Human Strength

[peter]

Just a small interruption here, gentlemen.

Strength is not easy to describe and to assess, was the point made. Another point is humans have no weapons whatsoever. In a confrontation with an animal, I can only get to a serious potential problem. Illustration.

When In Switzerland quite some years ago, I left the station to find a place to stay. Just past the station, I saw what looked like a circus. When I got closer, The 'circus' turned out to be one cage wagon with two leopards, a male and a female. The crowd was a result of a dispute between the leopardess, the male and the trainer.

What happened was this. The leopardess had had a bad day (I could hear her roaring in the station a hundred yards away or so) and the male had jumped her to cool her down. The leopardess responded by trying to kill him. The trainer gave everything he had to cool both down. And now for the result.

The male leopard survived, but only just. The trainer was quite badly injured, but survived because he had the sense to stay out of the cage. The leopardess was a perfect fury and the result was an ambulance, police and a vet with a dart. The trainer had to be treated in hospital and the leopardess was darted.  

Next day, walking to the station, I visited the cage wagon again. Inside, I saw the trainer, still quite badly injured, with his princess on his lap. The male was in another cage. I asked a few questions. The conversation lasted for an hour and was recorded.

The leopardess, he said, had been treated badly when young. He felt pity, bought her and they had become real close. The problem was she no accept competition. The trainer, mentioned in Tiede's book, had worked with (polar) bears, brown bears, Himalayan bears, lions, tigers, pumas, leopards, wolves and everything else as well. He never saw anything as angry and as vicious as that leopardess, he said. A little princess, she was, but a killer. The only one she accepted, was the trainer. In order to underline the point made, she gazed at me for an hour. Talking obsessions.   

Can't you find a way to deal with her, I asked? He was long, fit, very experienced and very stable. The answer was no. The problem was he couldn't sell her. The first time he did, she had killed. The second time, she nearly killed herself. Eternal friends, they were.

The leopardess, by the way, was almost 50 pounds (22,68 kg.). I never saw one so small. 

I'm not saying she was stronger than a fit man, but she was lightning fast, heavily armed and capable of killing much larger animals than herself in seconds. As for sheer strength. The trainer told me he couldn't describe what he felt, but he wasn't able to constrain her for even a few seconds. Every time he tried, he paid. The wounds he showed were quite terrible. The other day, she nearly killed him.

Maybe the story is a bit over the top, but it really happened and I was there.

Was it over the top? The trainer told me about a friend who had been killed by a young bear in a surprise fight after an act that didn't work out. Happened in training. Big man, small and timid bear, fight, two assistents and dead trainer. 

Are some men so strong it's difficult to find the words to describe their strength? Yes. But when a smallish black bear kicks in the door of the cabin of a strong man in order to attack him, the man doesn't stand a chance. 

Is this post an example of degrading human strength? Most certainly not. Some humans are very strong. The problem is it is difficult to effectively use in a fight with an animal like an similar-sized or even slightly smaller predator. Everything wild animals have and do is directed at survival, which is not the case in (modern) humans. The real strength in humans is in something different. Wild animals in particular know. I've seen remarkable examples of people able to effectively use it, but that's another story. Would be a nice topic. Reply