Public Comment on Passage Peregrines

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting public comments on a draft environmental assessment for the taking of passage peregrine falcons (fledged juveniles on their first migration) for falconry. The comment period closes on 11 February, so there is still time to put your two cents in if you care to.

The issue is important to American falconers, although maybe less urgent to those my age and younger who have never had an opportunity to trap and fly wild peregrines. That opportunity skipped my generation, but there are many still in the sport who remember what fine birds these passage falcons can be.

My friend Jim Ince remembers them fondly, having flown the birds (decades ago, and usually briefly) at snipe and ducks across his native southeast Texas prairie. Jim says the passagers quicken the pace of a hunt, training fast and flying eagerly, and arriving already so competent at their game one has to work quick to serve them or else watch them speed away on their own pursuits.

You don't make a passage peregrine wait, he says.

American falconers have been waiting for the passage peregrine since the days of DDT and the bird's near disappearance. The story of the falcon's return is widely known and cited. But it is also equivocal in its particulars and in the attributions of blame or credit given. Depending on whom you ask, some peregrines were never in danger; others say whole populations went extinct. Who's to thank for the recovery? Everyone---the Service, the Congress, the falconers, the States, hundreds of biologists and thousands of concerned citizens.

Or maybe they would have recovered on their own.

The high note is that peregrines are back and almost common now. They're retaking old hunting grounds continent-wide and kicking prairie falcons out of their squatter's claims. I see them every year here in Baton Rouge, not just on passage in October but all winter along the levees and over my own hunting fields. One of them dumped a half-eaten coot in the middle of a local cow pasture last month, like manna from Heaven to my Harris hawk.

The North American Falconers Association represents the lion's half of the country's falconers. NAFA published its position (broadly supportive, of course, but with many specifics) and distributed that to its members. I am one. So are Steve and several others I know who visit this blog. My statement to the Service is less specific than my club's position; it's maybe a little bit lazy, even anti-intellectual. Certainly unscientific.

My feeling is that of course falconers will want access to as many peregrines as possible---the resource supports, by the Service's own figures, many more to be harvested than the Service proposes to allow. On the other hand, I think it's equally obvious that on principle or because of fear of (actually, the certainty of) lawsuits from various NGOs, the Service will not support so broad a harvest as the resource can sustain.

So it will come to a compromise, which I think is OK. I predict we'll see a limited, highly regulated take of passage peregrine falcons for falconry. I'll be glad for that. So that's what I said:

Dear Chief of Migratory Birds and Associated FWS Staff:

Many thanks to you and to all those who've worked hard to bring the prospect of a migrant peregrine take to the table. You have done so without the falconer's passion (though some among you were and are falconers) but rather on the strength of the best scientific understanding, and for this reason your effort is more sound and more worthwhile.

I support the sustainable harvest of passage peregrine falcons---from all populations available to US falconers---by way of a regulated permitting system for qualified applicants.

I have been a licensed US falconer for more than 20 years and have never flown a peregrine. For me, the bird has always been an icon of a past age and a vague dream of the future. Although I am unlikely to fly a peregrine (passage or otherwise) in the near term, several excellent falconers I know would love such an opportunity and would certainly make the most of it. It would be right and good for them to have that opportunity so long as the peregrine remains in sufficient numbers to allow it.

In short, I believe that all raptor species of sufficient population strength to sustain the (very gentle) harvest pressure applied by falconers should be available for take. In large, falconry is a wholesome and positive activity, one in which I am proud to partake and will be proud to teach to my children.

Your work on behalf of my sport and our (everyone's) shared resource is much appreciated. I leave the specifics of the passage peregrine harvest and its regulation to those better qualified to comment. Suffice it to say that it has my enthusiastic
support.

Send your official comment to: FalconryDEA@fws.gov, then post a copy here!

Parabuteo domesticus

How a Harris quenches his thirst after the hunt.

On The Farm

One of my favorite hawking spots is a neighbor's hayfield, which he saves for me as long as he can before cutting it or moving the cows in. I've been going there often and letting the hawk feed while there's still something left to eat.

