Babysitting

I drive by a hay meadow outside of Pinedale on a regular basis and always look at the pronghorn antelope that inhabit that spot. In the last few weeks, there were about five does that had their fawns in the meadow. This afternoon I had to laugh, since this one doe had apparently been assigned babysitting duty to seven fawns. The same thing happens with our domestic sheep - ewes take turns babysitting for the nursery bunch.

Wet season delights

It's rained here almost every afternoon for a month, making big changes to our range, which has suffered from 10 years of drought. Jim and I had to look these birds up in the bird book because we've never seen them in the hay meadow before. They are Wilson's phalaropes. It has a peculiar way of walking in circles, and swimming in circles. The vortex caused by the spinning apparently delivers food to the surface.

The wet weather has led to an amazing eruption of mushrooms. It's crazy to walk through the sagebrush and see all the mushroom tops breaking ground. Jim's making all kinds of mushroom sidedishes for dinner, and stops every morning and picks a few fresh ones for the lunchbox. I have no idea how many varieties are out there, but there are only two types he knows are safe to harvest and eat.


And the pronghorn antelope babes are growing nicely.

Caddis Art

Really! The French artist Hubert Duprat gave gold, turquoise, and other precious metals and stones, to caddis larvae to build their "houses. The results are astonishing. The article gets a bit into "artspeak" but it is worth a look.

HT Malinda Chouinard.

The Mighty Tranter

While browsing at The Suburban Bushwacker I was introduced to a new blog With the unlikely name of Lone Star Parson. It seems SB and LSP were partners in a punk band years go before LSP became an Anglican priest and moved to Texas. Whether he was a gun nut in England or not, he has become one! The whole blog is a delight but what moved me to envy was this .50 caliber Tranter revolver. Is that not the perfect steampunk handgun? To hell with S & W's 50--it's so ... modern. I want one of these.

There is a Wiki page on Tranters but it is machine- translated from German and, be warned, it includes sentences like this one:

"Especially, the double deduction Tranter revolvers, this was below the trigger guard a second vent at the margins of a rooster served."

If any of my more capable colleagues could get me the pic of the one on the Parson's site to post here I'd appreciate it!

A Guest Post

Introducing Lane Batot, who often comments, especially on dogs and domestication. I hope we will be seeing him here again!

"With a diverse(some would say eccentric)interest and experiences with canines and the outdoors(usually combining the two in some fashion), and as a big fan of this blog, I have been invited to "guest-write"(not to be confused with "ghost-write") occasionally about some of my many misadventures and perspectives, which may be of interest to other readers.

"First off, it was suggested I relate why I have so many dogs(13 at present), the advantages(?) of keeping such a large pack, and the very real danger of losing this privelege with the increasingly restrictive laws cropping up limiting one's canine acquisitions.(para.) My own reasons for ending up with so many dogs are as much accidental as planned---over half my pack are rescues. Dogs that, had I not taken them in, would not be alive today. This is something dog restriction laws will inevitably do, doom even more dogs to euthanasia or abandonment. People that now will take the time to rescue and rehome a stray or two, will be discouraged from such humanitarian actions by these laws.(para.) I also have so many dogs because, well, there are just SO MANY interesting dog breeds and types out there! My own personal motto is, "so many dogs, so little time"! I have experienced a lot of dogs in my near half-century of living(especially with my tendency to experience them in multiples), and yet there are so many more I hope to experience and share my life with before I cash it in! So dog limits imposed on citizens are also personally restrictive to my chosen lifestyle. Doesn't this violate my basic constitutional rights? Yes, it does.

"As I have yet to breed a litter of any sort(way too dangerous a prospect for a sentimental chap like myself!), so I do not fall in the category of someone breeding to maintain a line of working dogs, be they for herding, hunting, sled work, guard and police work, handicap-assistance dogs, and others. Breeders not allowed by law to keep multiple animals are going to have a hard time providing these types of real working dogs to those in need.

"One thing I do do that involves the use of more than the pet or two these laws restrict us to, is train sled dogs. Mine is purely recreational, but this is a whole genera of dogs that will no longer be able to fulfill their roles with such limitations. It's kinda hard to have a team with just a pet or two.(p.) Of course radical, unreasonable, "humaniac" Animal Right's Activists could care less about the many contributions such dogs make to society, or the joy they have in fulfilling these roles(in the proper hands), since they wish to eliminate(or so it seems) any human/animal interactions at all. Legislators who go along with the passing of these laws are often just ignorant that any other legitimate perspective exists, so we dog-people do need to do all we can to educate them. It would be great if we could get these law-makers out of their offices and let them see the real deal in the field--they'd probably enjoy that too, for a change! Action does speak louder than words! Hopefully I will be relating some of these experiences with my own dogs in future posts."

