Grain Silos vs. African Wild Dogs - Which Is Nature's Most Ruthless Hunter?
I was tasked with writing an article in the "Cracked.com" style, indistinguishable from one that might be carried on their website.
I may have an odd clientele.
...Cracked is actually pretty good though.
This is a repost from my archive of "articles that made less than 6 cents."
Oddly enough, I am intimately familiar with grain elevators and grain silos from my time spent trading commodities. Hedgers use them to buy and store grain when it's cheaper, selling it when it is more expensive, which drops the price back down. This is an example of how healthy "speculation" can benefit markets overall.
However, it was until catching up on some old episodes of the Showtime series Dexter that I was reminded they could also be an implement of terrifying destruction.
Grain entrapment occurs when a loose area of grain or void breaks loose, pulling a worker in. Even with no machinery running, this is a very dangerous situation, but often there is a maw of doom at the bottom grinding or sieving the grain on its way out. Frequently, these accidents occur when blockages appear during unloading and someone attempts to break them free, and that means machinery is often running.
With a devastatingly high kill percentage of 45%, 42% of which is attributed to corn (coincidence?), Grain Silos have a number of more pedestrian, man-made terrors beaten handily, such as:
- All airplane crashes: ~4.3% fatality rate
- "Devastating" airplane crashes only: ~24% fatality rate
- All car crashes: ~ .5% (one half of one percent)
- Shark Attacks: ~20%
Even if you combine those percentages, the Grain Silo is still more ruthless!
Clearly, dethroning the Grain Silo will require the help of mother nature. Unfortuantely even lions only have about an 18% success rate by day, and Tigers observed in captive preserves only between 5-10%. However, there is one un-sung hero of the prowl we can turn to, the African Wild Dog.
African Wild Dogs run down over 85% of the prey they chase, the highest percentage I'm aware for any hunter. Unfortunately, due to their relatively small size, they often lose up to half of that prey to other predators and scavengers. This puts them in a dead heat with the cold, calculating Grain Silo again.
If you work on or around a farm, or just visit, be extremely careful about giant piles of anything. As we learned in Jurassic Park, even larger, more benign piles are best avoided.
If you have any additions or errata for this post, please let me know! I will see that they are voted to the top of the comments, and will make the appropriate edits (if possible).
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Sources: OSHA.gov, NLM, NIH, Wikipedia
Copyright: Dexter, Jurassic Park
I appreciate the use of humor while covering a difficult subject. Not so easy to pull off. As an ex machinery mover, I can report that the dangers of silos are real. It makes you appreciate closed containment guidelines. No experience with African wild dogs thank goodness.
I was not expecting to get first-hand silo-experience in the comments. Thank you for chiming in!
"No experience with African wild dogs thank goodness."
Yeah, tend to only be a problem in...Africa.
This is fascinating. Who knew there was so much "death by grain"? Athough I would have liked to have seen you include some of these statistics in your list, as presented by renowned scholar Kim Kardashian.
Also is my favourite line:
Apparently, "not-caring" may be a sub-optimal response to "Jimmy cracking corn". 😭
Jeez, who knew Lawnmowers were more than doubling the score count of Lightning.
Lightning had better up its game.
I'm more interested in these people that have died falling out of bed!
must be all the old ppl lex and i have in fl. breakin hips
Corn not only kills directly, but through her insatiable demand of petrol fertilizers, kills indirectly. Increasing arable land mass are dedicated to corn cultivation, followed by soy beans. Much of carbon in US residents' DNA can be traced back to corn. Corn not only has enslaved humanity, but demands annual blood sacrifices as well!
Wow, now you're getting too real even for this grim topic!
Interesting article, one of many "bad ways to go" in the case of the grain Silo. The African dogs look dangerous but maybe if you give them a good fight, you might get away with it.
They came up in a search for nature's most efficient pack hunters. I guess they've managed to learn a few new tricks.
Oh shit, that's a sad death lol.
Hmm I don't remember that scene where someone died in a grain silo.
Well - I have learnt something today that I certainly didn't expect to ever know - and that is always a good thing!!
Cheers
Hm... I want to know more about these clients!
Hmm. I'm not sure if I can divulge my sources...
Here's another type of big steeming (not the good kind) pile to avoid.
Appropriated from your earlier post Here ;-)
He's getting grosser by the minute.
You know, comparing this photo with the one in your post from Jurassic Park, I may go read through the credits to see if Michael Moore did, in fact have a cameo in the movie.
I think I can make out his face, or is that his ass? They're so difficult to tell apart, shit comes out of both.
haha apparently next time i'm seeing a real life Grain silo, not that i've seen one before, i'm gona be running away like crazy!
Oh yea I forgot to mention. Silos can fall over and catch a fire too.
what the hell have i just read?
I like it. Just the right ratio of gruesome and factual.