Of horse horrors, outdoor cats, squirrels en masse & spring storms

Besides shipping horses abroad for slaughter – which has happened since 2007, when that heinous practice ended in the US -- this subject can also include the slaughter of horses in the horserace world.  Long before triple crown races began this spring, race horses have died in training at tracks, for causes often claimed to be unknown.

Then, during races, or shortly after, horses are injured, die and are put down right on the track.  And this is called a “sport”!

Killing horses for meat is “the final betrayal of their connection” with people – as companions, faithful steeds at stables, competitors or working horses -- as the HSUS puts it.   (photo below: horses in export van) 

                                                                                                      HSUS pic

Happily for horses, new legislation has been reintroduced in the House of Representatives:  the SAFE (Save America's Forgotten Equines) Act (H. R. 3475).  This bill would permanently ban the domestic slaughter of American horses and their export for that purpose. 

Please: contact your representative(s) to request support for this crucial bill!  https://tinyurl.com/7hnvcmrn

Needy cat or not?

A timely question during kitten season: Does that outdoor cat need to be rescued?  The answer, no longer, is an automatic “yes.”   In a guest blog post for the HSUS, its senior analyst for cat protection and policy writes well and convincingly about “How can I help this cat?” 

                                                      HSUS pic

Bringing a cat inside may not be the right thing to do because we understand much more these days about cats and their behaviors.  After the practice of keeping cats indoors became widespread, seeing a cat outdoors often leads to a well-intentioned impulse to bring that cat in or take her/him to a shelter.

Don’t automatically do that!  For the “why-not,” please read what Danielle Bays has to say:    https://tinyurl.com/3mwp2e9m   

Squazillion squirrels

Try to imagine stepping out your front door into a ground cover of gray squirrels, visible as far as the eye could see. 

In 1842, and then a few more times since then, an amateur naturalist saw just that sight: “thousands of squirrels scurrying across the landscape in an unbroken wave.”  They were Eastern gray squirrels, moving in a roughly southeasterly direction, usually in autumn.

For reasons only guessed at even now, they went through forests into prairies, through cornfields like locusts and through water – crossing the Ohio, Niagara and Mississippi Rivers -- like “great furry armadas.”  (What an image!)

Later, an analyst quantified the total number in squirrel mass movements as 30 thousand per mile, concluding these waves could have included more than 400 million squirrels.      https://tinyurl.com/2p844k27 

Remember it now?

Finally, approaching hot, dry (maybe!) summer, we’ve almost forgotten this year’s wild, wet spring.  But nearly a century ago, a poet described it.  Beautifully.

from “The Land”

by Vita Sackville-West

That was a spring of storms. They prowled the night;

Low level lightning flickered in the east

Continuous. The white pear-blossom gleamed

Motionless in the flashes; birds were still;

Darkness and silence knotted to suspense,

Riven by the premonitory glint

Of skulking storm, a giant that whirled a sword

Over the low horizon, and with tread

Earth-shaking ever threatened his approach,

But to delay his terror kept afar,

And held earth stayed in waiting like a beast

Bowed to receive a blow. But when he strode

Down from his throne of hills upon the plain,

And broke his anger to a thousand shards

Over the prostrate fields, then leapt the earth

Proud to accept his challenge; drank his rain;

Under his sudden wind tossed wild her trees;

Opened her secret bosom to his shafts;

The great drops spattered; then above the house

Crashed thunder, and the little wainscot shook

And the green garden in the lightning lay.

                 (published in Poem-a-Day on 4-3-22, by the Academy of American Poets)

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