3 weeks ago
It appears that innocence leads to wisdom. I just wanted to share one of those gems from my all-time favourite comic strip, Mutts. This was one of the days when it hit the nail on the head with such poignancy and truth that I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.
Livestock kills are an oft-cited excuse for the execution of our aforementioned plantary co-habitors, the grey wolves. Of course, it only takes a little time observing or learning about wild canines versus domestic ones to realize something doesn't quite add up. Everything about a wolf in relation to human presence is aloof, secretive, held separate, always choosing to retreat into the soft quiet of a wood or mountain over the noisy vibration of domesticated areas. Something in our gut shakes its head with the knowledge that only a desperate wolf would choose our altered space over his natural one.
Well, it looks like there's a new show in town: CSI:Pastureland. A new paper from Sweden published in the journal Conservation Genetics shows that the scapegoat should really be called the "scapedog." Using DNA from saliva recovered from the bite wounds on sheep, scientists were able to conclusively determine that the murder was executed in the pasture with the fangs by Professor Fido. That's right, a domestic dog. Previously, wolves had been blamed for these kills. Despite the genetic similarities between dogs and wolves, DNA tests are still able to differentiate and finger the guilty party. Hopefully, inspectors worldwide can begin to set things to right and clear the murky reputation that has unfairly settled about the thick fur of the grey wolf. No more taking the fall for Feral Fluffy. Perhaps this will also bring more attention the problem of abandoned and unsupervised dogs...
Wander and hope, my friends!
Well, it looks like there's a new show in town: CSI:Pastureland. A new paper from Sweden published in the journal Conservation Genetics shows that the scapegoat should really be called the "scapedog." Using DNA from saliva recovered from the bite wounds on sheep, scientists were able to conclusively determine that the murder was executed in the pasture with the fangs by Professor Fido. That's right, a domestic dog. Previously, wolves had been blamed for these kills. Despite the genetic similarities between dogs and wolves, DNA tests are still able to differentiate and finger the guilty party. Hopefully, inspectors worldwide can begin to set things to right and clear the murky reputation that has unfairly settled about the thick fur of the grey wolf. No more taking the fall for Feral Fluffy. Perhaps this will also bring more attention the problem of abandoned and unsupervised dogs...Wander and hope, my friends!
So I'm sitting at a public hearing last night about updates to wildlife regulations. I learned that now we are instituting a permit system for allowing people to kill species listed as Species of Concern (one notch below Threatened) if they are "depredating" (read: eating landscaping, etc) your property. You could already kill them anyway, but a permit system will allow for tracking of who's massacring what. It was explained that this regulation was designed especially for people who are having "elk problems" in the mountains (elk are currently a species of concern here).
WTF???!!!!!
If you don't like elk wandering into your yard, DON'T LIVE IN THE BLOODY MOUNTAINS. Stay in your damn suburb. And don't tell me you have to move there because of a job, because there are no jobs up there. Don't build your stupid McMansion in the woods and then start whining because the animals that live there happen to wander through and munch on the tasty buffet of plants you had your landscaper put out.
These people want to live in places that are "scenic." So they buy part of a mountain, build some ridiculous house, go up there for a couple weekends out of the year. But all that wildlife and dirt and quiet and darkness and disorder is just way too damn far outside of their comfort zone and they want it to look like their little manicured, sterile yards in the subdivision. So they expect us to let them kill the elk, introduce invasive plants, install 50 "security lights," cut down the trees to improve their view, build and pave roads, and erect police stations, fire houses, hospitals, Starbucks, and a Target for their convenience and comfort. Well, congratulations, you just turned your scenic mountainside into the ugly suburban hell you came from. And in the process, killed or drove out all the nature that you supposedly came up there for.
So do us all a favour: if you want to live somewhere with the above list of amenities, don't come to our wild places and expect us to domesticate them for you. For five seconds, experience a moment outside of your egocentric world and leave a place or two for the wildlife because they have nowhere else to go. You are welcome to come and visit and take pictures.
