Dead Animals

[DJKeefy]

Before the revolution, I saw the odd animal floating in the canals/Nile or at the side of the road (it was rare though), these days I see a few dead animals each day I am out on my motorbike, fresh air now smells of death, many Egyptians swim in the canals in summer, I would have thought they could get diseases from rotting dead animals.



Is there a proper way of disposing of dead animals (here in Egypt) than throwing them in the canals/Nile?

[Glyphdoctor]

When I did the Nile cruise a couple years ago a dead camel floated by our boat.

You didn't hear about the dead "lion" that was found last week in a town in the Delta, did you?

[LovelyLadyLux]

EWWW - sounds pretty nasty and I doubt Mother Nature can accommodate that many dead floaters in a positive way. Swimming in it is also just inviting who knows what disease or infection or whatnot.

[Robbo70]

I would imagine the Nile Monitors, or warrens as they are locally called will have the carcus pretty much stripped within a few days. Regardless of dead animals, knowing most lizards carry salmonella would keep me out of those waters in the first place.

[Who2]

One has to think like an Indian about dead animals.
If one is hungry ? I mean really hungry not like you lot think of being hungry or a bleeding vegetarian hungry, if starving you will eat anything hence curries and all those french sauces to mask that unctuous & tender meat that has rotted beyond belief.
It's time you lot got out of the supermarket mentality that's where chickens come from. face it you just ain't got hungry enough yet to eat your granny.
'Think you ain't eating dead rotting something or other when you tuck into your next Big Mac & chips, then think again! suckers......
ROAD KILL STEW
Printed from COOKS.COM
4 lb. road kill (raccoon or opossum, squirrel is too meager) Preferably 2 to 3 days old. Should marinate in road oil and other highway grease at least 1 day
1 lb. whole garlic cloves
3 c. Jalapeno peppers with seeds
1 bucket of green onions
1 gal. flat beer (Pabst is GOOD)
5 c. toadstools
3 tbsp. cumin
3 c. wild weeds
Any deserving vegetables you can think. "enjoy and washed down with a chilled chardonnay"

[LovelyLadyLux]

If we're talking grisly fare - here in Canada we have the multi-millionaire Abbotsford Pig Farmer who turned out to be a serial killer of young women. He practiced his calling so to speak for decades and when his farm was finally raided RCMP found the bodies and DNA of umpteen many women mostly druggies and prostitutes he kidnapped off the streets. It was also found that he was feeding the bodies to his pigs and selling the meat to the pubic .... As urban legend goes AND as there was a warning issued by the Provincial Health Authority - apparently Willie (aka Robert Willie Picton) was grinding up his pork and selling it to several of the fast food giants we've all come to know as having the BEST burgers!!

People will eat the darndist things ..... and yeah - if hungry enough you'll eat most anything.

[Dusak]

Sweeney Todd wasn't the fictional character we think he was. I remember a few years ago when a group of us use to prowl the West Bank on our long winter walks, we entered a semi desert area. As we rounded some low sand dunes we can across quite a frightening sight. Many dogs where feasting on the dumped carcases of a large variety of dead animals. Camels, horses, donkeys. cows and dogs. The stench was terrible as was the attitude of the dogs as we attempted to pass. I do know if you are a cat owner here and it pops its clogs so to speak, a plastic carrier bag and the local skips are its final resting place. I have seen dead dogs just dumped onto the nearest piece of empty land. Saw many a floating bloated carcass drifting its way down the Nile. The Nile is in constant flow, so it soon sends the nasties down and past your position. Wouldn't like to live around the Nile Delta area as all must eventually settle there within the sediment.

[LovelyLadyLux]

If the Nile River is so full of all sorts of yummy morsels that would make a Nile crocodile drool I wonder why the Nile Croc pursued Captain Hook so vigorously? Wonder what a boney old one armed, one hook Captain had that was so tastily appealing especially when bloated dead bodies are floating past?

phpBB [video]

[Bullet Magnet]

If the Nile River is so full of all sorts of yummy morsels that would make a Nile crocodile drool I wonder why the Nile Croc pursued Captain Hook so vigorously?

Captain Hook was the good guy in the original story...

