Badgers Digging Up Ancient Human Remains 172
One of England's oldest graveyards is under siege by badgers. Rev Simon Shouler now regularly patrols the grounds of St. Remigius Church looking for bones that the badgers have dug up. The badger is a protected species in England so they can not be killed, and attempts to have them relocated have been blocked by English Nature. From the article: "At least four graves have been disturbed so far; in one instance a child found a leg bone and took it home to his parents. ... Rev. Simon Shouler has been forced to carry out regular patrols to pick up stray bones, store them and re-inter them all in a new grave."
Oblig (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/badgers/ [weebls-stuff.com]
Badger badger badger (Score:5, Funny)
Badger badger badger badger. Leg bone! Leg bone! Ohhhhh, Grave!
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It could become a follow-up/mod/clone of Plants vs Zombies. :)
Graves vs Badgers
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Also oblig: "Badgers? BADGERS?..." Someone please finish that one correctly...
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Burying Bodies (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it me or is the tradition of being buried becoming more and more ridiculous the further we venture into the reality that is the future.
Frankly cremation is the current preference, that doesn't end in a badger exhumation.
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I was thinking the very same the other day, it's a fine example of 'doesn't scale well'. I'm carbon all the way baby. Liking the industrial diamond option (which I suppose technically, also doesn't scale well!) but hoping the price comes down a bit.
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I'm intrigued by that company that will press your ashes into a playable record.
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Have you signed up for their newslestter?
Re:Burying Bodies (Score:4, Insightful)
It's quite the other way around..."natural" burials scale exceedingly well. Number of people who have ever died is estimated at around 100 billion. Add to that countless other species in the time span of hundreds of millions of years, I don't think cremation of remains (not to mention industrial diamonds) is anywhere near scalable.
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Indeed, the issue is that we still have an emotional attachment to the remains, and care that a badger digs them up. Personally, if nature wants to find a way to use my body after I'm dead, I'm happy.
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I suggest Sky Burial then.
Fun for for friends and foes.
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Reminds me of when my friends were taking out life insurance and the insurance guy starts trying to change my mind about single guys not needing life insurance by saying "What happens if you die? Who will pay for the funeral?"
I managed to get him to leave me alone with "I'll be dead, they can give me a 21 flush salute for all I care."
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Personally, if nature wants to find a way to use my body after I'm dead, I'm happy.
I'm not particularly Buddhist, but I kind of hate the idea of my mortal remains locked up in an airtight box 'til the end of time, cut off from the rest of the world and the abundant life around me. I'd much rather think of earthworms returning me to the soil so that I can keep being part of the "circle of life" and all that.
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It's BTW amazing to me how Buddhism appears to, basically, almost manage in making people value... cessation of existence. To long for such outcome, in a way (except "longing" is inappropriate description of course); how it won't include rebirth(*) doesn't change the end result.
Now, I can't really know how it ends up in the actual folk flavors of buddhism, but it's a start / certainly seems to successfully convey more wisdom about our existence than premises of life everlasting (particularly its folk "we'll
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You are right I shouldn't have said natural burial doesn't scale. Of course, I didn't though. The parent talked about the tradition of burial, in the UK (where the story is at) that means a graveyard.
Graveyards don't scale. Sorry for any confusion.
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And I should have said "can scale", I guess. Yes, many modern implementations of leaving the body to nature are somewhat bizarre, to say the least. But it can work, does work for eons.
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Agreed, if people could get over the emotional attachment to dead body thing, then some kind of composting solution would be surely the most eco-friendly/responsible course of action.
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Certainly there are "compromises" possible which would only require a small push in the right direction.
Many cemeteries are already also quite pleasant inner-city parks, for example [wikipedia.org]. Burying bodies on a side in a way allowing active decomposition / for the plants to sensibly benefit, plus some memorial wall - that should be quite quickly accepted. Some customs are reasonably close already [wikipedia.org] (yeah, we can gather the bones after decomposition like that too, why not)
Unfortunately, I imagine there would serious p
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Donate eyes, liver, kidneys or whichever organs can survive 'death', and cremate the remainder. There will only be a finite number of corpses that medical research can accept.
On the other hand, if we cease to exist when we die, how can we decide what to do with the corpse after death? It should be left to the family members or community or government to decide how to recycle or treat the waste.
Next up: flamewars about inheritance and communism
Re:Burying Bodies (Score:5, Funny)
I totally agree. Only a human being faces the possibility of being badgered in both life and in death.
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Only a human being faces the possibility of being badgered in both life and in death.
Badgers also have that problem.
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Because you can't build on the land for several hundred, if not thousands of years. In some countries that's a problem.