Today, Jonathan Millican joined me and took some photos of the hunt. In this one the quarry has just put in and the hawk is closing. It's my favorite for the composition, even though Ernie missed this bird.

This one's for Heidi (note tractor in background...)

The Baywing in pursuit. He looks like a giant red-winged blackbird.

Flock Protectors

We have been talking a lot on our private lists lately about another loose group of working dogs now being minutely divided into "breeds", the great flock- protecting dogs of the middle east and Asia, with some historical extensions into parts of Europe that had the "transhumance" or flock migration.

I have seen working examples in Mongolia, Turkey,and just outside Magdalena (may have to get photos of those soon.)

While regional character should be preserved, breeders a should be wary of making the divisions too fine. Nor do I think shows are a wise way to go. Luckily these dogs are big and can be fierce-- not for the faddish. They need to work.

Cat Urbigkit has this to say:

"I get lots of questions from people doing research on specific
livestock guardian breeds, seeking my position on whether certain
kennel clubs/breed registries recognize the breeds we working dog
owners use and wondering how we'll preserve these dogs without
recognition. Most of us who breed and use these dogs in primitive ag
situations couldn't be further removed from the breed clubs and
frankly, don't give a damn whether they are officially named or not.
We are determined that good dogs will persist because they do their
jobs and we become so connected with them.

"Most migratory sheep outfits in the western United States use
livestock guardian dogs to protect our herds. I have one good friend,
who I raise pups for, who keeps 24-26 working livestock guardian dogs
at any one time. We sheep people in the United States are simply
following the lead of shepherds around the world who have used these
dogs for thousands of years. We've imported their working dogs (only
in the last 30 years!), and now reap the benefits. We still practice
ag in a primitive way - moving our herds with the seasons, using the
dogs to protect them. Our herds are scattered over hundreds of miles
of range, and often go unnoticed by the public. But we're here, as
our our dogs, our working partners."

Here are some examples:

A young Akbash or Turkish white:



Cat's dogs with sheep:



Some Mongolian dogs belonging to Michelle Morgan at Mongolian Ways. She is also a dog scholar and breeder.



A Kazakh tobet with cropped ears (wolves) and a tazi for contrast;


A pup in a Kurdish village down near the Syrian border:



... and a bigger one coming toward me in the distance. I didn't hang around!

The Dangers of Inbreeding

Patrick and I tend to go on about how the closed- studbook model of breeding and breeds, a relict of the 19th century's imperfect understanding of genetics, is deleterious and dysfunctional, but I haven't said much on it here. Reader Mike spies and I recently had an interesting discussion on this matter,and he gave me permission to post. Mike first:

"Dogs bred from FDSB registered animals have provided excellent, successful
hunting and trial dogs for about 100 years.
On the subject of inbreeding - this is often confused with line breeding.
Combined with rigorous culling and intelligent planning, line breeding
produces fine, sound animals that are largely free of genetic problems.
Further, the overall quality of a line breed litter is more likely to be more
predictable and consistent (pup to pup) than a litter produced by a pure out
cross - the genes combine in more predictable ways. Line breeders do out cross
- to other line bred, but less related dogs to inject proven new blood into
their breeding programs."

Me:

"I know these things and agree to a point. But you CANNOT breed forever in a limited pool without deleterious genes being expressed-- a real outcross is needed once in a while (not necessarily constantly). If you outcross type to type is better of course.

"(I know this a bit from 50 years of breeding pigeons, where the generations go faster and mistakes are less heartbreaking. But also, what -- ancient-- academic training I have is in evolutionary, genetic, and population biology.)

"And: the situation is also different with the saluki- tazi (taigan aboriginal Afghan) meta- population, which until recently stretched from north Africa to Mongolia and consisted entirely of working dogs. Now, show breeders have ruined (most) western salukis and (almost all) western "Afghans", with their silly hair. Worse, the rise of nationalism in Central Asia has made several nations there decide their local race is a "breed" and close studbooks. My extremely functional Almaty pair are too closely bred for my liking , which is why I am welcoming to the Ukrainian southeast tazis and the similar Russian ones, even though they are not quite as perfect. I am taking a long view.

