Bugs, birds, new ‘real’ chicken & tourist-scofflaws

Summer night, alight

Earlier this month, I realized I didn’t see a single firefly during June (and still not yet, nearly August). Will I ever see them again?  Are those softly glowing beetles also known as lightning bugs vanishing or not? 

The quick, if not definitive answer, is no!  A recent media story and an online program were both reassuring about these bioluminescent creatures who flash to communicate among themselves and to find mates.

OK, bugs: show yourselves!

Another beetle, btw, is given credit for pollinating big-leaf magnolias, an ancient deciduous North American tree that evolved some 95 million years ago, long before bees even existed!  Its flowers are the largest in the US.

Spoiler jays & birdbaths

Bully in birdbath

Which leads up the range of creature sizes to birds, where there’s good news and bad news.  The bad news, which won’t surprise the most casual bird watcher: local blue jays – as in my back yard where 2 suet cages were still maintained -- spoiled snack possibilities for all the other area birds. 

After a few days of hearing and seeing the jays’ bullying, I took both cages down.  Bagged in plastic, they’re secreted in my freezer to try again (when blue jays are on vacation?).

On to the good news.  It’s all about birdbaths and it’s greatly helpful.  Just plunking a birdbath outside somewhere and assuming birds will come is not enough.  The article linked below recommends a concrete birdbath, possibly tiered, with rocks in it, and with fresh water at least every day – and of course the story includes excellent reasons for these moves.

That’s not all.  Since finding clean, fresh water keeps getting harder for birds (and other wildlife), multiple birdbaths of varying heights could become vital resources for them.  As would “hydration stations” for pollinators like bees and wasps, and even for squirrels and chipmunks. 

Possibly best of all: the story’s delightful videos of birds (delightedly) bathing!      https://tinyurl.com/56ed5m48

Chickens, rejoice!

Now moving up the “size line” to chickens, how would you like a chicken sandwich?  A “cell-cultivated chicken” sandwich, that is – also known as “cultured meat” or “lab-grown meat.”

Which all means that this meat doesn’t come from slaughtered animals!  And as the AP story says, such lab-grown meat “aims at eliminating harm to animals and drastically reducing the environmental impacts of grazing, growing feed for animals and animal waste.”  The potential for good, in so many ways, is simply colossal!

Worth stressing: this “new” chicken is meat, not substitutes like plant-based “meats.”  Even better: companies all over the world are focusing on meat from carefully selected animal cells, including pork, lamb, fish and beef. 

The “lab-grown meat” movement will have to start small.  Right now, “cultured meat” is very expensive to make and because of limited production, will be served only in exclusive restaurants at first.  Consumers will probably wait years before seeing it more widely available.  

But, at a time when the HSUS recently reported that “More animals than ever before—92.2 billion—are used and killed each year for food,” something wonderful is starting to happen for animals: the hideous, inhumane and soon unnecessary factory farms and animal slaughter will finally end. 

Troublesome tourists

Bison

“People who approach wild animals aren’t brave; they are deluded.”  Yesterday’s Washington Post story excoriated tourists involved with more and more inappropriate and unsafe contacts with wild animals.  With such actions, they risk their own lives and those of the animals involved.  

Tourists offer spurious reasons for flouting rules and endangering animals they should only observe and appreciate . . . from a safe distance.  When people take chances and ignore rules, too often the animals pay for humans' idiocy. 

In its second part of “How to be a humane traveler for animals,” the HSUS addresses the same issues.  Effectively, we hope!     https://tinyurl.com/7fjd2ma3

Family resemblance

And on a happier note, here’s a family reunion complete with a beautiful group picture.   https://tinyurl.com/3u9d5jv4

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Myriad city 'feral' cats, bird competition for suet, humane travel

A big-city issue?  A job for countless volunteers?  A crazy cat lady’s dream?  A huge caring-challenge? 

It’s all of the above -- and much more!  It’s an estimated 500,000 (a half-million!) feral cats in New York City: homeless and hungry.  Not owned by or living with people, these street cats fend for themselves in all weather and for all food, water and doctoring they may get.  It’s a hard life for them, and a much shorter one than domesticated cats usually experience.

Where did they all come from?  Why this seeming explosion in feral cat colonies? Likely causes include (1) people adopted them during covid, then couldn’t keep them; (2) besides a veterinarian shortage, fees of those still in business have climbed; (3) once evictions resumed, economic help petered out too – a painful double whammy.

Nor will "birders," one group firmly against outdoor cats, help.  And the city of New York just isn’t deeply involved with the cats or their numbers so little is expected  there either.  Even though some areas can boast dedicated colony-caretakers who feed and watch out for the cats, there are only so many of them and they can do only so much. 

However, as the media story reports, one group has adopted “a somewhat radical idea” first developed in England in the 1950s to deal with a feral cat problem: T. N. R., or Trap, Neuter, Return.  That revelation won’t come as news to numerous New Jersey cat advocates, already practicing – and preaching – TNR.

To them, TNR is the way to steadily decrease outdoor feline numbers by sterilizing feral cats and returning them to their colonies.  Fewer fertile felines means fewer kittens growing up to produce still more cats.  

Note: Many of New York’s “feral cats” don’t fit the literal description [“in a wild state, undomesticated, unused to humans. . .”].  They may have been abandoned by their human“owners” or carelessly “backyard-bred” by humans, then left on their own.  For such reasons, the growing preference – at least in this central NJ area – is to describe “ferals” as “community” cats and hope their communities will take  responsibility for them.)  

https://tinyurl.com/4w4kw4va

The only bird feeder in town?

I’ve heard about smaller birds “mobbing” bigger ones in air, aiming to drive them away – and I recently witnessed “mobbing” at the bird feeder in my yard.  Maybe it’s the most convenient food source, or the only one around, since opinions vary about feeding birds beyond their major time of need: winter.  

So now, birds queue up on the nearby arbor, fence or other perches on the feeder itself.  Then they demonstrate great acrobatic skills to reach parts of the two suet cages hanging there: upside-down woodpeckers snacking at the bottom of one and myriad others twirling on different sides of the other.  As the crowd grows, avian rumbles look possible and intimidating blue jays zoom back and forth. 

Wanted: Humane travelers

Are you a “humane traveler”?  Close encounters of the animal kind, and photo ops with animals are two summer/vacation bad deeds to avoid.  Animals involved with people in these circumstances can experience chronic stress and fear – while the people, often unsafe, can be hurt.

Sure, big-cat cub petting is now illegal (in the US, that is), but now other animals are getting the same treatment – after being captured in the wild and taken from their parents too young, or bred in captivity for petting and photo purposes.

Plus, as we had long read about baby elephants in circuses, and as still happens to Asian elephants so people can ride or bathe them, their spirits are broken to prepare them for their degrading lives-to-come.

https://tinyurl.com/mr2hjzxu 

Tiny animals living peaceful lives also need travelers to look out for them.  Think about seashells, which are often habitats for sea creatures.  Beachcombers are urged to follow these guidelines from the NJ Sea Grant Consortium: Be sure that any shell you want to take with you has no living (or dead)

creature still inside.  Foul smells give away dead creatures you don’t want to take home.  

Take only a couple specimens with you, leaving most shells for ecosystem use. Then, next time at the beach, recycle earlier beachcombing souvenirs.

 

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