WTF???!!!!!
If you don't like elk wandering into your yard, DON'T LIVE IN THE BLOODY MOUNTAINS. Stay in your damn suburb. And don't tell me you have to move there because of a job, because there are no jobs up there. Don't build your stupid McMansion in the woods and then start whining because the animals that live there happen to wander through and munch on the tasty buffet of plants you had your landscaper put out.
These people want to live in places that are "scenic." So they buy part of a mountain, build some ridiculous house, go up there for a couple weekends out of the year. But all that wildlife and dirt and quiet and darkness and disorder is just way too damn far outside of their comfort zone and they want it to look like their little manicured, sterile yards in the subdivision. So they expect us to let them kill the elk, introduce invasive plants, install 50 "security lights," cut down the trees to improve their view, build and pave roads, and erect police stations, fire houses, hospitals, Starbucks, and a Target for their convenience and comfort. Well, congratulations, you just turned your scenic mountainside into the ugly suburban hell you came from. And in the process, killed or drove out all the nature that you supposedly came up there for.
So do us all a favour: if you want to live somewhere with the above list of amenities, don't come to our wild places and expect us to domesticate them for you. For five seconds, experience a moment outside of your egocentric world and leave a place or two for the wildlife because they have nowhere else to go. You are welcome to come and visit and take pictures.
Yes, I have found her at last, quite possibly the coolest woman alive. Ok, I say this a little tongue in cheek (why is that word so hard to spell, I always want to type "cheeck", it just seems like there SHOULD be a "c" there, but I digress..) but mostly seriously. Her name is Anne LaBastille and I am reading "Woodswoman", the first of her books about her life after her early divorce.
This chick decided to heck with it all, she was going to follow what she loved and build a log cabin in the woods on a lake. So she up and buys 22 acres in the Adirondacks (this was in the mid-60's I believe) and proceeds to construct her little kingdom. She literally goes to the sawmill, buys 20-something huge aspen logs, grabs a couple guys to bring a generator and some tools to the property so they can frame the building, floats the logs up the lake, and proceeds to build her cabin. With an axe. She then lives there with her boat, and eventually a German Shepherd named Pitzi. She is bloody awesome.
No, she does not become angry spinster woman, for all of you who might want to shove her into that peg the world makes for women who get fed up with some dumbass guy's crap and decide that surrounding oneself with beauty and animals is a better option. She entertains regular visitors, does biological field work in South America, completes a degree in wildlife ecology (no easy feat, I can tell you that!), works as a consultant and writer, and becomes certified as an Adirondack guide.
It's like a drink of fresh, cold water, to hear the voice of a strong, intelligent woman who took the lemons of divorce and made an incredible, life-filling lemonade that she enjoys with every fiber of her being. She has that ability which I constantly seek, to be fully connected to the forest and its life all around her, yet fully engaged in the outside world. Her cabin remains both her sanctuary of retreat and her platform from which to launch herself to wherever her eyes are set.
Yeah, I freaking love her.
This chick decided to heck with it all, she was going to follow what she loved and build a log cabin in the woods on a lake. So she up and buys 22 acres in the Adirondacks (this was in the mid-60's I believe) and proceeds to construct her little kingdom. She literally goes to the sawmill, buys 20-something huge aspen logs, grabs a couple guys to bring a generator and some tools to the property so they can frame the building, floats the logs up the lake, and proceeds to build her cabin. With an axe. She then lives there with her boat, and eventually a German Shepherd named Pitzi. She is bloody awesome.
No, she does not become angry spinster woman, for all of you who might want to shove her into that peg the world makes for women who get fed up with some dumbass guy's crap and decide that surrounding oneself with beauty and animals is a better option. She entertains regular visitors, does biological field work in South America, completes a degree in wildlife ecology (no easy feat, I can tell you that!), works as a consultant and writer, and becomes certified as an Adirondack guide.