"But so much-- I know this is a digression-- is being lost. Ten years ago you could still get tall black intergrades of the tazi and taigan populations in Kyrgizstan. I'd kill to have such a dog, but the state is discouraging their breeding, never mind export, because they are not 'pure". AAARGH!

"But the principles of outbreeding expressed in the essay will work for -- call them tazis--because there is still a considerable and remarkably physically and mentally consistent working population-- for a little while anyway-- and they are from such a large area one can find good ones thousands of miles apart. I may outcross eventually to both Arabian and Kurdish dogs ( I know a female from Iran who is the same Turkmeni type as my Ataika!) I should add these are all hunting dogs owned by friends in California, Virginia, and here in NM.

"I should add that-- with the exception of a pretty- well failed one- time attempt in basenjis-- the saluki, to the horror of show people, is the only breed that the AKC lets bring in "Country Of Origin" dogs. I know several HUNTING saluki people salivating for my dogs' genes!

Mike again:

"The breeding programs that produce many of the finest examples of sporting
breeds are carried out by informed small scale breeders who test their dogs in
competition, constantly winnowing parents for the traits they desire. They
breed the best examples that they can find. Many could be labeled 'back yard
breeders' - a term that implies an unscientific, uninformed, and haphazard
approach to breeding. - a not-quite-a-lie for the media and the uninformed.
The finest dogs that I have owned have come from such breedings. The bigger
the breeding operation, the more difficult it is to produce a quality puppy."

And me:

"Agree completely. My bird hunting pal Omar here in town has had three excellent pointers from two local breeders as good as any I have ever seen. And I am a backyard breeder myself, as are my friends mentioned above. I think we are the true conservators."

Soon: another "meta- population": flock guardians from Wyoming, Mongolia, and more...

Links, Apologia...

If I can ever finish the saga of my completed but yet...unfulfilled?.. book, it will be a good one, or at least a lesson in the vagaries of contemporary publishing that would fulfill every cynical belief of Michael Blowhard. It has been that kind of month.

Meanwhile, links and various photos.

Science and nature: Paleoblog has a new model for the evolution of flight in birds, with pictures. HT Walter Hingley.

Julie Zickefoose sends this Flikr photo set of coyotes in Mt.Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass., where we both have birded. This is a park in the heart of a city; I might guess they came down the Charles river corridor?

Annie D sends this amazing link to a U- Tube video of scientists sing a song about the PCR test! She also has the lyrics, below-- but you really need to see and hear it:

"There was a time when to amplify DNA,
You had to grow tons and tons of tiny cells.
Then along came a guy named Dr. Kary Mullis,
Said you can amplify in vitro just as well.

"Just mix your template with a buffer and some primers,
Nucleotides and polymerases, too.
Denaturing, annealing, and extending.
Well it's amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do.

"PCR, when you need to detect mutations.
PCR, when you need to recombine.
PCR, when you need to find out who the daddy is.
PCR, when you need to solve a crime."
(repeat chorus)

Cave bears were not the gentle vegetarians they were thought to be. The old Russian idea that they occupied a similar niche to Neanderthals looks more likely...

Culture, lack thereof, Doom, general weirdness... the first is all of the above: Hello Kitty bondage rooms in a Japanese hotel. HT Bruce Douglas-- uuhh, thanks, I guess.

Doom: amateur drama groups must lock up fake weapons, including "guns" that produce flags that say "BANG!" Money quote: "Even the climactic fight has not escaped. A university academic joined a rehearsal to ensure that it was safe." HT Patrick.

The inventor of the Hula Hoop was a falconer, and got his idea for his first invention playing with his hawks. HT Derb.

Plagiarism: a romance novelist inserts passages about the habits of the black- footed ferret (including the theory that their ancestors came over the Bering land bridge!) into a scene of passion between a white woman and her Indian lover in the 1870's. She takes it wholesale from a journalist's essay. I don't know what's funnier-- the sheer wretched awfulness of her prose or the fact the she didn't realize stealing material was wrong. "According to an interview she did with the Associated Press, she did not know she was supposed to quote source materials."

