Bear hunt underway casts a pall over other animal news

                                                    APLNJ/Bear Group pic

As I write, and probably also as you read, New Jersey black bears are being killed by trophy hunters, many from out of state.  (Yes, we’re still at crisis level in this pandemic, but hey, that shouldn’t stop hunters from flocking here to kill bears, now should it?) 

The second part of this year’s bear hunt began this morning, Monday, Dec. 7, and it will run through Saturday, Dec. 12, with a possible 4-day extension Dec. 16-19. 

Bear hunters must be accommodated. 

The Animal Protection League of NJ plans protests and daily vigils, with the latest information at https://www.facebook.com/AnimalProtectionLeagueNhhtJ. Contact Doreen.Frega@aplnj.org with questions about vigil times. 

The black cloud of the bear hunt hangs heavy over any other animal news there might be.  So I’ll open with the best thing I’ve heard lately, about an Asian elephant named Kaavan.  Long described as “the loneliest elephant in the world” -- elephants are highly social, family-oriented beings, remember – he lived alone for years in a “decrepit” zoo in Pakistan. 

Then, thanks to pop star Cher, her charity and other animal rights groups, Kaavan was flown to a conservation park in Cambodia, where he’s temporarily quarantined before exploring his new habitat, which includes three other elephants. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/05/942214125/he-will-be-a-happier-

                     Asian elephants                                 Wikipedia pic

elephant-vet-describes-what-it-was-like-to-rescue-kaavan 

Scorpions, anyone?  

My last post in October, a lengthy poem, (https://1moreonce.blogspot.com/2020/10/evolution.html) included an image of a scorpion, and the more I looked at it, the more it looked like a lobster to me. This, despite the significant differences between the two animals, starting with size. 

Later checking out the similarity, I learned the two are related.  Both have pincers and are part of the same group (Phylum Anthropoda).  However, scorpions are even more closely related to spiders (Class Arachnida), and unlike insects which have 6 legs, both scorpions and spiders have 8 legs. 

Fierce hunters, scorpions prefer their own species after insects; the link below contains an un-appetizing description of “sticky stew,” or what happens when a scorpion meets up with a cricket. https://askabiologist.asu.edu/scorpion-anatomy#:~:text=Anatomy%20of%20a%20Scorpion,part%20of%20the%20Phylum%20Arthropoda. 

Ahhh, dogs!

From the most grizzled oldster to “Teddy,” the 8-week old Lab puppy I met this morning, dogs are undeniably lovable and unarguably the best friends of many humans.  They also have great sniffers, which accounts for their behavior on walks when often their heads are not up, but down, to pick up scents their people could never detect. 

That’s because “a dog’s sense of smell is estimated to be 10,000 to 100,000 times better than that of a human.” (Humbling, isn’t it?) They have 300 million olfactory receptors to our 6 (measly) million of them. That difference is like “detecting one teaspoon of sugar in enough water to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools.” 

Little wonder dogs love “sniff walks” for learning so much about the world around them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/dog-love-working-home/2020/10/30/75adc50e-1895-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html 

“Cat Camp” 

Its name alone sounds like a good place to be: "Cat Camp."  And last weekend, it was.  I learned about it late but still got in on a session about older cats that offered excellent, helpful info. Jackson Galaxy (of “My Cat from Hell” fame) headlined the event, joined by a number of cat and kitten specialists. 

I’ll share what I got from Cat Camp next time here, when I hope to have found links too.  For now, this was one major point made and stressed: The goal with older cats is not merely their surviving, but their living a vital life.   And the person-cat relationship must be kept vital if the cat will have a vital life.

Think about that . . . .

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