Free Speech Challenge in Supreme Court

Hawker, digger, long-dogger and outdoors writer Teddy Moritz forwarded this news of a case to be heard by the Supreme Court. It regards the editor and seller of a hunting dog video who was convicted on federal law prohibiting "depictions of animal cruelty;" his conviction was later overturned on 1st Amendment grounds, but US prosecutors are taking the case to the highest court for a ruling. From the summary:

"The Third Circuit struck down a federal law banning "depictions of animal cruelty." 18 USC 48. The statute does not ban acts of animal cruelty themselves (and so this case is not about such actions). It bans images of animals being hurt, wounded or killed if the depicted conduct is illegal under federal law or illegal under the state law either (i) where the creation of the depiction occurs, or (ii) where the depiction is sold or possessed."

The video depicts "catch dog" training, featuring pit-bull type dogs hunting wild hogs and also domestic pigs, and it includes historical video of Japanese dog fighting. The product was edited from pre-existing footage (no new footage shot) with a voiceover to illustrate training points. So the subject matter is certainly controversial, and I'm sure the visuals are rough. But we are talking here about a depiction, not an action.

The charges are based on an existing law passed to prohibit the sale of videos depicting the torture of animals in a sexual context (evidently there's a market for that). The prosecution is inviting the court to add "depictions of animal cruelty" (defined more broadly than the above context) to the very short list of unprotected classes of speech, as is the case with child pornography. With the opportunity to reference dog fighting, hog hunting, torture videos and child pornography laws all in one case, prosecutors have a lot to work with here.

At stake may be the freedom and livelihood of everyone involved in hunting and trapping media, every state game agency, retail outlet, publishing house, hook and bullet writer, etc., to include myself as author of two books in print full of text and photographs of active falconry. In fact, the existing law may already apply to many media products, if their content includes depictions of activities "illegal under federal law or illegal under the state law either where the creation of the depiction occurs, or where the depiction is sold or possessed."

For example: one of my books contains a picture of the use of a classic falconry noose trap (a bal-chatri), a humane and practical device for the legal live-trapping of raptors for falconry. Such traps were temporarily outlawed in Washington State when a broadly-written anti-trapping law was passed there a few years ago. An exception to the law had to be included to permit trapping for falconry.

Although falconry traps are obviously not intended to "hurt, wound or kill" birds, falconry itself entails killing animals; it is hunting! Commercial falconry videos certainly exist. I own several and have shot my own footage, plus photos for personal use and for sale. The difference (in terms of its elements and visual impact in a video depiction) between catch dogs holding a wild hog and, say, Harris hawks catching a jack rabbit, is probably negligible to the non-hunter.

Here's an interesting question: While hog hunting with dogs is legal in Hawaii, falconry is not (it's the only non-falconry US state, having no suitable native raptors and strict environmental law for imports). For all I know, someone in the Aloha State has a copy of one of my books, purchased online from my Wyoming publisher and sent via US Mail. Could that fact lead federal prosecutors to his door? Or to mine?

Ten-Percenters

I speculated recently that if Americans provided just 10% of their own food via gardening and hunting, Monsanto would have a cow. I wondered further: Could any elected official propose such an alarming change in the national status quo? More importantly, Could the average American even pull it off?

Ten percent. Every day. Michael Pollan spent a year and wrote a whole book about making just one meal on his own. It seems unlikely any more casual effort would do the trick.

Yet, of course, millions of Americans routinely fed themselves almost entirely from their own gardens, barns, pastures and woodlots up until about the middle of the last century. Obviously it can be done.

Henry challenged us to try to calculate what a 10% self-sufficient garden or game larder would look like. There are probably 100 or more ways to calculate this, and mine can't be the best. I know some wise-cracker will leave a URL in the comments that has it all tallied up. But for a few minutes' scratching with a pencil, here are my thoughts:

First, what we grow in the yard: Beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuce, strawberries, and blackberries.

What game we commonly eat: Rabbit, dove (also quail and rail), squirrel and deer.

How much of each? A quick count. We have:

• 40 bean plants
• 8 tomato plants
• 40 lettuce plants
• 2 pepper plants
• 1 blackberry bush
• 3 strawberry plants
• (plus herbs, not counted)

My hawk hunts mostly small birds and rats he eats by himself on the spot. We are not usually hunting "for the pot." But he does get about 30 rabbits a season and maybe 20 table-ready birds, all of which we eat. Rina catches or I scavenge (don't tell) about 5 squirrels for gumbo each season; and we have all the deer products (stew meat, sausage, etc) we want from friends. Even so, we don't eat as much of it as we could.

You need, say, 2000 calories a day. A nice round figure, pun intended.

10% of that is 200 calories, call it the Revolutionary Threshold. We can extrapolate that to 6000 calories a month per patriotic American male.