I believe it. This poor creature is dumber than a plant. HT the always productive Annie D and Marilyn Taylor. Great minds...

Finally: THE most redneck song ever, with lyrics. BRILLIANT, hilarious, more vivid than most of his father's novels, and certainly more concise. He even get the guns right! (A few lines decidedly NSFW.)

Field Survey

Our field survey methods are rather simple. We line up in skirmish lines at a regular interval - for this survey the transect interval is 15 meters. Then we walk systematically over the area to be surveyed and look for artifacts and features on the ground surface, in this case all 7400 acres of it. With the lack of vegetation here the ground visibility is excellent.

Once a crew member sees something he lets the rest of the line know and marks the artifact location with a pin flag. The rest of the crew then comes over and walks over the area looking for more artifacts. They also mark artifacts with pin flags to define the site area. In this picture you can see a small lithic scatter defined by the spread of pin flags. The crew then records the site, filling out a site form, making a site map, taking photographs and recording the area location with a GPS unit.

The picture above shows an excellent example of a fairly common site type in our project area - a lithic reduction location. Do to the contrasting color of the stone, you can easily see where a prehistoric Native American sat on the right side of the photograph and chipped out tools using the orange chert. A single core at a single moment in time.

Pot Drop

Sometime between AD 1000 and probably 1700 a Native American traveling through our project area somehow dropped and broke this ceramic jar.

The climate being what it is in this desert, artifact distributions like this can remain undisturbed for hundreds of years. We refer to situations where the broken sherds stay together on the ground surface using the artful term "pot drop." You have to be careful with these and make sure the sherds are all of a type as modern artifact collectors will sometimes put sherds they have picked up from a site in piles that resemble a pot drop.

The recurved rim on this jar is the diagnostic clue that tells us it dates from either the Patayan II or III time period giving the date range I cited above.

Work Intrudes

I must apologize for radio silence, as this is the longest I've gone without posting since Steve invited me on board here. I am currently in Imperial County, California running a large archaeological survey. Between the Christmas Holidays and all the work involved in getting into the field I really haven't had any time to devote to it.

I've put in a couple of pictures of the project area so you can see what the desert looks like here, a relatively flat expanse with ocotillo, creosote bush, salt bush and other short, sparse vegetation.

This project is a first in a way for me, as about a third of the area is below sea level. I've never recorded sites that had "minus" elevations before. This sign is on I-8 where it runs past the project area.

I will be doing some "from the field" posts to tell you about archaeological surveys and about the things we are finding. And we are finding a lot of prehistoric sites here. You wouldn't think that there would have been so much activity in an area this barren, but there was for reasons I will go into later.

Falcon and the Snowjob

Relating to the recent pics of GWB hanging out in the Saudi weathering yard, Anne found this post by "BWildered" at the liberal blogsite Daily Kos:

"Were you, like me, treated to an Abu Dhabi photo-op? Abu Dhabi royals introducing George W Bush to the arts and sciences of falconry.

Where are the sharp-eyed falcons of the American media? Why was the irony of the moment not an issue.

Ronald Reagan, rather than admit an error, proceeded with a visit to a war cemetary [sic] in Bitburg, Germany that contained among others, the remains of some SS officers. However, our media caught on to the issue and made it a lead story for days. The very word Bitburg is GOP code for a media relations boo-boo.

And so why is falconry in Abu Dhabi a new Bitburg?"

In answering, BWildered cites various sources to substantiate the claim that the US military declined an opportunity to launch a missile strike against Osama bin Laden while he was hawking (or as BWildered insists, "falconing") with members of the Saudi royal family.

BWildered is, well, bewildered that the media would miss mentioning this: "...it goes without passing note that George Bush goes for falconing lessons with a royal family whose affinity-members include Osama bin Laden's falconing partners."

Maybe we just didn't want to blow up our allies?

Anyway, Steve has another theory....

