Louis is the InBev offer for our local, beloved Anheuser-Busch. A-B, the largest beer company in the US, has remained in control by family members to this day, and has been an important St. Louis and Missouri business. A-B is very generous to the community; many members of the family are very active environmentalists; from all accounts the company is a good employer— well, needless to say, no one wants InBev to buy the company but greedy, rapacious stock holders.

We’ve already had warnings from employees in other countries where InBev has made acquisitions, and left a swath of destruction in its path. By all accounts, InBev is only interested in profits and power, not a legacy.

This week, A-B turned down the offer, and InBev has already made the opening move of a hostile take over. Hopefully the A-B people can hold their own, but this war will leave this community scarred. The only way that A-B might be able to hold off the bid is by decreasing costs and increasing profits, both of which could mean the end of our gentle neighbor, regardless of who owns the company. I would wish InBev in Missouri…right in the middle of the Mississippi river.

Lastly, St. Louis’ Archbishop Burke is leaving for a position in Rome. Burke’s four year tenure here has been marked by disruption and antagonism, as Burke trounced Catholic presidential candidate Kerry for supporting choice with abortion, excommunicated the members of the St. Stanislaus Kostka, just because the church members wanted to control their own property, and condemned one of the local rabbis for opening her arms to women wanting to be ordained as Catholic priests. Burke has also skirted perilously close to crossing the line in allowable political activity, going just far enough to try to influence local and national elections, but without endangering the church tax exempt status.

I am not surprised at Burke’s appointment to Rome, and wrote not long ago that he had ambitions beyond St. Louis. I am, also, not disappointed at Burke’s leaving, though whether the man appointed in his place will be any better for the community is hard to say.

Categories
Weather

Sandbagging and levee breaches

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

CNN has a summary post of the levee breaches and the state of flooding in both Illinois and Missouri, including links to videos on the levee break at Winfield. The films especially show how dangerous levee breaches can be, and why we so desperately try to prevent them.

I impulsively ran out of the house yesterday to help sandbag, only stopping to grab gloves on the way. I forgot to put on suntan lotion or a hat, and my face is pretty burned and swollen today. I won’t be going out to sandbag during the day, but plan on going out this evening when the sun is down.

There is still a threat of major flooding and levee breaches all down the Mississippi in Missouri and Illinois, so there’s still a desperate need for sandbaggers.

Categories
Climate Change Weather

Helping Hand

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Update Unfortunately, there was one levee outside of Winfield we couldn’t save.

second update Steve Ley, one of the two men in the photograph in the post, also wrote of today’s experience.

third update The Salvation Army has set up a localized fund to help flood victims in Missouri.

I wish I could say I acquitted myself well sandbagging today, but I really was a wuss.

I arrived at the high school in Winfield a little after 2 to find a bustling sandbagging operation underway. However, rather than dig in, we new volunteers had to wait in line to get a badge with picture. After over half an hour standing in the sun, the powers that be evidently decided they were in danger of losing volunteers because they let those who had ID start work.

Later, I found that the place did have prisoners from a local prison helping, so I’m assuming the security was related to them. Otherwise, our country has gotten a little too paranoid if we’re worried about protecting piles of dirt.

I partnered immediately with a man who was on his second day of sandbagging and a young woman (Breanna, who said hi in comments) who lived in the local area, both of whom had extraordinary energy, as well as being enjoyable to be around. I didn’t get a picture of the man, but I did Breanna. Behind her were twins who also partnered with us when they weren’t hauling bags to pallets.

Sandbagging

Next to us were two gentlemen who also had come up from St. Louis, Dogtown to be exact. They were a great deal of fun, and we found that we shared a lot in common, including careers in tech, and possibly even people who we mutually knew in the tech/online world. Talk about small world. I also think they bagged about 10 bags for every one I helped fill. Still, I like to think that there’s a levee somewhere, just about to fail when one last sandbag is placed on the top, keeping that last drop of water out. And I’ll have filled that bag.

Well, maybe I am being a tad fanciful.

Sandbagging

Following is a wider view of the operation. As you can see from the mounds of sandbags, people came to work, and work they did.

Sandbagging

Tonight I’m sunburned, with a headache that just won’t go away. However, I think I can drag my butt out tomorrow, early in the morning this time, and see if I can’t fill that last bag that saves that last levee.

In the meantime, the American Red Cross is out of money. Our country has had some difficult times in the last few years, people aren’t donating as much, and the result is that the American Red Cross is now having to borrow in order to help the folks in the Midwest. Not to mention that we’re only now heading into hurricane season.

I know you’re broke, I’m broke, we’re all broke and gas and food prices are horrid, but if you can see your way to dropping a few dollars into the Red Cross bin, you’d be helping a lot of people who have lost everything.

If the Red Cross is not your bag, and you want to help a more local organization, the Missouri Humane Society is known nationally for its pet recovery and sanctuary during weather events such as floods. The organization was in Iowa rescuing pets, and now is working to help people in Illinois and Missouri not only by actively rescuing pets trapped in the floods, but also by taking in pets for those who have no place to keep them.

If you can find your way to help out a little, I promise I’ll bag more sand. I’ll even name a bag after you. Who knows, maybe yours will be the bag that stopped the drop of water that saved the levee that saved the town.

Sandbagging