Goodbye, northern white rhinos; hello, Nosey’s Law

                                     Sudan                                        Nova pic 

This is, or rather, this was Sudan, a male northern white rhinoceros, who died on March 22.  At 45 years of age, Sudan was the last male white rhino alive.  He is survived by Najin, his daughter, and Fatu, his granddaughter.

Wild to begin with, Sudan died in captivity at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.  His rare and endangered status required him to live there for 24/7 protection from poachers, the infamous killers-for-profit of elephants and rhinos for their tusks or horns.

“Rhinoceros”: It’s a funny word that can be hard to spell, referring to a most unusual-looking, even prehistoric-seeming animal.  Once there were more than 30 species of rhino, today’s remaining five (in Africa and Asia) are all endangered.   

After the elephant, the white rhinoceros is the second largest land mammal in the world.  Of the two subspecies, northern and southern, the southern is larger, sometimes weighing over two tons and standing six feet tall.  In spite of their name, both black and white rhinos have gray skin.

False ideas about the medicinal value of their two horns -- made of keratin, like fingernail material -- attract poachers.  Together with war and habitat loss, they have accounted for the extinction of northern white rhinos in the wild.  In 1960 there were some 2,000 of them in east and central African grasslands; by 2008, there were none.  All that remained were zoo animals, including Sudan, captured in 1975.  

  

The Last Three

Around the time Sudan died, an imposing 17-foot tall sculpture was unveiled in NYC.  “The Last Three” represents Sudan and his family, the last surviving northern white rhinos.  In 2017, the sculpture team of Gillie and Marc had vowed to create a work in homage to the white rhinos they had seen at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, in Kenya.  It was installed at Astor Place in the East Village in mid-March this year, and just a few days later, Sudan died.  

And now there are two.  

https://gillieandmarc.com/shop/projects/goodbye-rhinos/ 

Symbolic rhinos

Decades ago, before their status became endangered, rhinos were ostensibly the subject of a Broadway play, Rhinoceros, starring Zero Mostel.  And what a play: timely then; timely now for sure.  

One by one, characters in the show turn into rhinoceroses. On stage, while their appearance stays the same, they become part of a conformist mass movement marked by “mob-think.”

One “Everyman” character looks on with horror as those around him turn into monsters. Although he begins to question himself, he ultimately decides to fight “rhinoceritis,” crying “I’m not capitulating!”

This 1959 “absurdist” play by Eugene Ionesco doesn’t seem at all absurd today, does it?

Here’s hoping for Nosey’s Law

Monday at noon, NJ Assembly members will vote on "Nosey's Law" (A1923), the bill that prevents circuses and traveling shows from using exotic species in this state.  Countless advocates and animal protection organizations hope for a decisive “YES” vote. Named for the African elephant who was abused for decades, Nosey was finally seized by authorities in Alabama and sent to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. There, despite fragile  health, she’s finally living in peace with other African elephants, free from exploitation.  (For Nosey's sad life history, visit http://savenoseynow.org/ )

The bill’s name may sound familiar because both the NJ Senate and Assembly passed it during the last legislative session, but Governor Chris Christie pocket-vetoed it.  Then in June ’18, the Senate voted unanimously for  S1093.  Assuming the Assembly passes the bill, it will land on Governor Phil Murphy’s desk for -- we hope -- signing into law: a boon for elephants, tigers, lions, bears, and other animals forced to perform in traveling circuses.

#

	If you would like to comment on this blog post, please go to 1moreonce.blogspot.com.

NAPs turn up everywhere -- at home & in the wild

The couple’s family consists of two cats and four dogs.  Some of these pets began as fosters, who stayed, and some have special needs.  All six are loving and loved. 

   

When two relatives visited for the first time, Uncle X said, “We’re not animal people, so would you mind putting your pets away?”

What would you say to that? 

No, I don’t know what was said, or done, in response to that request. I was speaking with a new acquaintance who had already wowed me with the story of her family. “Kim” is a health care professional, but much more important, she’s “an animal person.” And like me, she distrusts people who say or behave like not-animal people.  

Talking with Kim caused me to remember the NAPs (not-animal-people) in my life who inevitably disappointed me, or worse.  Compassion, kinship as living beings, appreciation of  beauty, respect for qualities. . .  It’s hard to understand how some human animals can lack such feelings toward (other) animals. They seem somehow incomplete.