Steve here. Could the whacky conspiracists at Kos be reading a novel as reality? Charles McCarry's 2004 Old Boys seems to have the same plot. As I wrote back then on my website:

"Old Boys mixes a cast of aging spies from such works as The Tears of Autumn and Second Sight with just a touch of the humor from McCarry's Clinton satire Lucky Bastard and sets them loose in Russia and Central Asia on the trail of a vengeful old sheikh who has atomic weapons. Falconers may be interested to find that the migration routes of the houbara, the Arab falconer's traditional quarry, are a key "clue". They and Central Asia hands might find this one the most interesting; others might want to try the earlier novels first. Tears of Autumn may be the best of all the Cold war novels, and the least known of the three best...."

FWIW, I added: "...it rests on a body of work I prefer to, say, John Le Carre's. McCarry's books are more nuanced, informed I suspect by more knowledge of the covert trade, and-- unlike recent LeCarre--- he's on our side, which to me shows a more sophisticated grasp of the issues."

Is life imitating fiction?

Chinese "hunting parks"

This video carries a Reuters report by Kitty Bu on what are referred to as "hunting parks" in China. The story is interesting in its choice of angle ("Chinese hunters complaining about gun control") and in its casual assumption that the activity depicted is hunting!

For the record, there is no hunting in this video, Ms. Bu. And those are not rifles.

More of the Prez with falcons

When cognitive worlds collide.... From http://www.whitehouse.gov/:



President George W. Bush holds a falcon as the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nayhan, stands by during dinner Sunday night, Jan. 13, 2008 in the desert near Abu Dhabi. White House photo by Eric Draper




President George W. Bush and Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nayhan look at falcons during their dinner Sunday, Jan. 13, 2008, in the desert near Abu Dhabi. White House photo by Eric Draper






As Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, United Arab Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs looks on, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino holds a falcon Sunday, Jan. 13, 2008, during a dinner in the desert near Abu Dhabi. White House photo by Eric Draper

Caption Contest

Official caption: "President George W. Bush holds a falcon shown to him by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Monday, Jan. 14, 2008, during a visit to Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum House in Dubai. White House photo by Eric Draper"

Anyone want to suggest some dialog?

Good Reading from Prairie Mary

Many here will enjoy two recent posts by writer Mary Strachan Scriver, who sometimes comments at Querencia.

Here are excerpts from each. I encourage you to read the full texts.

From the post H-ANIMAL:

"...I’ve been reading about species genomes (the close relationship between the dog genome and the human genome, for instance) and mammal brain anatomy. Evolutionary evidence is fine stuff and I love fossils, theories and imagining back to the very first ocean one-celled animals. I love the reaching out across the cosmos to the black holes and the star nurseries. But that’s not the same thing as realizing that WE are animals, that our lives are woven into the lives of animals, that viruses and larger parasites constantly move through us (see the recent NYTimes article called “Tiny Specks of Misery, Both Vile and Useful”). Our companions bring both minor and culture-changing effects. We ARE animals, we are ANIMALS, we contain reptile/mammal/primate to say nothing of billions of tiny symbionts."

And here's some of the post HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES

"...Among the issues HSUS takes on are: disasters (they show up, get on television, then disappear), dog fights (esp. the celebrity cases like Vick), high-profile humane stories like the truck-load of collies stopped at the US/Canada border, zoos, rodeos, hunting, wild horses, dog races, puppy mills, etc. Easy to demonize. Their budget for the people who travel to “hot spots” to make media appearances is about $2 million. If you look at their website, journalist’s inquiries are guided to a full panel of specialists. They have an adaptable policy towards agricultural animal abuse and oppose the eating of meat and the wearing of fur. (Pacelle is vegan.) Money changes hands."

Taking 'em to the woodshed

Noting Steve's recent post on his New Year's coursing run, our wonderfully ferocious friend Teddy Moritz sent this picture and note about her lurcher, Kell. Her suggested caption, "Meanwhile, back East, a lurcher without many coursing opportunities uses his time in the woods well."