Re:Burying Bodies (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem solved.
- Dan.
Re:Burying Bodies (Score:4, Informative)
We don't have states or highways, thus we do not have interstate highways. When I say 'some countries' that was for the benefit of the american audience, what I mean is 'not in america'.
Here is an interesting graphic btw. http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2010/10/true-size-of-africa.jpg [mediaite.com]
Re:Burying Bodies (Score:4, Funny)
That is just an astounding perspective. Thank You!
- Dan.
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Yes, ensuing arguments about europe notwithstanding, it absolutely blew my mind when I saw the US overlay. That mercator chap has a lot to answer for!
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Are you saying that we should bury our dead in Africa? Have the Africans been consulted on this?
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Interesting thought! We could pay them per body, they can use them as fertilizer to help with crops. What could possibly go wrong!
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This graphic is kinda dishonest, though. It excludes most of European Russia (by itself already about 13% the size of Africa and bigger then India) from Europe.
True, Russia is the biggest country, but in the list of countries ordered by size there are quite a few African countries in the top 40. Sudan, Algeria, and the DRC at 2 million KmSq; Libya at 1.7; Chad, Niger, Angola, Mali at 1.2; ... er just a minute - what the hell is "European Russia"? Surely you don't mean Ukraine, Latvia, and other former Soviet states? Not a particularly popular terminology for that region :)
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what the hell is "European Russia"
The portion of the Russian Federation that is in Europe, as opposed to most of its land area which is in Asia.
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This graphic is kinda dishonest, though. It excludes most of European Russia (by itself already about 13% the size of Africa and bigger then India) from Europe.
It also omits Alaska from the overlay. Alaska is the size of Spain, France, Germany, and the UK combined.
Hawaii's left out as well, but that's a much, er, smaller problem.
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forget about 'between the lanes', how about under the road itself?
Re:Burying Bodies (Score:5, Funny)
"Here lies Dan.
He lived his life in the fast lane.
Now he rests next to it."
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So when a grave gets reused, is the new body buried on top of the old one? are the old bones moved? what is the process for this?
just curious...
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Traditional burial apparently takes place too deep for aerobic decomposition to take place. Embalming fluids, some medication and food additives, various metals in prostheses (e.g. dental fillings) further complicate the matter. Of course, cremation has its own problems with some of these, apart from the huge amounts of (fossil) fuel required.
Natural burials [wikipedia.org] and ecological burials [wikipedia.org] provide some (partial) alternatives.
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cremation = no zombie.
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and the living won't be pestered with all those stupid zombie movies anymore.
cremation = no zombie.
Have you ever even seen a zombie movie?
Hint: Few feature the grave.
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Re:Burying Bodies (Score:4, Insightful)
Burning wastes resources... and for what? (well, in many places burying does, too - seriously, concrete tombs and metal caskets?)
A solace for living participants that there will be some reflection about them; preferably in an orderly manner. That they will be remembered - but ultimately we ourselves don't treat very old memorials, very old customs, very old faiths as anything more than archeological curiosities.
PS. Also, Ig Nobel 2008:
ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE. Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino of Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, for measuring how the course of history, or at least the contents of an archaeological dig site, can be scrambled by the actions of a live armadillo.
REFERENCE: "The Role of Armadillos in the Movement of Archaeological Materials: An Experimental Approach," Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino, Geoarchaeology, vol. 18, no. 4, April 2003, pp. 433-60.
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Well that's the point; illusions for the living.
And secondly, certainly "more natural"...
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Exactly right.
Which is why I want to be plastinated [wikipedia.org] after I die. My family can keep me in a glass coffin and use me as a coffee table! [snopes.com] Or just stand me up in the corner. If nothing else, I'll make a great hat and coat rack! [instablogsimages.com]
;)
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If you saw Serenity, the first two parts are true (well, not the stone itself but the image in the stone).
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I want my head wired up and put in a jar Futurama style. My body should be frozen, shattered, and the frozen bits launched into space.
still wastefull (Score:2)
Cremation requires a huge amount of fuel.
I suggest making biodiesel, pet food, and fertilizer.
We could auction off the corpses for such purposes.
Imagine them stacked on pallets with plastic straps to
keep them from falling off and a plastic wrap to keep
the arms and legs in. Corpse bundles would be rated
according to estimated meat, fat, and leftover content.