Guard against NAPs!

When wrinkles are good

                                   Milinkovitch pic

African elephants of both sexes benefit from their wrinkles! As elephants age, their skin thickens and cracks.  But since they don’t sweat, those skin cracks retain 10 times more moisture than a flat surface, helping elephants to regulate body temperature, deter parasites and retain sun-blocking mud.

This info about keeping cool and staying healthy comes from Michel Milinkovitch, an evolutionary biologist, who used computer modeling and studied elephant skin samples to  reach these conclusions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/science/elephant-skin-cracks.html?em_pos=medium&emc=edit_sc_20181009&nl=science-times&nl_art=6&nlid=20760274emc%3Dedit_sc_20181009&ref=img&te=1

. . . and captivity is extra bad

Happy, a 47-year old Asian elephant, has lived alone in the Bronx Zoo for the last 12 years of her 40 year residency there.  Fighting within the captive population had led to their separation, causing Happy’s solitary existence -- painfully far from how wild elephants live.

To date, activists’ efforts have failed to move Happy to an elephant sanctuary where she can make new friends.  That may be so because their campaign has to do with “nonhuman rights” --granting the same legal protections as humans -- a cause that has not yet caught on in the courts.

 

Could Happy ultimately become happier if advocates simply claimed, and proved, inhumane treatment; if they showed that living alone in a zoo bears no resemblance to how an Asian elephant would live in the wild?  That seems like reason enough to me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/nyregion/bronx-zoo-elephant-lawsuit-happy.html

Never forget elephants

Tusk-free female                                       Adoo pic

Elephants worldwide are still in jeopardy.  Their tusks feed the unabated desire for ivory trinkets that are more valued than the lives of these iconic, intelligent, highly social creatures. There could yet come a time when elephants no longer live on this planet; isn’t that a fearful thought, especially if human greed and cruelty make it happen?

But as reported in a captivating story about them, some elephants have evolved into tusk-free animals.  If that were to happen widely and quickly enough, could it be an answer, if not the answer? Such an evolutionary change might save elephants. But should it happen that elephants become creatures without tusks?  

For me, anything Natalie Angier writes about is ultra-readable because of this journalist-artist’s diction and wit.  Here, she writes about elephants without tusks. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/science/tusks-teeth-elephants-genes.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_sc_20180911&nl=science-times&nlid=20760274edit_sc_20180911&ref=img&te=1

Animal holidays

Sorry not to have run this poster earlier, but it’s never too late to walk your dog or put your chubby pet on a diet or love up black dogs (and cats!) or salute the vet tech(s) in your life.  And please remember Halloween on October 31, another important date for animals: it’s a nasty trick to let them eat any “treats.”

#

If you would like to comment on this blog post, please go to 1moreonce.blogspot.com

Of dogs ancient & modern & a governor who broke his promise

“I knew I needed to help it. . . . I didn’t have anything to cut the line,

            so I used my teeth.” --a mailman who rescued a chipmunk

                                    trapped with wire netting wrapped tightly around his neck **

Today, at least for starters, we’re going to the dogs.  No, we won’t take on PetSmart for the numerous fatalities that have occurred after pets were groomed at various PS stores. That sad story calls for more investigation than I can do, and then, with luck, licensure laws for pet groomers and strict supervision and record-keeping in every store -- as well as caring pet parents who ask questions and make their presence felt.

No, this has to do with what I’ll call “native American dogs,” or canines who long inhabited the US, along with Native Americans.  Estimated to have been here for more than 10,000 years, those early dogs, already domesticated, were thought to have traveled here with people who crossed the Bering land bridge.

Then came the Europeans, bringing their own dogs.  And that was the beginning of the end of native American dogs, who left virtually no genetic trace of their existence in modern-day dogs.

Zeus

What happened to those ancient canines? Theories vary: eaten by starving colonists, who may also have killed them to keep their dogs’ bloodlines pure, or felled by infectious diseases -- which made big dents in human populations at the same time. 

In short, as a paper published in Science put it, the 15th century arrival of Europeans in the Americas “didn’t just affect the lives of humans already living here, it also took a devastating toll on their pets.”