Teddy writes: "This is Kell, named by a friend for the Irish Book of Kells, son of my Hancock lurcher Celtic, now deceased. Kell was owned by a friend out west for four years but she never used him for anything except as a yard dog who caught ground squirrels. I've had him since May and his life has turned around. He's very obedient, very useful and just a nice dog. He's a lurcher to lurcher cross."


I asked Teddy if she could add any favorite squirrel recipes and she wrote back, "steam 'till soft then cook like chicken, or make a stew in crock pot, or fry, or....." In other words, it's all good.
"However," she adds, "having a hawk and seven dogs to feed, Carl and I don't eat much squirrel."

Felony Harassment

You may recall the Missouri teen who committed suicide after receiving hurtful messages through a popular social networking site. Another neighborhood teen, possibly with the knowledge and aid of her mother and a friend, posted the cruel personal messages under a false identity. A federal inquiry is underway to see if those who created the fraudulent online profile and sent the messages can be prosecuted. No Missouri law was deemed to have been broken.

In a follow-up AP story, a panel formed by Missouri governor Matt Blunt is reported to have recommended "making certain types of harassment a felony, such as if anyone 21 or older harasses people 17 and younger."

Later in the same story:

Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Loyola University Law School, told The Associated Press that if the government convened a grand jury it would be trying to create a case in which MySpace would be the victim of a fraud — meaning the person who perpetrated the fraud could be prosecuted.

"The whole case is curious," she said, and could raise First Amendment issues of free speech.

The subject of "cyber bullying" received much coverage after the suicide. Legislative and policy responses to the threat (or perceived threat) of online bullying are probably inevitable, much as they have come from a concurrent flap about "traditional" playground bullying.

No one needs to remind us that teen suicide, for any reason, is tragic and probably represents some failure on the part of those within the young person's circle. In some ways we may all be responsible. But is the establishment of felony harassment statutes the proper remedy?

I'm the father of twin girls, aged 7. They visit http://www.pbskids.org/ and enjoy playing with Microsoft Paint but are probably not aware of anything else related to our home computer or the Internet. They do not yet have email addresses, although they will be given them at school next year and be expected to use them. Their slightly older cousins are well ahead of my kids and send me text messages from their cell phones. The future for mine will include these things---all our current electronic communication modes and more---and I'm sure I'll be fighting a losing battle against them all the way.

I'm obviously not a Luddite (although I have sympathies). And my general state of panic about being out of touch with my children will doubtless win out in the war against the cell phone and the email address. But will I want to see my kids on myspace.com? Will I want them chatting up strangers and swapping pics? Let's not go there for a while, ok?

As for Internet identities, I think the best we can say at present is that anonymity is too easy. It's the great pitfall of this medium. We are all (even when we use our own names and photos) somewhat fictional characters and largely free of responsibility for our actions online. It's something I'm going to have to explain to my girls one day soon.

What is this?

Annie D. sent a pic of this little critter titled "baby chupacabra". She was kidding but we don't know what it might be. I think the ears look rather "batty", but as Annie says it has an apparent tail. Marsupial?

Anyone have an idea? Darren? Carel?



Update: "Batwrangler" Sheila comes up with an ID: it's a newly discovered eastern pygmy possum.

More pix here.

Two more

The Gos is coming on nicely. In the photo I am talking to a neighbor, he has a full crop (and is fat) and he's STILL being nice.



WE have indoor dogs too- Ataika being ridiculous.

A few photos

Our New Year's run. Looking for hares:


Plummer blurs by (forgive quality of the pic but I had to give credit to a fat 10- year- old lurcher who can still press a hare!)


Coming back after a run.

Antelope! (luckily I could call off the hounds-- good dogs!)


Tazis run by.


Figures in a big landscape.

Iron Men and Wooden Ships?

Cast- iron livers, anyway. John McLoughlin recently sent me a lengthy note on the water and rum consumption of the men of the Revolutionary War frigate The USS Constitution, better known as "Old Ironsides" I was going to excerpt it but it is too good to cut.

