There I was, standing face to face with the bobtailed lynx. It was looking right at me and licking its chops with delight. It seemed as if the beast was thinking “Lunch” on this cold, gray December day, but I wasn’t worried about being attacked. The reason for this was the fact that this was a domestic lynx that just happened to be on the other side of a stout metal cage, so there was no chance of the lynx getting a hold of me.
At one time, the lynx lived all the way along the Continental Divide clear up into Canada. Now, after being gone from Colorado for 25 years, the animal has been reintroduced into the lower tip of the lynx’s historic habitat, the San Juan Mountains (Rogers). So far, out of 33 lynx that are being tracked, all of them are roaming in 276 square kilometers of the southwestern portion of Colorado that runs from the New Mexico border up to the I-70 corridor and from Monarch Pass over to Taylor Mesa (Shenk). In an attempt to find out how the animals, which look like bobcats with black tufts on their ears and huge paws, act in nature, scientists are tracking them with radio collars and airplanes (Lloyd).
Now, just a couple of years later, the Colorado Division of Wildlife is planning to release over 180 more lynx into the Colorado wilderness within the next five years. However, out of nearly 100 Canadian Lynx that have already been released so far, about half of them have died and none of them have reproduced. With the type of results that the process has received so far, the agencies involved in the reintroduction process should stop reintroducing the lynx into Colorado. Instead, they should try to find a way different way that will get results that save the species. The government agencies that are involved in reintroducing the lynx argue that it should be done in order to save an endangered species. In this argument they bring out three strong points for trying to save the lynx: every animal should have the opportunity to exist, many people feel happy when they see the animals they share the land with and all living things are part of a complex ecosystem (“Wildlife Commission . . .”). However, they aren’t sure how to reintroduce the lynx so that they don’t all die.
Death in Venice Essay: Love for Tadzio or Venice?
Aschenbach: In love with Tadzio, or Venice?
Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice presents an artist with a fascination for beauty that overpowers all of his senses. Aschenbach’s attraction to Tadzio can be viewed as a symbol for his love for the city of Venice. The city, however, is also filled with corruption, and it is this corruptive element that kills him.
Aschenbach first exhibits his love for Venice when he feels that he must go to “one of the gay world’s playgrounds in the lovely south”(6). The south, to him, means something new and exciting. He has lived a structured life in Germany, filled with order and precision. He feels the need to move, to experience new and different aspects of life; since for Aschenbach, “there is no doubt that the south will bring him the fulfillment of his wish for self-release”(Jonas 35). Upon his arrival, Aschenbach immediately “drinks in the fabulous beauty” of the city. He notices a distinct difference between this foreign land and his homeland, for Venice is filled with antiquity and classical beauty. Aschenbach’s love for the city is already app…
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…captivated by it. He is so enthralled, that he does not realize the problems with the Italian city. Whether Mann is actually attacking Venice or Italy for the corruption of its beauty is a possibility, but not very important here. What is most important is to realize that Mann is discussing an infatuation with beauty in general, not an infatuation with a boy. Aschenbach does not die because of Tadzio, he dies because of what the boy represents. The novella is titled so for a reason; it is a Death in Venice, or rather a “Death Because of Venice”.