I won’t excerpt from my second dog story, this one about Juliet, a beloved family dog.  Instead, I’ll just hope you “read it and weep” for all it says about love. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/well/family/dog-end-of-life-family-children-love.html

Murphy’s bear hunt

Despite protests, demonstrations, billboards and aerial messages, phone calls, letters and in-person appeals, Governor Phil Murphy allowed this week’s bear hunt to proceed.  And some hunters no doubt deem it a huge success: they got their trophies, even if those trophies were helpless bear cubs.

You read it right: killing bear cubs is part of New Jersey’s hunt, a shameful-but-legal activity unique only to this state and Alaska. 

“By failing to protect mother bears with cubs, and even permitting the hunting of black bear cubs themselves, the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife [DFW] has created an especially unethical, unsporting, unpopular and controversial policy,” according to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

This year’s bear hunt will resume for a week in December.  Thanks, Governor Murphy, for permitting a horrible, inhumane pursuit to continue.  At this point, our phone calls to the governor’s office (609-292-6000) should castigate him for allowing bear slaughter on top of reneging on his pledge to stop it!  And there's one more protest to come. . . . 

Well, it beats a peacock

 

Earlier this week in Florida, Frontier Airlines authorized police to remove a passenger with an “emotional support squirrel” when she refused to leave the plane. Although the woman had noted her plan to bring an emotional support animal aboard, squirrels and other rodents don’t qualify for the job, according to Frontier.  

Obviously, airline officials are unaware of the myriad Dodo stories about people who bond with squirrels, opening their hearts and homes to them.  And those of us who covertly feed (unsalted!) peanuts in shells to neighborhood squirrels know just where that woman was coming from.    

** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4J-1bMAASU&feature=youtu.be

#

If you would like to comment on this blog post, please go to 1moreonce.blogspot.com.  

True ‘entitlement’ = black bears living free from hunts

Talk about “entitlement”!  Currently all over the media, that word describes the attitude of an unmentionable judicial candidate and those like him, who expect certain (good) things to happen for them just because they’re who they are and from wherever they’re from. 

Phooey!  

Equally wrong is the “entitled” attitude of some hunters, who apparently believe they have the right to kill wildlife -- specifically, New Jersey’s black bears.

A hunter’s letter in last Friday’s Times of Trenton referred to “a very small minority of people” who pushed the governor to close public lands to bear hunters.  Correction: those who oppose bear hunts are a significant majority of NJ’s residents, while hunters, in fact, make up “a very small minority.” 

The letter writer also used the infamous euphemism “harvest” in referring to bears (including cubs and their mothers) who were slaughtered in the past.  Oh, please.  And she grossly exaggerated the safety “risks” of bears, while giving no credence at all to the potential success of using non-lethal means to manage the bear population.  (I say “potential” only because such tools as bear-proof trash cans have not been put into practice on any widespread basis).

Finally, she urged others like her to help “take back our right to hunt bear(sic) on public land.” 

                                                                            Bill Lea pic

Double Phooey! 

New Jersey's bear hunt has always been a trumped(oops)-up trophy hunt. This year, instead of ending the hunt altogether, as he promised to do during his run for governor, Gov. Murphy banned bear hunting on public land only.  His pandering cop-out was an attempt to satisfy both animal advocates and hunters, but obviously, it didn’t work.  Neither side is satisfied -- least of all, if they could vote, our black bears.

All of which is why the Bear Group (“NJ’s official bear protection organization”) of the Animal Protection League of NJ plans two protests this month:  (1) next Monday, October 8, 11 am-1 pm; and (2) the following Saturday, October 13, 11 am-1 pm at the Whittingham Wildlife Management Area, 150 Fredon Springdale Road, Fredon, New Jersey.

  

(For more info: 973-513-3219; info@savenjbears.com;facebook.com/SaveNJBears.)

It’s never too late to hope the governor will see the errors of his ways -- they’re all around him --  and extend his bear hunt ban to private land as well as public.  Our black bears deserve our pouring on the contacts and appeals in every way possible.  Please send your messages and come to the protests!

Call the Governor: 609-292-6000; Tweet: @GovMurphy #savenjbears

#

If you would like to comment on this blog post, please go to 1moreonce.blogspot.com.