William Shatner live in concert at 95 years of age

Phew, if the outcome hadn’t been so lucky, who knows, they might have played this here at Karin’s ceremony …

https://youtu.be/KkRLYcLseUg

Oh, I forgot about your Hamburg concert, I remember you saying you were going there also. But be careful Karin, that is Uwe’s old stomping ground, St Pauli’s area etc. Are you meeting up with the reverend Uwe? If so, don’t let him lead you astray, you know what he is like. Cheers.

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The guy who invented autocorrect ought to burn in hello :laughing:

I didn’t listen to any of the songs you suggested! Very clever songs though… It was Whitesnake:

https://youtu.be/tZ1PfB59zf8?is=RnrVMhVxDYaqfu0K

And no, the poor deer was picked up by a local hunter so at least it didn’t die in vain.

But I got a shock, and had to drive home, you see I was out looking for wolves before someone get them all killed…

And no no no, my funeral song will of course be this one:

https://youtu.be/JiFOlv-YAb8?is=2VfziVUtX4yGyfKR

I wouldn’t mind to meet him and Edith :smiley:

But I guess I’ll never be that lucky…

What brings you to do wolf safaris?

Some people in Denmark want them all killed :disappointed_face:

I think they belong here.

Of course I will never go too near and of course never feed them. But I would so much love to see them with my own eyes.

I know places where they live, just wanna keep the distance…

This pic is from another evening, wolves searching.. :blush:

Same thing in Germany. You know, when elephants trample crops or lions kill cattle in Africa we in a very colonial manner expect the local population to sit still so we have something to adore during our photo safaris there. Yet when wolves kill livestock in our regions, the knee jerk reaction is: Exterminate the predators!

And it’s sooooo hypocritical! For decades our hunter associations claimed that human hunting is a necessity for conservation because all our apex predators became extinct. Then the wolves returned and it only took a few years until they said ”the wolf population needs to be controlled!”. And if you ask them when there is no camera or microphone nearby they freely admit: “It’s not the competition of the wolves, they take relatively little prey, it is the fact that they make game extremely skittish and that takes the fun out of hunting for us, we can’t get as many culls.” :face_with_steam_from_nose:

PS: Edith had a wolf sighting a few years ago here. I first laughed at her, but then it was in the news a few days later when the young wolf got run over by a car in our region.

Incidentally, were you traveling in Germany around that time, liebe Karin?

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What!? You laughed at your wife?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Well, it could have been me driving around in Germany looking for a wolf, but there may be other reckless drivers like me :grin:

In Denmark a lot of wolves have mysteriously disappeared and some people said that private individuals have taken matters into their own hands and shot wolves without authorization from the authorities.

A friend of mine said consolingly: ‘I know how you feel Karin, I once killed a mouse driving….‘

Yesssss, cos that’s completely the same :laughing:

Most of the time I just smile subserviently - OUT OF FEAR!

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Unfortunately, a wolf attacked Von der Leyen’s pony, and she has decided to proceed with downgrading the species’ protection status, it is sheer madness.

In Trentino, the administration culls bears and wolves, disregarding the opinions of state bodies that oversee wildlife and of environmental organizations.

Municipalities and livestock farmers are failing to employ appropriate deterrent measures, while environmental corridors for the safe passage of animals (safe for them, but also for us )are disappearing due to rampant urban sprawl.

The right-wing government is trying to pass a new hunting law that is absolute madness; in practice, it allows hunters to do whatever they want.
Let’s hope Brussels opens an infringement procedure and puts a stop to this madness.

Unfortunately, the small hunters’ lobby is very important to our current Italian government.

We take the homes from the wild animals, and then some people are completely unaware and confused that the animals are moving in on “our” territory….

Her pony you said?

Well, the great problem in Denmark are sheep being killed. Of course that is a problem, but on the other hand if I had sheep living outside and I knew there were predators around, oh I would do something to guard them!

No need to hate on what just comes natural for predators.

