Looking ahead: same content, new station

 

Looking ahead: same content, new station

 

Hi and (sort of) goodbye, everyone. This note will be the last post about animals to appear here – but it will continue from a different site and with a different name.

Why?

Well, since this blog started last December and we’ve published a dozen posts, it occurred to us that there’s an easier way to do this, requiring less time and fewer people.  So I’ve continued blogging at a different site – one where you can also subscribe to receive every post.

The new blog is AnimalBeat II, and its name echoes that of a blog I wrote awhile ago: same purpose, same blogger. You can reach it via 1moreonce.blogspot.com. And if you wish to avoid ever typing that address again, just subscribe when you get there.

As was true before, I once again would like to thank Angi Metler, APLNJ executive director, and Janine Motta, programs director with APLNJ, for their unstinting help and understanding.

Hoping we meet again at AB II!

--Pat Summers

 

Return to our website for details
on what we’re all about “for the animals.”

The 'beat' goes on

 Welcome, new friends and readers. And welcome back, friends and readers from my earlier blogs – most recently, the one appearing on the website of the Animal Protection League of NJ (aplnj.org/blog).

Last year, after long and proud affiliation with APLNJ, I proposed writing a blog about animals that would be accessible via the organization’s website. 

A dozen posts later, it seemed desirable to streamline the system, which has involved two of us besides the web developer. I had produced my first blog (AnimalBeat, 2009-2012) by myself, so why not do the same now, I thought – and save taking up the time of another very busy APL person to publish it. 

And so, here’s AnimalBeat II, with a title still suggesting my total focus: animals! It comes to you via APLNJ, as a kind of extra, complementing the animal advocacy that APL is all about.  It’s the best of both worlds, as I see it. Now, Angi Metler, the organization's co-founder and executive director, can attend to the myriad other things she handles, without having to work in time to work on publishing my blog!

Here goes  . . .     

Domesticated and wild animals have experienced numerous changes for the better since I began writing about Kingdom Animalia. A post eight years ago railed against the circus, with its captive involuntary animal performers, coming to Trenton. And today, Ringling Bros. is almost out of business!  But there’s still plenty to do on behalf of animals.

Humans still kill elephants for their tusks and rhinos for their horns; regard feral, or community, cats (a human-caused phenomenon) as deserving of death; think some animals exist to test human drugs on; trophy-hunt wild animals in sanctuaries and black bears in NJ; breed and raise animals only to slaughter and eat them. In short, they still subscribe to an archaic and self-serving belief that humans have dominion over all the animals on earth.

   

As just the latest infuriating example of that attitude, some people still say, “What can be more fun than to spend an afternoon shooting the little rodents?” That’s what a Montana office seeker said recently of his plan to take Donald Trump Jr. hunting prairie dogs when he visited.

  

. . . as the black bears emerge

Hibernation: For winter-weary humans, it’s an appealing idea. Even for those who’d love to sleep in every morning when they must get up, hibernation sounds like nirvana. Bears are among the animals (including raccoons, woodchucks, chipmunks and hedgehogs) who actually get to hibernate.

Here in New Jersey, we’re forced to focus most on our black bears during the abhorrent “bear-hunt season” that our current governor has made a routine fall-winter trophy event. (Here’s to imminent political change!)  Right now, though, we’re in the middle of a happier season for bears: spring, when they come out of hibernation and slowly build back up.

Conserving energy while their food supply was limited, bears have slept for months without eating, drinking, urinating, defecating or exercising. They emerge from their dens in April, in what’s been called “walking hibernation” – lethargic, not traveling far or eating much. Their metabolism gradually returns to normal as habitats start greening up and new grass, herbs and leaves promote slow weight gains.

   

June’s the month when bears seriously start fattening up for winter, even as they seek out females without cubs because it’s also mating season. And so the cycle begins again.

Till next time. . . !

Focus on foxes: it started right here

 

Focus on foxes: it started right here

It began with APLNJ’s original blog motif -- the beautiful fox in snow.  Whenever I saw it, I thought about foxes I have known. “Seen” would be the better word, since I’ve never been closer to one than from the car window to the side of the road, where I’ve watched occasional foxes moving along.  They were smaller than expected, coppery and thoroughly self-possessed.

More recently, a friend mentioned a fox family near a wooded area in her backyard: a mother fox and three pups.  Not to disturb them, she wisely watches them with binoculars, agreeing that the kits do look more like puppies than foxes at that stage of their lives.   https://www.thedodo.com/fox-cubs-mistaken-puppies-2359418877.html    

This double take on foxes reminded me of Pax, a wonderful children’s novel for all ages by Sara Pennypacker that I read last year.  Pax is a young fox rescued by a boy, Peter.  They are virtually inseparable – until the boy’s father makes him abandon the fox.  The rest of the book, alternating viewpoints of fox and boy, describes what they each do next and what they learn.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/books/review/pax-by-sara-pennypacker.html?_r=0

All this fox-talk prompted me to check into foxes -- including those in New Jersey.

To begin with, male foxes are known as dogs (or pups), tods or reynards; females, as vixens; and young, as cubs, pups or kits.  A group of foxes is known as a skulk, leash or earth.  And it figures that baby foxes look like puppies since foxes are members of the Canidae biological family that also includes domestic dogs, wolves, jackals and coyotes.

The three wild species in the family who live in New Jersey are the coyote, the gray fox (with the unique ability to climb trees) and the red fox, the one most common here.  Foxes resemble small dogs with bushy tails, and weigh anywhere from 6.5 to 15 pounds.  Though they’re generally not dangerous to humans, small domestic animals and livestock can be at risk. 