It's like a drink of fresh, cold water, to hear the voice of a strong, intelligent woman who took the lemons of divorce and made an incredible, life-filling lemonade that she enjoys with every fiber of her being. She has that ability which I constantly seek, to be fully connected to the forest and its life all around her, yet fully engaged in the outside world. Her cabin remains both her sanctuary of retreat and her platform from which to launch herself to wherever her eyes are set.
Yeah, I freaking love her.
Just a quick note of good tidings! Barack Obama has put a freeze on all last-minute Bush decisions, or crimes, as the case may be. This includes the delisting of grey wolf populations that I wrote about a couple entries ago.
So clap your paws, wanderers -- they're not relisted yet, but we are moving back in the right direction!
So clap your paws, wanderers -- they're not relisted yet, but we are moving back in the right direction!
Eating fish guilt-free is about as easy as putting a six-legged cat in a bucket of water. And if you think that doesn't sound so hard, try it when the cat has been first rolled in crisco...
Why such a challenge? As of today, we have managed to pretty much fish out most of the world's oceans and fresh waters. Approximately 90% of edible sized fish in the ocean have already been caught and killed. The few that remain have the unlucky assignment of finding each other (puts a cruel twist on that old saying "there are other fish in the sea") and making lots and lots of young 'uns so we can eat them too. So each one that we consume has a risk of being a critical individual with the potential for breeding and keeping the species alive. Some species teeter far too close to the brink, such as orange roughy and Patagonian tootfish (the latter you may know as Chilean sea bass, euphemistically renamed by restaurateurs to increase sales).
If we should happen to go ahead and gulp down the rest of those very important mothers-to-be (can we help it if they taste like heaven when they are battered and fried??), not only will the local fire department fish fry be a bygone, but economy chunks worldwide that depend on commercial and recreational fishing (exports alone account for about US$71.5 BILLION in 2004 -- for comparison, the US exports about $3 billion and imports $12 billion) would collapse.
On top of the damage done by simply directly overfishing species by taking out too many animals or removing them before they have a chance to reproduce, we also endorse rapacious damage to worldwide habitats by the methods used to collect and/or grow seafood. Take shrimp for example: if you eat shrimp that come from Asia, it was grown on a shrimp farm that was constructed by destroying native mangrove forests, which was once nursery habitat to other aquatic life and feeding grounds for birds, mammals, and other fish. If, on the other hand, you chant "Go USA!" while downing shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, you are eating animals collected with the extremely destructive process of bottom trawling, which tears up vital bottom habitat on which the health of the entire gulf depends (we'll save the benthic ecology lesson for another day).
Above is a satellite image of trails left on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico by trawling vessels....seen from space.
So, now you are quivering in the corner, afraid to even cast an ashamed glance at the fish counter in the supermarket despite your mother's insistence that you must eat seafood to fully develop your brain!! Not wanting to live as a mentally stunted adult, you desperately seek a solution -- but now, you may halt your quest for I have the grail you seek (but I want.........a shrubbery! *I couldn't stop myself*)!
Pick up your cell phone and send a text message to 30644. All you have to type is the word "fish" and then the species you want information about, say "eel." In a few moments, you will receive a message back telling you the conservation status of this species and the probability that you can sleep guilt-free after eating this particular animal (if whomever you have bought it from has it labeled correctly -- BUT another discussion for another day!). RED means don't buy, YELLOW means proceed with caution and probably best to give it a miss, GREEN means ok. Messages have NO additional charge on top of your cell phone plan.
For example, I can text "fish eel" before I order my favourite sushi. I promptly learn that eel has a "RED" status and is high on the list of heavily impacted species. Despite its tastiness, I should give it a miss so I do not assist in pushing this species closer to the brink of extinction.
