First there was the pack of squirrels that attacked and killed a dog in Russia. Now there's a group of "urban" raccoons taking out house cats in Olympia, WA. Apparently they even managed to carry off a small dog, although it survived the encounter.
What's next? Serpents that infest a jet airliner and viciously attack the passengers with poison fangs? (Woops, didn't mean to spoil any movie plots ...)
In other news, a Celebrity Cruises ship arrived in Seward, Alaska, last weekend with a dead humpback whale pinned to the bow.
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kmp Posted 7:19 am
22 Aug 2006
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caniscandida Posted 4:22 pm
22 Aug 2006
Racoons are always likely to scuffle with cats and dogs. Skunks too. But squirrels??
Well, who knows. Maybe underestimating squirrels has all along been a serious error. After all, countless engineer-hours have been expended on designing a squirrel-proof bird feeder, no?
Consider in this connexion "Jurassic Park," and that English, ex-East-African, game-keeper, the most grave part of whose job was to mind the velociraptors -- you remember, his first words in the movie were at the very beginning: "Shoot her! Shoot her!"; and his last remark, "Clever girl!," is a gem of irony -- , describing the intelligence of the 'raptors, and the way they occasionally throw things at the electrified perimeter fence, fixes Laura Dern with a laser-bright-blue eye, and utters, through twisted lips, "They are testing us ... They remember!"
To say nothing of "The Birds." Yes, that will be the next step: crows coordinating to carry off kindergarteners; in normally peaceful fishing villages, flocks of seagulls corraling terrified nannies pushing perambulators down off of seaside promenades onto jagged-rocky breakwaters; and so forth.
On "Snakes on a Plane": I would say this is a disgraceful inflammation of totally irrational ophidiophobia, save that that is not really the worst threat to snakes and other reptiles. Much worse is the collection of reptiles, especially exotic and endangered ones, by people who like them -- or believe they do -- , and the not altogether up-and-up international business that their unethical acquisitional projects support.
On the unfortunate whale hanging off the Alaskan cruise-ship bow (if that is indeed its flipper protruding upward in the photo in the newspaper, then almost surely it is a small or medium-sized humpback): It would surprise me very much if this whale died as a result of a collision with that ship, having been healthy and alert beforehand. Certainly there are plenty of records of collisions between cetaceans and various watercraft, and indeed propeller-caused wounds on dorsal fins and elsewhere can be used to identify individuals. But I would not think many of these collisions are fatal.
But then again, what do I know? What does any of us know? Presumably not all carcasses of run-over cetaceans are cooperative enough to stay fixed to the killer-ship's bow.
The Alaskans can do whatever they like regarding Celebrity Cruises and their ilk. Certainly they have never in the past, or only rarely, paid any attention to the opinions of people who think like me (rarely: the history of aerial wolf-slaughtering has gone up and down, hasn't it, but at least for a while it went up). But I do indeed believe they should make regulation of boating, and its impact on marine wildlife, in coastal waters, a high priority.
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epersonae Posted 4:44 am
24 Aug 2006
Although...on our side of town there were recently problems with stray pitbulls killing cats....
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caniscandida Posted 6:33 am
24 Aug 2006
From what I have read, those cat-killing raccoons were/are all in a pretty small area. This really should be studied professionally, as an example of culture: obviously a couple of the raccoons came up with the idea that they could gang up on a cat; the idea worked, and took off, at least among the raccoons in the local club.
Why, though? Were they eating these cats? Is dining on cat a sign of intelligence? To say nothing of tastefulness.
My theory is, they made an alliance with the birds. Birds have a very serious reason for disliking cats on the loose, notorious bird-murderers, though the cats' shmarmy owners have no problem with letting Fluffy run free. "Born free! As free as the wind blows! As free as the grass grows ... " Right. Play it all you want, just keep your cat indoors.
And remember what happened to Joy Adamson. (Or was it George? Or was it both of them, at different times?)
On pit bulls, vs. the Ancient Enemy: That is not surprising at all. ("Ancient Enemy," a supposed translation of the Navajo noun "Anasazi," is the term by which my husband is wickedly insisting that Fiordiligi, our Little White Dog, learn to refer to cats. In fact, LWD has been friendly and curious about the two or three cats that she ever met.) (It is the grown-ups who are responsible for the prejudices of our young ones.)
I am not engaged in the issue, on one side or the other, of whether pit bulls should be a strictly regulated breed, or not. But local law enforcement rightly need to increase their vigilance, when pit bulls are present. When I am walking Fiordiligi, and she wants to say hello to another dog, I let her approach cautiously, to see if they will be friendly. But if the other dog is a pit bull, I pull her away, and sing, "Keep On Walking."
Now, on the other hand, I firmly disapprove of dogs-on-the-loose. Cats-on-the-loose is bad news for birds. But dogs-on-the-loose is bad news for all sorts of critters, up to and including people.
Including wolves too. In the northern Rockies, where wolves have been reintroduced, ranchers have lost a very very small percentage of their livestock to canid predators. So a number of them like to complain about the new wolves. In fact, the culprits are most likely, sometimes coyotes, but most of the time big dogs off the leash.
Cats and Dogs should not be allowed out! The wise raccoons of Seattle are teaching us a lesson.
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