I live in a Southern California community on the edge of some undeveloped land and not too far away from the Cleveland National Forest. In the 17 years I've lived here there has been one mountain lion attack near an adjacent community when a bicyclist was riding through another park on a bike trail where several mountain lion signs had been posted. My recollection is that the animal was eventually tracked down and killed. It used to be the policy that when you purchased a home in the area you signed an acknowledgement that you knew you were going to live in mountain lion territory and to be watchful of your family and your pets. I can't understand people who choose to hike along back trails alone. Much wiser to hike with several people and maybe a large dog or two for added protection. Should we kill predators that have attacked humans? Yes. Should we indiscriminately attack all predators to somehow make the point that we are the rightful top of the food chain? Ludicrous. Should we be smarter about how we venture out into the wilder areas around our communities? Definitely.

Consulting The Book of Armaments...I believe it's Chapter 2, Verses 9-21...

And don't forget killer bunnies. They have big, pointy nasty teeth. Run away! Run away!

Speaking of cute...snakes can be adorable as this Onion video shows...but extra care needs to be given to keep them as pets.

Small animals and occasionally large will always be alligator prey. Gators don't "learn" otherwise. You could I suppose set up an alligator training school. A life-sized doll replicating a little boy or girl is placed in front of the snout of a gator and then the trainer could swat its every time it lunges for the doll? "No...no...no...don't do it...Bad alligator! Bad!" Might have to go through several trainers. Any volunteers?

Can the gators be trained to caddy? They ought to know something by now on how to properly strike the ball and chip up to the greens. I think there's a helluva golf joke here just dying to get out.

Oh, I see. If you cull the boldest and stupidest sharks from the greater population of sharks you get smarter and more fearful sharks who know to avoid humans and places where humans scuba dive and swim. Good luck with that. You do realize that Finding Nemo was not a documentary, yes?

Sharks and crocks don't convene meetings and discuss whether humans are exacting more retribution upon them, do they? I think you may be giving them more credit for rational thought than they are capable of. Let's face it, in certain environs, humans are prey and ought to be conscious of that and take the necessary safeguards to protect themselves. Exacting justice on sharks for the sin of one shark is a pretty damn silly notion. 

In Alaska you are required to carry a rifle in most parks to protect yourself against bear attacks. Maybe surfers should practice surfing with shotguns.

Rachel - Yeah, I don't think I'm missing the Big Picture. I think I'm fairly steeped in it. At the moment, there is little to no evidence that something so complex is something other than the product of natural, mechanistic laws. One could even argue that inferring that a deity created something so complex isn't even logical but rather wrapped up and entangled in the vestiges of earlier mythologies. If one resists the "natural" urge to ascribe phenomena whether as massive and complex as the structure of the universe or the human brain or as superficial as it rained today because I prayed last night for it because my lawn is starting to turn brown -  to superstition and myth and instead attempted to explore the natural mechanisms at work in the universe, then one might truly get a deeper understanding of the Big Picture. It does take a commitment to challenge one's preconceived notions and that can be incredibly difficult for some.

I'm not talking about evil. I'm talking about intelligence or the lack thereof within the apparent design of nature.

The evolution of the laryngeal nerve in mammals is an indication that that the designs in nature can sometimes be less "intelligent" than "naturally" supposed as shown here.

Of course there are other "natural human responses" that articulate that the designs are sometimes not so terribly beautiful but rather quite flawed and imperfect. If one is predisposed to think that a deity can do no wrong then that deity's creations and the mechanisms that he employs to create those creations must also be perfect. For all the gushing about how wonderfully intricate and amazing the human eye is, it is in fact a flawed and imperfect mechanism. There is both a literal and religious blind spot to overcome. 

Works for me. Even if it does look like a promo for Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungun. 

There's a good probability that billions of planets in the universe harbor life...which is routinely destroyed. There is a possibility that another asteroid will destroy all life on Earth at some point in the future. That could or could not be a designer's purpose. If one believes that it could be then it would be interesting to explore the thinking behind that proposition.

Rachel, Permit me to clarify. The universe does appear to exhibit structure and design but that doesn't necessarily mean that there is a designer, a supreme omniscient, omnipotent consciousness behind it all. 

Natural selection was offered up as merely an explanation to account for very apparent physiological similarities between and among different species. It suggested that there was an underlying mechanism at work as a causal agent much later identified as genetics and the workings of the DNA molecule. It's as ordered as it is occasionally error laden resulting in mutations, deformities and the still born. Is it purposive? Perhaps so, but not the concern of most practicing scientists who only wish to know how the mechanisms work and sometimes fail. The universe itself is predominantly lifeless , grim and full of doom for stars, planets and galaxies that routinely get torn apart. Don't have to be a evolutionary biologist, an actor playing a superhero, a Norse deity or a rocket scientist to acknowledge that.