Showing posts with label urban wildlife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label urban wildlife. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Wednesday Jukebox: Beyond Thunderdome Edition
This is the infamous Packard Plant in Detroit.
It closed the year after I was born, 1958.
Some whacko just bought the ruins for $6 million.
Is this a great country, or what?
(h/t to Nancy Nall for the stories and links)
Monday, February 04, 2013
Where the Wild Things Aren't
Speaking of wilderness, and since the small predators that live among us are on my mind (Little Cat has been doing nastily worse over the past week) I note in passing the summary of this "research" that appeared in the N.Y. Times:
While the Fire Direction Center has housed two of these fearsome predators for over ten years and as such has seen tangible proof of the moggies' ability to take various furred and feathered prey, I'm still not sure that I buy this story of the domestic cat as Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.
For one thing, it goes a long way towards absolving us hairless monkeys for all the other things we do that are tremendously effective in destroying wild animals. As Erik Loomis notes; humans in general are the single worst thing for wildlife on the living Earth. "Worse than land mines, worse than nuclear meltdown."
Perhaps the single greatest "story" of the last 200 years of life on Earth has been the emergence of humans as something beyond the global apex predator. Cats, dogs, tigers, sharks...all have to do their killing retail. We can literally reshape the earth. We level mountains, fill in canyons, we seem to be changing the global climate.
I'm not trying to argue against the conclusion that people need to neuter their pets, need to stop dumping them into fields and streets, should really keep them inside, or not keep them at all if "inside" is just too damn small for an animal to live comfortably (or if they are simply left outside in a yard bored out of their doggie skulls.
What I am saying is that the Great American Public - 95% of Joe and Molly Lunchpail (rising to 99.8% if they have any sort of Tea Party membership card somewhere on their person or a Romney sticker on their car) - is dumber than a goddamn stump about scientific facts in general, and this sort of "reporting" does them no favors.
Remember this when your Uncle Alex, the teabagging appliance salesman, tells you for the zillionteenth time how Global Warming isn't the problem, feral cats are the problem.
"...the domestic cat as one of the single greatest human-linked threats to wildlife in the nation. More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons, collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other so-called anthropogenic causes."(Cautionary note: the full article is likely behind the NYT paywall...)
While the Fire Direction Center has housed two of these fearsome predators for over ten years and as such has seen tangible proof of the moggies' ability to take various furred and feathered prey, I'm still not sure that I buy this story of the domestic cat as Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.
For one thing, it goes a long way towards absolving us hairless monkeys for all the other things we do that are tremendously effective in destroying wild animals. As Erik Loomis notes; humans in general are the single worst thing for wildlife on the living Earth. "Worse than land mines, worse than nuclear meltdown."
Perhaps the single greatest "story" of the last 200 years of life on Earth has been the emergence of humans as something beyond the global apex predator. Cats, dogs, tigers, sharks...all have to do their killing retail. We can literally reshape the earth. We level mountains, fill in canyons, we seem to be changing the global climate.
I'm not trying to argue against the conclusion that people need to neuter their pets, need to stop dumping them into fields and streets, should really keep them inside, or not keep them at all if "inside" is just too damn small for an animal to live comfortably (or if they are simply left outside in a yard bored out of their doggie skulls.
What I am saying is that the Great American Public - 95% of Joe and Molly Lunchpail (rising to 99.8% if they have any sort of Tea Party membership card somewhere on their person or a Romney sticker on their car) - is dumber than a goddamn stump about scientific facts in general, and this sort of "reporting" does them no favors.
Remember this when your Uncle Alex, the teabagging appliance salesman, tells you for the zillionteenth time how Global Warming isn't the problem, feral cats are the problem.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
No Monterey this year.
Until their Parks people get the whole raccoon shit thing under control.
I mean, there you are strolling in the park, they're lying right there like little chocolate Easter eggs right in the grass, how could you NOT just pop one in your mouth?
They're like candy.
(h/t to the Comics Curmudgeon)
I mean, there you are strolling in the park, they're lying right there like little chocolate Easter eggs right in the grass, how could you NOT just pop one in your mouth? They're like candy.
(h/t to the Comics Curmudgeon)
Monday, August 10, 2009
Counting Crows
Those of you who've followed this blog for a while know that I enjoy birds and watching birds. And you might remember that of the birds, perhaps my favorites are the clever members of the corvid species; the crows, jays and ravens.
These guys are the Cantonese of the bird world - smart, aggressive, adaptable and ubiquitous. And now a young woman from Seattle named Lyanda Haupt has written a new book about them and their success in a human-dominated world.
"Crow Planet" is her personal observations of the corvids, and especially the more human-adapted species of corvids such as the American Crow of her home town.
I haven't yet read her work, but the reviewers suggest that she covers some informative and entertaining ground, including her own personal observations of the crows of West Seattle. Her blog, "The Tangled Nest" includes her ruminations on the birds as well as recipes, urban gardening tips and an embarassment of other notions. Lyanda seems to be a very Northwest sort of Hip Urban Mama, full of crunchy granola wisdom and jam cooking hints. The reveiwers also noted that the reach of her prose seems to exceed her grasp, for the same reasons - which is not by any means a reason to avoid her work.
In a lot of ways people are very crow: we tend to be fascinated by cheap and glittery objects, we take what we want rather than just what we need, and we tend to hold our grudges long after they benefit us. So I'd recommend her new book to anyone looking for an insight in both crows, and people.
These guys are the Cantonese of the bird world - smart, aggressive, adaptable and ubiquitous. And now a young woman from Seattle named Lyanda Haupt has written a new book about them and their success in a human-dominated world.
"Crow Planet" is her personal observations of the corvids, and especially the more human-adapted species of corvids such as the American Crow of her home town.
I haven't yet read her work, but the reviewers suggest that she covers some informative and entertaining ground, including her own personal observations of the crows of West Seattle. Her blog, "The Tangled Nest" includes her ruminations on the birds as well as recipes, urban gardening tips and an embarassment of other notions. Lyanda seems to be a very Northwest sort of Hip Urban Mama, full of crunchy granola wisdom and jam cooking hints. The reveiwers also noted that the reach of her prose seems to exceed her grasp, for the same reasons - which is not by any means a reason to avoid her work.
In a lot of ways people are very crow: we tend to be fascinated by cheap and glittery objects, we take what we want rather than just what we need, and we tend to hold our grudges long after they benefit us. So I'd recommend her new book to anyone looking for an insight in both crows, and people.
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