Some species have different categories depending on where they are from. If you type in "fish shrimp" for example, you will receive three different ratings, one each for imported shrimp (RED), gulf of mexico shrimp (YELLOW), and northern/pink/farmed/Canadian shrimp (GREEN).
So, let your fingers wander -- no longer must you dine and shop uninformed! And as a result, Happy Shrimp is happy (this is actually the logo for a eco-friendly shrimp farming venture in the Netherlands)!
Why such a challenge? As of today, we have managed to pretty much fish out most of the world's oceans and fresh waters. Approximately 90% of edible sized fish in the ocean have already been caught and killed. The few that remain have the unlucky assignment of finding each other (puts a cruel twist on that old saying "there are other fish in the sea") and making lots and lots of young 'uns so we can eat them too. So each one that we consume has a risk of being a critical individual with the potential for breeding and keeping the species alive. Some species teeter far too close to the brink, such as orange roughy and Patagonian tootfish (the latter you may know as Chilean sea bass, euphemistically renamed by restaurateurs to increase sales).If we should happen to go ahead and gulp down the rest of those very important mothers-to-be (can we help it if they taste like heaven when they are battered and fried??), not only will the local fire department fish fry be a bygone, but economy chunks worldwide that depend on commercial and recreational fishing (exports alone account for about US$71.5 BILLION in 2004 -- for comparison, the US exports about $3 billion and imports $12 billion) would collapse.
On top of the damage done by simply directly overfishing species by taking out too many animals or removing them before they have a chance to reproduce, we also endorse rapacious damage to worldwide habitats by the methods used to collect and/or grow seafood. Take shrimp for example: if you eat shrimp that come from Asia, it was grown on a shrimp farm that was constructed by destroying native mangrove forests, which was once nursery habitat to other aquatic life and feeding grounds for birds, mammals, and other fish. If, on the other hand, you chant "Go USA!" while downing shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, you are eating animals collected with the extremely destructive process of bottom trawling, which tears up vital bottom habitat on which the health of the entire gulf depends (we'll save the benthic ecology lesson for another day).
Above is a satellite image of trails left on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico by trawling vessels....seen from space.
So, now you are quivering in the corner, afraid to even cast an ashamed glance at the fish counter in the supermarket despite your mother's insistence that you must eat seafood to fully develop your brain!! Not wanting to live as a mentally stunted adult, you desperately seek a solution -- but now, you may halt your quest for I have the grail you seek (but I want.........a shrubbery! *I couldn't stop myself*)!
Pick up your cell phone and send a text message to 30644. All you have to type is the word "fish" and then the species you want information about, say "eel." In a few moments, you will receive a message back telling you the conservation status of this species and the probability that you can sleep guilt-free after eating this particular animal (if whomever you have bought it from has it labeled correctly -- BUT another discussion for another day!). RED means don't buy, YELLOW means proceed with caution and probably best to give it a miss, GREEN means ok. Messages have NO additional charge on top of your cell phone plan.
For example, I can text "fish eel" before I order my favourite sushi. I promptly learn that eel has a "RED" status and is high on the list of heavily impacted species. Despite its tastiness, I should give it a miss so I do not assist in pushing this species closer to the brink of extinction.
Some species have different categories depending on where they are from. If you type in "fish shrimp" for example, you will receive three different ratings, one each for imported shrimp (RED), gulf of mexico shrimp (YELLOW), and northern/pink/farmed/Canadian shrimp (GREEN).
So, let your fingers wander -- no longer must you dine and shop uninformed! And as a result, Happy Shrimp is happy (this is actually the logo for a eco-friendly shrimp farming venture in the Netherlands)!
A new administration is inaugurated tomorrow and we can only hope they will begin to reverse the trends that have ravaged not only the US but the world over the last eight years. Today is a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Join Defenders of Wildlife in making it a day of service to honor the right to life unhindered for ALL living things:
Take action for wildlife now.
May every species have a chance to wander where they belong...
Take action for wildlife now.
May every species have a chance to wander where they belong...
