How Deadly is a Dying Animal? Carnage in Iran Can’t Stop the Inevitable

Photograph Source: Mehr News Agency – CC BY 4.0

When I was small my mother warned me never to approach a sick animal. The dying ones, she said, are the deadliest of all.

That hasn’t been my experience; most of the dying creatures I’ve encountered just want a quiet place to pass their final hours. The source of my mother’s anxiety was closer to home than she had yet to recognize, but her fear was palpable. She was haunted by the vision of her curly-haired child falling prey to some sickly...