Buyers would get a chance to request individual
auction for corpses that they find to be particularly
desirable. Among other things, this would allow
museums
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Monasteries have long faced this problem. In Greek Orthodox monasteries, bodies are buried for three years -- long enough to reduce them to skeletons. The bones are then disinterred, cleaned, and transferred to an "ossuary" or "charnel house", typically sorting the remains by type rather than origin (all the skulls together, all the femurs together). Roman Catholic monasteries took this practice a step further in the 17th and 18th Centuries, using the bones decoratively.
Am I strange? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Am I strange? (Score:5, Interesting)
Am I strange? I quite like the idea oif my remains being eaten by badgers. Its part of the circle of life. I have always thought that the Native American tree burials and Zoroastrian towers of silence [wikipedia.org] are somehow very satisfying and symbolic of our return to nature.
Well, the badgers aren't so much eating your body as food. Really they're just pulling your remains out of the way of their excavation project. Rather than participating in the circle of life by providing nutrition to critters, your body is just annoying them by getting in the way of their homebuilding.
Re:Am I strange? (Score:5, Funny)
When they start building their homes WITH human bones, we'll have more of a problem.
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A little macabre, but then again so are a lot of the old religions. Maybe they're catching up.
Re:Am I strange? (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Chapel_in_Czermna [wikipedia.org]
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Or sky burials [wikipedia.org] (this one with photographs)
But members of many/most(?) cultures prefer to perceive themselves as not quite succumbing to the forces around them in such "trivial" way; as something above them.
Which, in the end, is part of few certainly still useful adaptations.
Re:Am I strange? (Score:5, Informative)
Ya know: "native American" is not exactly a monolithic group. Being a descendant of north American aboriginal people, I just decided that I'm allowed to be offended for the entire group called "native American" when the label is misused. Not everybody who was here before the arrival of Europeans practiced "tree burials," so perhaps you ought to be more specific. Sioux tree burials? Nez Perce tree burials? Apache tree burials? Even this list [nanations.com] isn't all-inclusive of the methods used in north America (pre-invasion) to bury the dead. [smaller nit to pick: that should really be native American, no Native American, just as it should be western European, not Western European. It's not necessary to capitalize every adjective.]
I'm sorry if the above paragraph is offensive; I don't mean to be. I do, though, dislike general assumptions or statements about aboriginal American peoples. We weren't (and are not) a monolithic culture.
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I'm sorry if the above paragraph is offensive; I don't mean to be. I do, though, dislike general assumptions or statements about aboriginal American peoples. We weren't (and are not) a monolithic culture.
Not at all, I'm sorry I offended you. (incidentally Western European" [wikipedia.org] is standard). I was referring to a practice I had heard of and admire but really know little about. I should have at least put "Some" native Americans.
I should have known better because I do realise how assumptions that you believe and follow a particular practice because it is practised somewhere in your wider culture can be can be upsetting if it is something that your particular group does not follow or recognise or even finds repulsi
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that should really be native American, no Native American
It's a pretty useful capitalization. I'm a native American, but I'm not a Native American. How would you prefer to make that distinction?
my one question is (Score:2)
how did you indians get to north america from india before columbus?
(yes, i'm joking)
look, i understand why native americans are called indians: columbus got lost and thought he was in india. my problem is, it became readily apparent to everyone that he was NOT in india soon after, so why did the terminology continue for so long?
i mean look at this:
http://www.bia.gov/ [bia.gov]
wtf?!
why the bleep does the usa still have something called a bureau of INDIAN affairs? tradition? a tradition of stupidity? when the ambassad
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Yes, it is. A Native American is someone (at least partially) descended from pre-Columbian residents of the continent. A native American (no capital N) is the vast majority of the country -- every person born in the United States.
Similarly with your Western European example -- a Western European is a person from Wester
Badgers? (Score:4, Funny)
We don't need no stinking...ah forget it.
I'd prefer a more natural "funeral" (Score:2)
If I had the choice I'd say: feed my remains to wolves, sharks, hyenas - whatever fits the food chain - and no badger would cause any issues when building its new home.
Sadly that's not allowed in Germany and you have to get buried or burnt.
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There should be a loophole, in some (yeah...) circumstances, for sea burial.
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There are wolves in Germany. Some reintroduced, and for example some packs that crossed from Poland (which has small group in western forests, even if most of their population is in the east - where, funnily enough, wolves from Slovakia, Belarus and Ukraine also cross; general direction seems to mimic the movement of people, or perhaps the other way around)
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Ready, "Sett", Go! (Score:2)
Badger whatchoo diggin' there/With your bum up in the air?
Shaft!
Why you movin' body parts/Skulls and legs and even hearts?
Shaft!
You say that mine shaft's a badger house?
Shut yo' mouth!
Gonna dig it!
+Funny (Score:2)
Well... (Score:3, Funny)
It looks like nobody told the animals to...