[newcastle]

If the Nile River is so full of all sorts of yummy morsels that would make a Nile crocodile drool I wonder why the Nile Croc pursued Captain Hook so vigorously? Wonder what a boney old one armed, one hook Captain had that was so tastily appealing especially when bloated dead bodies are floating past?

phpBB [video]

Nile crocodile? Did Captain Hook ever visit these parts? He'd have had a job getting his schooner up the river. I suppose one pantomine croc looks much like another

[Who2]

This is a great film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083113/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
There is a bit in it where they drive down 'dead donkey canal toward the Pyramids same canal just more dead donkeys floating around these-days.....
Ps: Question: "How long does it take evolution for a donkey to realise it's a sh** swimmer.

[Glyphdoctor]

You can watch it here:

phpBB [video]

[Dusak]

The venerable Captain Hook, was, on numerous occasions, like some that have lived here, advised to sling his hook. He decided not to take any notice, like some that used to live here, until it became too late, a snap judgement was made.

[Who2]

Not that I read the Daily Snail but this is interesting
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... raohs.html

[Bullet Magnet]

The masses falling into that old trap eh ?

The answer is very simple if not uncomfortable for society to accept..

[newcastle]

The masses falling into that old trap eh ?

The answer is very simple if not uncomfortable for society to accept..

Care to elaborate

[Bullet Magnet]

You need to consider what type of animals that were depicted running around in those days, and the feasibility of such animals existing in the desert.

If the Sahara is the same today as it was in those days, then those animals could not have existed there.
If the Sahara was as I suspect a Lush Savannah, then what happened in such a short space of time ?

Allegedly, all the history has been recorded since those times, by the Ancient Egyptians, then the Ancient Greeks and Romans, then more modern historians, and no where does any texts speak of the changes
that must have occured for those animals to no longer exist.

I propose that there is a huge time discrepancy in the history of Ancient Egypt, and that in my opinion, someone came along and simply took ownership of what the true Ancients left behind.
Now, that opens up all sorts of possibilities regarding what we know today of Egypt's history.


Another explanation for the desertification goes something like this...
They say that a large herd of sheep can in time turn a lush savannah into a desert if left uncontrolled.

[newcastle]

The ecological explanation, in the time frame concerned, seems entirely reasonable to me....and consistent with dramatic changes we've seen over much shorter time periods in recent centuries (Madagascar is a good example). The pre-pharoanic environment was probably akin to places like Namibia today...where elephants, ostriches, gazelles etc. still roam in semi-arid areas only because of wildlife protection schemes!

I would not go looking for a 'mystical' explanation

[Bullet Magnet]

This is what we appear to know about the Sahara, hence the timing anomalies...
Source Wiki'

The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years.[30] This is due to a 41,000 year cycle in which the axial tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°.[31] At present (2000 CE), the Sahara is in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15,000 years (17,000 CE).

During the last glacial period, the Sahara was even bigger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries.[32] The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BCE to 6000 BCE, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north.[33]

Once the Ice Age ended, the northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara though, the drying trend was soon counteracted by the monsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. In this period, there was still a monsoon climate in the Sahara. Monsoons form by heating of air over the land during summer. The hot air rises and pulls in cool, wet air from the ocean, which causes rain. Thus, though it seems counterintuitive, the Sahara was wetter when it received more insolation in the summer. This was caused by a stronger tilt in Earth's axis of orbit than today (24.5 degree tilt vs the 23.4° tilt today[31]), and perihelion occurred at the end of July around 7000 BCE.[34]

By around 4200 BCE, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today,[9] leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara


Nothing too Mystical there, only to consider how many people actually lived there and needed to be fed, then and the number of people who were skilled enough in Temple and monument building, does raise one or two questions.

The desertification process was happening right under their noses, during the Epoch of the Egyptian Empire if this WIKI article is correct.

[newcastle]

So nothing mysterious about the move from hunter-gatherers to settled communities around 4000BC and the disappearance since then of large mammals.

As to the monument building, its development over the pharoanic period looks positively snail-pace compared to technological development over the last millennium. A few skilled architects with bright ideas, some very basic tools and a lot of willing labourers was all that was required. Population around 2000BC is thought to have been 2,000,000 +/- 50%

What is remarkable about the ancient Egyptians is HOW LITTLE they developed from pre-dynastic to Graeco-Roman times.