"The U.S.S. Constitution, as a combat vessel,
carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475
officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of
sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (i.e.
fresh water distillers!).

"However, let it be noted that according to her ship's log, "On
July 27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with
a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of
fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder
and 79,400 gallons of rum."

"Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."

"Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of flour
and 68,300 gallons of rum.

"Then she headed for the Azores, arriving there 12 November.
She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of
Portuguese wine.

"On 18 November, she set sail for England. In the ensuing days
she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled
12 English merchant ships, salvaging only the rum aboard each.

"By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted.
Nevertheless, although unarmed she made a night raid up the
Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing party captured a whisky
distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch
aboard by dawn. Then she headed home.

"The U.S.S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February, 1799,
with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no
whisky, and 38,600 gallons of water."

Meat!

Via Margory, some good food stuff: a new quarterly about meat called "Meatpaper."

According to their website, "Meatpaper is a print magazine of art and ideas about meat. We like metaphors more than marinating tips. We are your journal of meat culture."

According to the NYT: "This week the second issue of Meatpaper, a quarterly based in San Francisco, hits newsstands. Its responses to meat are unflinching, and often humorous: a deliberation as to whether the Bible bans blood sausage, a photo essay on found meat, a married couple discussing cannibalism. (Not to give anything away, the husband both offers himself up and resigns himself to eating his companion, while the wife dodges the question.)"

Not only do I plan to subscribe; I want to write for them.

Dog Breeding-- Again

Patrick once again documents the damage that the AKC, dog shows, and the idea of closed studbooks do to dogs, with many links. He quotes Donald McCaig:

"Throughout the fight [with the Kennel Club], I kept stumbling over a simple truth without quite seeing it: dog fanciers and their creature, the AKC, really do believe that what is most valuable about any dog can be judged in the show ring, that the show ring is the sole legitimate purpose and reward for all dog breeding. They even believe, against all evidence, that the show ring 'improves' breeds."

It. Does. Not. EVER.

My friend MB, with whom I went to Turkey in search of dogs, sent me this excellent essay on the same subject. Read the whole thing but especially the part below "The Healthy Continuation of Breeds" and engrave these words in stone: "Population geneticists insist that limited populations under strong artificial selection, subjected to high levels of incest breeding -- such as our own CKC [Canadian KC] purebreds -- simply cannot maintain genetic viability and vigour in the long term without the periodic introduction of new and unrelated [emphasis mine] genetic material. They are referring, moreover, to true outcrossing, the introduction of stock unrelated to the breeding line, not merely the use of a dog which might be from someone else's kennel but is derived from exactly the same foundation stock some generations back."

Please remember this the next time you want to tell me to inbreed the tazis. I will keep an Asian strain and type and working ability, but will never rule out an outcross to good dogs of similar type and working ability. That salukis have however reluctantly allowed this may be the salvation of the breed-- as far as I know they are the ONLY AKC breed that allows new "country of origin" genes in. This is why MB brings in dogs from Kurdistan, and I go to Asia.

New Links Plus

Sorry-- my latest excuse is back problems. Sitting down for the better part of a year writing a difficult book is bad for your back-- duh! But I have been accumulating links and going out with the hounds and taming the Gos (he is actually very nice) so....

"I tell you, Watson, the Giant Rat of Sumatra actually exists!"

Private nuclear power plants?! (From Toshiba). HT Clayton Cramer, who says "I do cringe a little bit at nuclear power reactors aimed at a market that hasn't quite mastered the art of setting their VCRs to record programs at a particular time."

Eric at Classical Values has kept abreast of the San Francisco tiger controversy. For what it's worth, everybody I know who has worked in zoos suspects provocation. As I wrote to a friend:

"Everyone who has ever worked for a zoo comes to see the public as cruel and/ or stupid. Examples: people telling their kids that the dingos are "female deer" (more common and sensible, I'll grant: "Why do you have those dogs in there?") People trying to put their kids in the leopard cage for a photo op. People waiting for a tapir escape to get the opportunity to hold their kid up to the chimp cage, an opportunity previously denied; then, the kid having been bitten, trying to sue the zoo because a "vet" sewed the kid up, only to find the vet that treated the chimps was among Boston's finest pediatricians."