*puts on sunglasses* ...stop badgering the corpses.
YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
i just have to... (Score:2)
http://weebls-stuff.com/songs/badgers/ [weebls-stuff.com]
Double Standard (Score:2)
Ancient? (Score:2)
Fine with me. Just don't let them mess with the mounds of freshly dug earth in my back yard.
Bozons? (Score:4, Funny)
The badgers are just trying to enforce quantum mechanics. The remains are Bozons, and belong all in one grave. If they were Fermions, they'd belong in separate ground states.
Re:Vigilantism (Score:4, Funny)
Uh this is England. Shooting people, other than Brazilian electricians [wikipedia.org] and tooled-up lawyers [bbc.co.uk], is rather frowned upon here.
Saunders (Score:2)
Oh geez. And here I thought California was soft.
(It could be a lack of clarity in the write-up)
Jurors must decide if the lawyer "deliberately and consciously" used his shotgun, provoking the police to shoot. [Not whether his actions could reasonably be interpreted that way during a time of crisis?]
The jury, which is expected to go out on Wednesday, was asked to answer several questions ...
Was "sufficient weight" given to the fact that Mr Saunders, who was drunk at the time, was a vulnerable person?
Article includes a picture of Mr Saunders holding said shotgun while leaning out the window.
(No, I don't know more about the story. First I've heard about it.)
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No, no they couldn't – they could call the police, they could go and confront them and ask them to piss off, they could not shoot them. The latter option at least is available with badgers, but you may have to use different language.
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Why do badgers have more rights than humans?
Because, unlike you (presumably), badgers are at somewhat of a disadvantage when it comes to the freedom to choose where they want to live.
Animals, in many cases, should have more rights than humans, especially endangered ones. If you don't like it, then stop fucking up their habitat.
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They usually will live in one extended family in one place for hundreds of years ... and once established will put up with people and their buildings etc..
So I suspect the Badgers have been there longer than people ...
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:)
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I don't think you could stretch it to self defense, but when I first saw the article, my thought was "This belongs in idle. Just shoot the badgers." However, looking at the responses here, I see that I am in the vast minority. Suggestions seem to range from "It's just human remains, let the kids play with them." to "We can find better ways to get rid of the bodies". Sure, I know that once a person is dead, the body is an empty shell, but I'm still of a mind that it trumps some animal. I guess this is why s
Re:Vigilantism (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would human remains trump badgers?
Why should our emotional attachment to bit of dead folks mean that cute, furry, stripy badgers should be killed?
I don't think it's the twilight zone. The UK has already wiped out pretty much every wild animal it ever had that was larger than a badger. And we like badgers.
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Because they never hire lawyers to exercise them.
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I like the idea that you think a church in a tiny village in rural England a) has security, and b) has armed security.
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What I know about rural England could fit in a thimble, so: is it such a harmless place that not a single parishioner owns a shotgun and is willing to use it?
Probably.
In any case, rural England isn't very far from urban England, and urban England will have police in cars, armed if necessary (i.e. only occasionally). That village is certainly rural [google.co.uk], but it's only 8 miles from the nearest town (Melton Mowbray, home of the pork pie. The village is one of the places that makes genuine Stilton).
Wikipedia entry for the village [wikipedia.org]
Village news [long-clawson.com]
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Given that shotgun licences aren't very easy to obtain, and you need to show just cause for having one (being a farmer is usually good enough), they're not as common as once was the case.
Also, if you go brandishing a shotgun, the armed police will be called.
In the US, "armed police" means a fat 45+ normal cop with a donut, coffee and a 92F.
In the UK, the only armed police are the ones that do armed standoffs, terrorist incidents etc., somewhat like your SWAT teams, and they carry MP5's and are the serious,
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That said, in the US you'd need one for coyotes, wildcats, wild/roaming dogs, etc. Idyllic place indeed if that'
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If you did that, you'd definitely get the armed cops out, assuming the local plod you called wasn't a nice guy (they've done away with common-sense possessors in recent years, in favour of social-studies graduates who wouldn't know what a criminal was if he was standing in front of them, picking his pocket, but can tell you the 47 different ways you can break someone's human rights by referring to them in the wrong tense in a sentence, or how to avoid offending someone by the correct use of politically corr
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Instead of burying people, we should eat them.
You'd think mad cow disease would discourage that sort of behavior.
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The fuss is, religious people are crazy and things like this are somehow important to them.
On the other hand, I don't know why English Nature has a hard-on for the nearby field that might have had a house on it once. If the disturbed graves freak the religious nut out that much, let him relocate the damn badgers.
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