Critters in the News

A number of interesting critter-related stories in the news this past week.  Perhaps most interesting is the story in the Science section of the St. Paddy's day New York Times discussing a new study on the genome of man's best friend.  It seems that the Middle East is not only the source of much of the world's mayhem, violence, religion and petroleum; but also the "first association between wolves and hunter gatherers some 20,000 years ago."  Wolves, as it turns out, were homo sapiens' first garbage collectors - the Waste Management Corporation of our nomadic ancestors - and "began following hunter-gatherer bands to feed on the wounded prey, carcasses or other refuse."

And, according to Dr. Robert K. Wayne of UCLA, when humans settled down to grow groceries 15,000 or so years ago humans

began intervening in the breeding patterns of their camp followers, turning them into the first proto-dogs. One of the features they selected was small size, continuing the downsizing of the wolf body plan. “I think a long history such as that would explain how a large carnivore, which can eat you, eventually became stably incorporated in human society,” 

Fascinating.

There were also a couple of Woodland Park Zoo stories in the Seattle Times - the first announcing that the meerkats - given the bum's rush 10 years ago to make way for a Komodo dragon exhibit - are returning and will get new digs.  I really like meerkats but am a little concerned to hear that they are going to have to share their new exhibit with a bunch of low-lifes including Rodrigues fruit bats, the springhaas, the two-toed sloth and the semi-arboreal tamanduas.

And in today's paper the sad story of the passing of Gertrude...the 47 year old matriarch of the Woodland Park hippo exhibit.  Gertie suffered from a number of age related maladies including osteoarthritis.  R.I.P. Gertie.   

Meanwhile here on the home front, wildlife has been mighty scarce this spring.  Very few tweety birds.  No deer and no bear (yet).  My assumption is that the winter was so mild that all hands have been able to find plenty to eat in the deep woods -  no need to stoop to hanging-out with people.

Last week I emptied the seeds in my bird feeder in back of the house.  Did not want Yogi foraging on my deck...  I haven't seen a single bird eating the seeds; but yesterday a red squirrel finally tumbled to the free lunch.

A red squirrel helps his or her self to birdseed behind my apartment

Finally, a contribution from sharp-eyed Dougie who spotted a story at Military.com titled "Could Airborne Bears Catch Bin Laden?  http://www.military.com/news/article/could-airborne-bears-catch-bin-laden.html

The Department of Defense has a "suggestion box" which unsurprisingly receives some pretty interesting stuff including the aforementioned para-bears.

"Overnight, Parachute some bears into areas [bin Laden] might be," the innovator wrote. "Attempt to train bears to take off parachutes after landing, or use parachutes that self-destruct after landing."

The bears-in-the-air idea, and scores of others, came from people who clicked on the "contact us" button on the Defense Department's Web site, which allows the general public to ask questions or make suggestions.

...

Another correspondent asked for help with some personal issues.

"I still have people torturing my pelvis and lungs with dispersed sound waves and my eye and stomach, hip, pelvic region with other types of sound waves," the person wrote. "When the secret service came out they had a letter all prepared by my mother to force me on disability and not let me live with her and try to leave me penniless and homeless again."

Have a great weekend everybody...