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Warning: What follows is outright distasteful, and is proof that the
world is a far wierder place than we generally believe. If you're of a
sensitive nature, read no further!!!
I just received a copy of a flier entitled "Obliterating animal
carcasses with explosives", part of the USDA Forest
Services'"Recreation Engineering Tech Tips" series (Jan. 95,
publication #9523-2315-MTDC, Missoula, Montana office). I'm assured by
a reliable source that this is not a joke, and the explanation does
indeed sound reasonable. Thus, I'm casting no aspersions on the
authors in this posting... no matter how strange the topic may seem.
Apparently, when a large wild animal such as a horse dies near a
camping or hiking area (hence, the "recreation engineering" category),
it attracts bears and other large and dangerous scavengers. Since this
is not safe for the touristas, you've got to dispose of the dearly
departed quickly, It's not generally possible to pack out 1000 kg of
ripe horsemeat, so the proposed solution appears to be to blast the
corpse into its component atoms. The aforementioned Tech Tip explains
how to do so in some detail.
The punchline is that blasting is a dangerous activity, thus the
authors needed to point this out and warn you about certain
precautions. Hence, the following warning: "Horseshoes should be
removed to minimize dangerous flying debris." Uggh! And you thought
you had it tough trying to warn computer users away from electrocuting
themselves while installing upgrade cards!
For the editorial mind, there's also some interesting choice of
language, such as: "Most large animal carcasses can be adequately
disbursed with 20 pounds explosives." Treat a delicate subject
delicately, I always say.
--Geoff Hart #8^{)} <-- still a bit wide-eyed
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: These comments are my own and don't represent the opinions of
the Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada.
