Of monarchs, people feeding animals & a unique farm

Will 30,000 milkweed plants make enough of a difference for the sinking numbers of monarch butterflies who overwinter in California?  Will that targeted number of vital milkweeds all be planted by people who care about butterflies?  (Nearly 500 types of insects also count on the milkweed’s sap, leaves and flowers for nourishment.)

The monarch population has dropped 99% since the 1980s: fewer than 2,000 of them were counted this year, down from 1.2 million in 1997.  Although threatened with extinction, monarchs aren’t federally protected because other species have been seen as higher priorities.  https://tinyurl.com/3hjsujwc

Meanwhile, “East Coast monarchs” are also in big trouble: their winter refuge in high-altitude forests on Mexico’s mountain sides is being destroyed by  “deforestation” – with the trees they rest in being cut down.  That thins out their protection from winter storms, orioles and other predators.    

Together with a reduced supply of milkweed along their travel route and drought caused by climate change, monarchs are in trouble.  Plus, they can’t indefinitely keep moving up Mexico’s mountains!   https://tinyurl.com/yrwr2szy

Human intervention – to plant milkweeds and halt deforestation – could make a difference for them.  If it happens.  

(The tall “swamp milkweed” in my yard has been good for monarchs before, so I’m eager to witness this year’s cycle underway.)

Why do we feed animals?

“We fed and feed cats both tame and feral, sharks, alligators, deer, hedgehogs, bears, pigeons of all sorts, ducks, swans, zoo animals, lab animals, pets, farm animals and more.”

For centuries, humans have fed birds, beasts and other fauna.  Why?

Did they do it to encourage animal domestication?  Or, although domestication usually comes first, to eat them?  (And BTW, the article mentions an ominous connection between domestication and extinction – think: aurochs disappearing, then cattle appearing.)

Is the reason for feeding animals largely practical (you can’t ride a starving horse) or is it “unrelated to any return or investment”? 

Five British researchers have embarked on a four-year study designed to answer some of the questions about humans feeding animals.  For instance, why do cats eat fish?  (Did religion have anything to do with it?)

The study will focus mainly on the “roles played by birds and cats in human life, as pets, pests, wild animals and zoo animals.”  Analysis of isotopes in ancient and modern animal bones will play a big part.      https://tinyurl.com/23fjfrdx

A farm like no other

This NYTimes headline alone should get your attention, as it got mine: “On this farm, cows don’t have to make milk.  Pigs sleep in.”  

Double WOW!  It sounds like hard-earned heaven on earth for animals, which is exactly the case at one former dairy farm in Germany.  There, cattle, pigs, a few horses, chickens, geese and rescue dogs all “co-exist as equals with Hof Butenland’s human residents and workers.” 

The dairy farmer quit that business because he could no longer stand the “brutality” behind dairy cows’ milk production.  Over time, with a like-minded partner, he adopted total egalitarianism for all species living at the farm.

Now, “no animal is there to serve a human need.”  They do what they want, when they want at Hof Butenland, described as an animal retirement home and animal sanctuary.

“If we want to save this planet, then we have to stop using and consuming animals,” co-owner Jan Gerdes says, well aware of how industrial farms contribute greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.  

His partner, Karin Muck, recalls her time in solitary confinement for trying to free lab animals years ago and describes both settings this way: “You don’t see the sun, you are separated from your friends, you have no idea what is going on around you and you have no control over your own life.”   https://tinyurl.com/3bp5eecw

 

Dairy cow & calf -- unusual and idyllic life together 

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