People described as “foxy” may be sly, cunning, crafty, wily (think La Fontaine’s fable about the crow and the fox) -- and/or attractive or sexually appealing.  

In New Jersey, both gray and red foxes are classified by the Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) as “game species and are considered valuable furbearers and have both hunting and trapping seasons.” http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/speciesinfo_fox.htm

APLNJ reports that last season, over 3,000 foxes were killed by firearms alone during the 185-day season, which also includes coyotes.  Lucky foxes: all of 180 days left free from being targets.  (Scroll down the link below and try to visualize the variety and numbers of animals killed here in one year by “sportsmen.”)   http://www.aplnj.org/assets/pdf/DFW_Killing_Summary_2015-2016_LOCKED.pdf

The Undeniable Pressure of Existence 

  by Patricia Fragnoli   

I saw the fox running by the side of the road
past the turned-away brick faces of the condominiums
past the Citco gas station with its line of cars and trucks
and he ran, limping, gaunt, matted dull haired
past Jim's Pizza, past the Wash-O-Mat,
past the Thai Garden, his sides heaving like bellows
and he kept running to where the interstate
crossed the state road and he reached it and he ran on
under the underpass and beyond it past the perfect
rows of split-levels, their identical driveways
their brookless and forestless yards,
and from my moving car, I watched him,
helpless to do anything to help him, certain he was beyond
any aid, any desire to save him, and he ran loping on,
far out of his element, sick, panting, starving,
his eyes fixed on some point ahead of him,
some possible salvation
in all this hopelessness, that only he could see.

# 

 --Pat Summers

4-17-17

 

 

                                                               

Selected short (animal-related) subjects

 

Selected short (animal-related) subjects

 

Haven’t you been wondering . . .

. . . what’s “shark finning” all about?

You're swimming along in the ocean, minding your own business, when suddenly your arms and legs are cut off.  Without means of propulsion, you sink to the bottom, dying a painful death by suffocation, blood loss and attacks by other species.

Millions of sharks are experiencing this horrific fate all over the world, once their fins – the functional equivalent of human limbs – are sliced off and they’re thrown back into the sea, to die.  Why?  So humans can eat shark fin soup.

What a sinfully trivial reason for killing a sentient being – and one so key to ocean ecosystems.  But finally, counter actions are underway to stop shark finning. When Air China announced its  “No Shark Fin” carriage policy in January, the claim was “We were one of the first airlines in China to raise the awareness of the unsustainability of the global shark trade.” 

“Unsustainability” was the best reason they could come up with? Not "unconscionable cruelty"?

Anyway, by prohibiting sale or possession of shark fins, New Jersey will do its bit if A3945/S2044 is passed. https://www.thedodo.com/shark-fin-soup-2338113590.html

 . . . why does horse “soring” continue? 

A couple posts back (“Feds block . . . “), I referred to continuation of “cruel horse soring” because of recent government action.  But first, what is “soring”? It’s “a cruel and inhumane practice used to accentuate a horse’s gait . . . by irritating or blistering a horse’s forelegs with chemical irritants . . . or mechanical devices.”  Here’s what it looks like: https://www.thedodo.com/tennessee-walking-horses-soring-abuse-2306089500.html

Almost no sooner had the USDA finalized a rule to end soring (slated for publication in the Federal Register) in early January, than the Trump White House decreed that all unpublished rules should be sent back to the relevant agency for review. So now it’s questionable whether soring will be banned in the foreseeable future.  https://www.americanfarriers.com/articles/8946-trump-administration-withdraws-horse-protection-changes

. . . what’s a great “cat fix”?

If you can’t get enough of cats, the 80 enchanting minutes of Kedi, a documentary about cats in Istanbul, will bliss you out: so many cats, of all kinds, most all of them loved and cared for as important, respectable beings by (their fellow!) city residents.  Cats walk along sidewalks looking just as entitled as the people they mingle with; they go about their lives matter-of-factly, having families to feed; squabbling over territory or mates; being petted and having adventures. 

Kedi’s filming is spectacular, and its narration and interviews are studded with philosophy and quotable quotes about cats and people.  I’ll paraphrase an idea I personally have found to be all-too-true: Those who don’t love animals can’t love people either.

See it, rent it, beg or borrow it – but don’t miss Kedi.                                  

http://www.vox.com/2017/2/11/14582684/kedi-review-cat-documentary

. . . about those tree-leaf balls?

Quick!  Before spring buds open into tree leaves and hide them, take another look at those bunches of autumn leaves you noticed in neighborhood trees last winter. They’re probably squirrel nests, or “dreys” – much more than “bunches of leaves.” 

In fact, they’re made of layers of different materials: live green twigs to moss and damp leaves, then protective twigs and vines, with a “mortar” of more material filled in to strengthen them.  This careful animal architecture helps explain why it’s uncommon for the nests to fall apart or allow baby squirrels to fall out.         https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/science/squirrels-nests.html?emc=eta1

. . . how to identify Tim Eustace (D-38)?

The last post mentioned two state assemblymen recognized at Humane Lobby Day, but didn’t include a photo of Rep. Tim Eustace.  Here it is now, with some by-play that occurred when Eustace arrived for the presentation.  The then-speaker said she was happy to be “trumped” at the microphone by the legislator.  Eustace suggested “bumped” as an alternate word, adding, “We have to be ‘the wall’ to protect this state from the legislation coming from Washington.”  (Hear, hear!)

 

--Pat Summers 

Return to our website for details

on what we’re all about “for the animals"