It gets even weirder - the "no touching" zone doesn't actually align with the border perfectly in some places. Mostly these are places where it would be really inconvenient to run true to the border, such as small, steep gulch, so they just ran around it.

I know biologists doing wildlife surveys who have had to notify US Border Patrol that "while they would appear to be across the border, they wouldn't actually be across, because the border boundary is wrong at such and such a spot"

And to be fair to the Border Patrol, I've never heard of anyone being seriously hassled about this, as long as the Patrol was notified in advance.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Monstrous-Wildlife-Graboids

My mother is a biology teacher and all my life she's shown me how fascinating the natural world is. It's become a real interest for me and shapes the way I live my life. When I got married my wife and I went to kenya on safari and saw some of the most beautiful and incredible wildlife. I remembered seeing lions and elephants in the zoo with my mother telling me all about them, to see them for real in the wild was mind blowing. I vividly remember how much my mother would love to see Africa. She could make the creepy crawlies under a rotting log fascinating, I just thought how wonderful lions, leopards and so on would be for her.

She's worked hard all her life and provided very well for my brother and I, we had a great upbringing and great opportunities but they never left enough for themselves. So last year my wife and I took her to Zambia. Highlight of the trip was tracking a lioness on foot and getting to within about fifty yards of it. Being able to share the experience with her was awesome. We're lucky enough to be able to afford it and it's the best money I've ever, ever spent.

If you can, you really should spoil your mother. They deserve it

It depends. All native Australian wildlife is protected and needs a special permit for destruction.

All introduced species can be killed.

That said, if it's a survival or defence situation you would not be prosecuted for killing native animals.

For a more complete store about the angler fish, contact The Canadian Wildlife Service, in Ottawa.

Wow... from Wikipedia:

Williams had first attempted suicide in 1993 by hammering a knife into her chest; the knife lodged in her sternum and she changed her mind, calling Swenson to take her to hospital.[5] She attempted suicide again in 1997 with an overdose of ephedrine.[5]

Williams died at age 48 on April 6, 1998 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a wooded area near her home. Rod Swenson, who had been Wendy's significant other for more than twenty years, returned from shopping to the wooded area where the two had lived since moving to Connecticut from New York. He found a package that Wendy had left him with some special noodles he liked, a packet of seeds for growing garden greens, some oriental massage balm, and sealed letters from Wendy. The suicide letters which included a "living will" denying life support, a love letter to Swenson, and various lists of things to do set Swenson searching the woods looking for her. After about an hour, and after it was almost dark, he found the body in woods near an area where she loved to feed the wildlife. Several nut shells were on a nearby rock where she had apparently been feeding some of the squirrels before she died. Swenson checked the body for a pulse, and there was none. A pistol lay on the ground nearby, and he returned to the house to call the local authorities. "Wendy's act was not an irrational in-the-moment act," he said, she had been talking about taking her own life for almost four years. Swenson reportedly described her as "despondent" at the time of her suicide.[13] This is what she is said to have written[14] in a suicide note regarding her decision:
“ I don't believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time. I do believe strongly, however, that the right to do so is one of the most fundamental rights that anyone in a free society should have. For me, much of the world makes no sense, but my feelings about what I am doing ring loud and clear to an inner ear and a place where there is no self, only calm.

Thank you!!


In reply to this comment by legacy0100:
*promote

@ReverendTed

Abortion is not murder, but that's not really the point. America, and by extension, the world, doesn't really have a problem with killing as a whole. We war with ourselves and kill fellow beings in the name of religion, politics, land and other resources. We kill criminals if they commit heinous enough crimes. We kill vast amounts of wildlife for fun and sport. We kill flies and other insects merely because they bother us. We step on insects without even knowing it.

We humans kill.
We are killers.
There is no escaping this fact.
Create the right conditions and anyone will kill...anyone.

The only thing you can do is: 1. Hopefully create a world in the future where we don't have to kill as much and 2. Hope that we are killing for the right reasons. Sometimes this will be true, sometimes it won't be. But that's life. That's the human condition. A law will change nothing other than whether or not abortions are performed safely or not. I choose to live in a world where if someone I know decides to have an abortion, that they do it safely with a doctor and not in some back alley. Abortions will happen REGARDLESS of what the law says. If we're going to end an unborn child's life, let's at least make sure the mother remains safe. Outlawing abortions just increases the chance that we'll have two ended lives instead of just one.

Abortion, by definition is the LAWFUL termination of an unborn child...LAWFUL. Murder is the UNLAWFUL termination of a life. Key distinction there.