Also, you might Google up lawyer Geragos to see what fine citizens make up the bulk of his clients....

More sad tiger news: Brian at Laelaps reports on the death of three more tigers due to the insatiable desire for "medicine" in the Han Empire.

More from Laelaps: bad behavior by wolves in Alaska. I am more sympathetic to wolf control (not eradication) than Brian, but his is an honest report. Still, when a wolf is bold enough to attack a leashed dog, it is too late to control your dog! Nor do I recommend Farley Mowat's utterly fictional Never Cry Wolf, with its muscivorous lupines. HT reader Nightmare.

Some reading? Reid sent me this NYT book review of a new release of Wilfrid Thesiger's most popular books. I'm glad Thesiger is getting a revival, but I also think Reid sent it because he knew this sentence would make me furious: "They don’t make Englishmen like Wilfred Thesiger anymore, and perhaps that’s for the best." Harrumph! Ignore that and buy his good books.

Biology? The Guardian reports on a creature close to the ancestral root of whales. Some creationists or at least anti- evolutionists are apparently railing at it because they can't get their mind around a small creature with hooves eventually becoming a whale. Who is it that called this "argument from personal disbelief"? The indispensable Carl Zimmer has more on the beast, with nice pix, here and here.

More biology (or in this case paleontology): Paleoblog covers this year's Mongolian expedition. All pix of Mongolia make me weirdly homesick, even if they are of places I haven't been.

Anne Marie at Pondering Pikaia has a rueful poem by the late field biologist George Folkerts. A sample:

Clear birch-edged stream with fauna rank,
With iris blue upon your bank,
Your poisoned pools I now scan,
My seine haul yields one Falstaff can.
Everything I love is gone,
Whatever will become of me

The fields are being, with great precision
Transformed into a subdivision,
The eagle falls, the lily dies,
And on the road a 'possum lies.
No doubt what will become of me,
Molecular Biology

RTWT, of course.

And Darren is educating us about caecilians, surely the oddest "podless" tetrapods, here and here. Think I am exaggerating? Here is his description of the critters in part one: "If I told you that there was a group of living tetrapods that have sensory tentacles, sometimes sport protrusible eyes, sometimes lack eyes entirely, often exhibit sophisticated parental care and may even feed their babies on a specially grown layer of nutritious epidermal skin, are incredibly long-bodied yet often lack tails, and sometimes possess large, anatomically complex, eversible male sexual organs, you might wonder which recreational drugs I was taking."

Now please, Darren: monster pigeons and raptors from islands!

I'm saving two more sets of links, dogs and food, for later. Can't resist one more bit of snark: though this blog is resolutely un- political, and I'm not sure I'd necessarily want either for president, my unruly soul is gladdened by the defeat by Huck- O- Bama of the Hillarudy machine and those who assume that New York (which I love, but..) has the right to govern us all....

Update: Patrick (and a New Yorker!) have noted the same thing.

Rina's New Bag

After nearly two seasons serving as a stand-in for a spaniel, my whippet decided last Sunday she wants to be a Jack Russel terrier. Patrick, eat your heart out.



Why this didn't happen earlier is a mystery to me. She runs across our native cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) often while flushing birds and snaps at them seemingly without expectation of success. They are fast afoot, using well-worn tunnels to slip through the grass and escape. The rats are curiously easy or my Harris hawk to catch yet, until now, impossible for the dog.

A hawk's eye view of the rat's route may help the bird choose where best to strike; but the dog pokes along at root level, always a moment too late on the draw.

Sunday Rina must have had a revelation: If she runs 15 feet ahead of us, she can jam her head in along the trail and catch rats as they pass. You'd think she invented time travel for all her excitement, and maybe she has.... Think forward 15 feet, four seconds into the future, expect the rat to pass, and SNAP!

Shooting video of this, while hawking too, proved fruitless. But I got this one funny bit of Rina working "deep, deep undercover," disguised as a terrier.