Category Archives: Animals

A Dance with Death?

* Bulls are beautiful and awe-inspiring beasts. They possess a unique noble bravery that when they are provoked they would rather die fighting than flee.

* The first historic bullfight (corrida) took place in Vera, LogroƱo, (a remote corner of Medieval Spain) in 1133, in honor of the coronation of king Alfonso VIII.

* Perhaps a nobleman with an entrepreneurial spirit thought about capturing several horned beasts and recreating the thrill of the hunt for the knights (today they are called matadors) to demonstrate their skill and win the admiration of their subjects.

* In bullfighting, there is no scorekeeping. “Winning” comes from the triumph of human cunning over brute force. The goal is to avoid a brutal confrontation by using the human attributes of intelligence, grace and elegance.

* In business, a “bull market” refers to an active market where prices are rising faster and more furious than average for a prolonged period of time. The opposite of this event is called a “bear market”.

Fisherman’s Best Friend

In various parts of Asia including China, Vietnam and Japan, fishermen train cormorants (small, black, web footed birds) to fish for them.

Boats or bamboo rafts equipped with lanterns or torch flames will head out on the rivers at night with a flock of cormorants perched at the edges.

The fish are attracted to the boat lanterns, and the cormorants swimming alongside the boat pluck them out of the water easily.

To prevent the birds from eating the fish themselves, sometimes collars are fitted so that they are unable to swallow the bigger fish. Other birds are so gentle and so well trained that they will regurgitate the fish from their stomachs on command.

In business, the act of people who buy stock prices when they are really low is called “bottom fishing”.

Neither Jelly nor Fish

* Jellyfish are graceful semi transparent creatures. They are carnivorous but are only five percent solid matter. The remaining 95 percent is all water!

* There are over 200 varieties of jellyfish in a wide assortment of sizes and shapes, from the 1″ thimble size Caribbean jellyfish to the Arctic Lion’s Mane’s jellyfish with tentacles as long as 100 feet, and weighing up to a ton.
jfish

* If stung by a jellyfish, the victim should carefully remove the tentacles that adhere to the skin by using sand, clothing, towels, seaweed or other available materials. As long as tentacles remain on the skin, they will continue to discharge venom.

* Jellyfish tentacles contain millions of small, stinging cells called nematocysts. Stings can range from mild burns and skin redness to excruciating pain, nausea, low blood pressure shortness of breath and even death.

* In the business world, jellyfish personify “forces in the market” that cannot be easily perceived but are harmful all the same. These include political, economic, social and technological changes that can disrupt operations, even to the point of closure.