This false morality that some people are somehow above and beyond the rest of us mere mortals and hold life to be irrevocably sacred just does not understand history or the human condition. These sorts of people seem to be the same people who would casually send us to war for religious or ideological reasons and thus condone the termination of more lives. The hypocrisy is glaring.

In regards to this notion that a person would go have an abortion just because a baby would be inconvenient is sad certainly, but when it comes right down to it....tough. Cost of living in a free society. people are going to things you don't approve of. deal with it. Your rights end where mine begin and vice versa. People who go have abortions out of convenience are in the minority. Quit worrying about what the minority does..especially with their own body. You and I don't get to decide what is right for someone else.

We don't live in a post-scarcity world yet. If every viable pregnancy ever was brought to term, we would have an even bigger resource shortage problem on our hands.

We live in a world where your quality of life (and your offspring) is directly related to your job. Until the quality of life of humanity becomes more equalized, We are going to continue to have situations where if someone gets pregnant it will directly affect their quality of life (and their child's) for the worse. So I really don't have a problem with someone terminating the pregnancy so that they go on to improve their quality of life so that they can have a kid later who will benefit from that better quality of life.

I too would ideally prefer adoption to abortion. But that's not exactly saying much. Adoption agencies have tons of kids and not enough parents to go around. As fertility science continues to improve, fewer and fewer parents are going to want adoption when they can just undergo a procedure and still have their own. This recently happened to a friend of mine who was having difficulty conceiving. She and her husband initially decided to adopt, but at some point, they changed their mind and pursued some massively costly fertility treatments so that they eventually did conceive. I was immensely happy for her, but at the same time, I personally felt they should have stuck with the adoption as those orphans are already here and need help now. But here's the thing. It's not my choice, it's hers and her husbands. So we can deal with the realities of the situation or continue to play hypotheticals. If everyone gave their kid up for adoption instead of abortion, we'd just have a different kind of problem and the quality of life of a vast amount of kids would be affected for the worse.

As for your big questions, They are best left to people far more educated on this subject than you and I. Of course there is some point in a pregnancy where abortion should no longer be an option. I don't think anyone is arguing this. As you say, the question is when. I simply don't know and am unqualified to make that judgement. No matter what is decided upon, it obviously won't satisfy everyone, but a decision has to be made and you can't please everyone.

>> ^Sagemind:

Sad to say, my opinion is to destroy them.
First of all, they'll never get them all so so they won't really be destroying them. If they do get them all, however unlikely, then they would just be culling them back to their country of origin.
By not getting rid of them, it would be like consciously choosing to kill off all other indigenous animals. With no natural predators, these snakes throw the balance out and will only be stopped once the food supply runs out at which point, they'll migrate as far as they are able, further killing off local wildlife. The next logical food source for them would be pets and humans.
Look up Kane toads if you don't think they can take over!
http://youtu.be/4mvV8OT-mmE


A couple words difference and you might have been referring to human beings.

Sad to say, my opinion is to destroy them.

First of all, they'll never get them all so so they won't really be destroying them. If they do get them all, however unlikely, then they would just be culling them back to their country of origin.

By not getting rid of them, it would be like consciously choosing to kill off all other indigenous animals. With no natural predators, these snakes throw the balance out and will only be stopped once the food supply runs out at which point, they'll migrate as far as they are able, further killing off local wildlife. The next logical food source for them would be pets and humans.

Look up Kane toads if you don't think they can take over!
http://youtu.be/4mvV8OT-mmE

I did a little amateur investigation, a bit of reading and some numbers but you can skip to the bottom for a summary.

The plane is a Stinson 108-3, 16500 foot service ceiling, 2400 pound gross weight limit (1300 empty weight), 50 gallon fuel capacity. Thats about 1100 of useful weight (2400-1300), with full fuel that lowers it to 800 (6lbs per gallon*50 gallons=300lbs), I saw 3 men in there the 4th passenger I'm gonna assume male, so lets say 180lbs for each (200 for the pilot) that comes to 740lbs for passenger weight. That leaves 60lbs for cargo. Although I couldn't see the cargo, they were still close to the weight limit but still could have been within normal limits.