And when am I going to be banned from here? It was originally a thread about WS and his “heavy metal” songs :rofl:

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The thing is that keeping sheep completely gated and wolf-protected makes keeping them economically unattractive as you have to start feeding them from a certain point on - they can no longer move from pasture to pasture.

But I’m with you, we tried to get apex predators back into Europe for centuries and now that they are returning in measured numbers everyone seems to be aghast that they feed on other animals - surprise.

Of course losing a pet isn’t great, Uschi loved her horses and I’m not over the moon when I see one of my fish killed by a heron (and not even eaten because it took off without it for some reason). Think of your feelings if you found Anton dead and ravaged by a wolf, Karin. But single tragic encounters shouldn’t decide about the future of a species. Wolves, lynxes and bears were part of our European environment. And we’re by now gaining golden jackals too which, initially restricted to Spain and Southern France, due to global warming have now populations in Germany.

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But the big difference Uwe is that I would never let Anton out alone!

A family lost its puppy, it was taken by a wolf, and they lived in an area where they knew there were wolves… stupidity to leave little animals alone there.

And if I were a farmer with sheep, horses, cows or whatever living outside in the warmer period (guck mal! Didn’t pronounce it “summer” :grin:) I would at least make all kinds of measures to make sure they were safe.

Stubbornly claiming “that’s how we always did” is very stupid, in my perspective at least.

Herons are protected species, as far as I know, but they are dreaded in Denmark too for the same reason.

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They are protected indeed. They are also impressive animals, pterodactyl-like.

Predators will always kill and feed on something, that is their role in nature. And you can never protect livestock 100%, especially wolves are smart and adapt. There is a reason why we chose them to become our pets and eventually dogs, they learn from us.

People want this 100% full insurance life and find it hard to grasp that if you have wolves in the wild then being all by yourself at night in the deep forest is no longer quite the safe idea it used to be. You can’t have it all.

When you’re up at the pasture, sure, but when you’re down at the farm you can effectively protect the herd, yet many livestock farmers don’t do it.

I don’t know about Germany,
but in Italy, the state financially compensates livestock farmers for every animal killed by predators, regardless of whether the farmer has implemented all safety measures or none at all.

Same thing with us, but there is a lot of red tape to cut to get the compensation, there is fraud involved too and even fancy protective fences have been overcome by individual wolves. Nature will always find a way, it’s like Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park, dinosaurs bred to be infertile will eventually overcome that barrier. Some years ago, in the London Zoo a female Komodo dragon that had never met another specimen before (much less a male one), it had been born and raised in captivity, developed fertile eggs all by itself. Only - perfectly healthy and fertile - male specimen developed from those eggs, life creates life.

I had a meeting with clients last week who breed seeds to be resistant against diseases, insects and botanical parasites. And they explained to me that no matter what traits you create with a plant (via selective natural breeding or genetic modification), after a period of a few decades nature will create counter-resistance and spawn bacteria, insects and botanical parasites with traits that will overcome those protective traits and do what they were made to do. It is a constant chase & catch, I learned that genetic traits have a shelf life. :weary_cat:

Might as well throw in the ‘farmers’ daughter’. Just trying to keep it from being totally ‘down on the farm’. And here I was initially talking about William’s sublime vocal talents and now this. All these tales and folklore, "wolf at your door.', ‘sheep’ sounds like a few songs I have heard over the years. Maybe we could get William Shatner to sing the Deep Purple classic from Fireball, not to mention Pink Floyd’s ‘Sheep’. Cheers.

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I just heard in the news that there are wolves quite near where I live :blush:

And also: some minister in Denmark will make it legal from 2027 to shoot them :disappointed_face:

Will you then sort of be like what Daenerys Targaryen was to those scaly things


a Mother of Wolves, my Deer, uhum, Dear? :hugs:

PS: Man, I know a Floridian hay farmer who would crawl over broken glass to use that as a nice muscle shirt design! Trust Steve’s utterly kitsch-free, impeccable sartorial taste! :joy:

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