The airport Bruce Meadows (U63) has a field elevation of 6370 feet. I couldnt find the airport temperature for that day but I did find nearby Stanley Airport 23 Miles southeast of Bruce Meadows. Their METAR history shows a high of 27 Celsius/81 Fahrenheit for June 30, 2012. Definitely a hot day but was it too hot? The closest I could find on performance data shows a 675 Feet per Minute climb at 75 Fahrenheit at sea level. Thats pretty close to what many small planes of that nature can do, so I took those numbers and transposed them over what a Cessna 172N could do. The 172N has a slighty higher climb performance about 750 for sea level and 75 Fahrenheit, a difference of 75 feet ill subtract out. At 6000 feet at 27C/81F the 172N climbs at 420FPM. Taking out the 75 feet brings it to 345 FPM, now I know this isn't perfect but I'm going with what I have. The plane began its climb out at 1:13 and crashed at 2:55, that leaves 1 minute and 42 seconds in between or 1.7 minutes. 1.7*345 means about 590 feet possible gain. But the plane isn't climbing at its best the entire video, at 2:35 it is apparent something is giving it trouble, that brings it down to about 1.58 minutes climb time which is 545 feet. Theres still another factor to consider and thats how consistent the altitude at the ground was.

The runway at Bruce meadows faces at 05/23 (Northeast/Southwest) but most likely he took runway 23 (Southwest) as immediately to the north east theres a wildlife preserve (Gotta fly at least 2000 feet over it) and he flew straight for quite some time. Although the ground increases in the direction he flew, by how much is difficult using the sectional charts. That means that although he may have been able to climb to about 545 feet higher than his original ground altitude, the ground rose with him and his absolute altitude over the ground would be less than that maximum possible 545. The passenger in the rear reported the plane could only climb to about 60-70 feet above the trees. The trees looked to be around 75-100 but thats still difficult to tell. That would mean according to the passenger they might have only been about 170 feet off the ground. It could still be wildly off as we cant exactly see the altimeter.

Finally theres that disturbance at 2:35 described as a downdraft. It could have been windshear, or a wind effect from the mountains. I don't have too much hands on knowledge of mountain flying so I cant say. If it was windshear he might have suddenly lost a headwind and got a tailwind, screwing up his performance. It could have been a downdraft effect. The actual effect on the aircraft may not have been much (lets say 50 feet) but near obstacles it was definitely enough to have a negative impact.



Summary:

Yes he was flying pretty heavy but he may not have been over the weight limit

The temperature in the area was definitely hotter than standard and the altitude was high, but he still had climbing capabilities within service limits. However he didn't give himself much of a safety threshold.

He might have been able to climb about 545 feet higher than the runway elevation, but the terrain altitude rose in the direction he flew, so his actual altitude over the ground was probably smaller than that.

The disturbance at 2:35 might have been some form of windshear which has the capacity to reduce airplane performance, and with his margins of safety so low already, that could have been the final factor.

Basically he may very well have been flying within the service limits of the aircraft, but the margins of safety he left himself were very low and the decision to fly over obstacles like those trees in that mountain enviroment could be the reason this would be declared pilot error.

Other notes:

The takeoff looks pretty rough but he trying to get off the ground as quickly as he can and ride ground effect until he gets up to speed.

I cant find anything resembling a proper PoH for this aircraft but I did find some data that looks pretty close to it. However this aircraft was a model from the late 40s, so the standards of performance may not be the same as now, and the transcribing I did to the 172N could be thrown off more.

On that note, I do realize that a 172 would have different aerobatic effects with altutude and temperature than a Stinson 108, but its the closest data I could use.

I also couldnt not find balance information to get a rough idea of how the plane was balanced. The type of balance on a plane does have effects on performance.

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/N773C.html (The aircraft)

http://www.aopa.org/airports/U63 (The airport)

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20120701X65804&key=1 (The NTSB link posted earlier)

http://personalpages.tdstelme.net/~westin/avtext/stn-108.txt (Closest thing I could find to performance data, the actual numbers are at the bottom)

http://vortex.plymouth.edu/cgi-bin/gen_statlog-u.cgi?ident=KSNT&pl=none2&yy=12&mm=06&dd=30 (Weather data at nearby Stanley)

http://skyvector.com (sectional chart data, type U63 into the search at the upper left, then make sure that "Salt Lake City" is selected in the upper right for the sectional chart)

>> ^critical_d:

It's amazing this lady still has cats left.


Absolutely. If you have wildlife of this sort and quantity hanging around you neighborhood, you don't let your cats run around outside. At least, not if you care about them.

Our ever-expanding encroachment into native wildlife's shrinking habitat is so adorable!

I'll never understand people who see some rare wildlife event occuring and have to start screaming their heads off about it... shut the fuck up!