How much home-grown or self-killed food do you have to eat in a month to join the Revolution?

Here it gets real fuzzy. I found a few sites online that provide rough calculations of caloric value for fruits and veggies. My wife, who does some nutritional counseling in her work in athletics, has a nice computer program that lists same for game meats.

I just now ran around the yard counting fruits and plants and weighing cherry tomatoes, etc., on the hawk's gram scale. Super-duper fuzzy now. But here we go.

• 100g beans (20 beans) = 25 cal.
• 100g cherry tomatoes (5 ch.tom.) = 17 cal.
• 100 grams lettuce (20 leaves) = 13 cal.
• 100 grams peppers (2 peppers) = 18 cal.
• 100 grams blackberries (20 berries) = 20 cal.
• 100 grams strawberries (10 berries) = 70 cal.

So right there you can start your engines. You could, for example, eat 200 blackberries a day and call yourself a Revolutionary Hero.

But say that's not practical. Say it's more berry than you'd care to eat. And since my single bush probably makes only 300 berries in an entire season (which only lasts a couple months), you see it's not even possible with berries alone.

And to calculate how much garden I'd need to provide 1 person 200 calories a day, I have to know how much garden I have. Back to the plants:

• 40 bean plants X 20 beans per month = 800 beans = 1000 calories a month
• 8 cherry tomato plants X 100 tomatoes per month = 800 tomatoes = 2,720 calories p/m
• 40 lettuce plants X 40 leaves per month = 1600 leaves = 1040 calories p/m
• 2 pepper plants X 2 peppers per month = 4 peppers = 36 calories p/m (WOW)
• 1 blackberry bush = 300 berries per season = 300 calories
• I won't go into strawberries; mine sucked wind this year.

Our Revolutionary Hero would need 6000 calories of veggies per month. I'm making (by the above super-fuzzy mathematics) a little over 5000 calories. Another bean bed would put me in the running.

But what about my wife and kids? Count Revolutionary Wife at 4,500 calories per month (10% her normal ration), and Revolutionary Drummer Girls at 5,000 per month combined, and that will require a garden about three and half times the size of our current one.

Doable, but not actually being done.

But hey! We haven't even killed anything yet!

Meat may be murder, but it's also chock full o'calories. If you round the already-pretty-close caloric values of those above-mentioned lean game meats, you get about 130 calories per each 100 gram serving. If you eat a supper of those 3.5 ounces of game, a side of 20 beans, a salad of 20 lettuce leaves and 5 tomatoes, and you top it off with a handful of berries, you've got your 10% daily intake right there. Welcome to the Revolution!

If it wasn't nearing my bedtime, I'd break down our rabbit-to-deer ratio for those who've read me this far. But it isn't necessary. I think it's clear that if you combine game meat (1 deer a season, a few good rabbit and dove hunts), with an active garden on a normal-sized suburban lot, you can provide 10% of your caloric needs without ever stepping foot in Whole Foods Market or bowing at the foot of Monsanto. If you fish, you're in like Flinn. And if you brew your own beer, brother, you've got it made!

Attack of the Scientific Reductionists

LiveScience reported yesterday on new research published in this month's Genetics (the journal of the Genetics Society of America) attempting to determine the existence and location of genes for "tameness" in animals. According to the LiveScience version, "A study of nasty and nice lab rats has scientists on the verge of knowing the genes that separate wild animals like lions and wolves from their tame cousins, cats and dogs."

LiveScience provides a brief background on the study, which uses a population of rats now almost 40 years in captivity:

"The roots of this study date back to 1972 when researchers in Novosibirsk, in what is now Russia, caught a large group of wild rats around the city. Back at the lab, the researchers arbitrarily separated the rats into two groups. In one group, called the tame rats, the scientists then mated the friendliest rats, those that tolerated humans, with one another, and in the other group they mated the most aggressive rats with each other. "

The study itself includes more detail on the development of its subject population:

"To select the animals, their response to an approaching human hand was observed, and the rats showing the least and the most aggressive behavior were allowed to mate within the two lines, respectively. The initial response to selection was rapid and then slowed, so that little change in behavior from generation to generation has been observed in the last 10–15 generations, although the selection regime has been continued to the present. Today, the 'tame' rats are completely unafraid of humans, they tolerate handling and being picked up, and they sometimes approach a human in a nonaggressive manner. By contrast, the 'aggressive' rats ferociously attack or flee from an approaching human hand."

The rapid development of 'tameness' through selective breeding is interesting to those of us who believe domesticated animals can be produced rather quickly. The remarkable Russian fox experiment is relevant here and is referenced in this rat study. There is an ongoing debate about the possibility of rapid domestication, even numerous independent domestications, in ancient dogs. In the falconry context, I'm convinced that selective breeding of Harris hawks (Parabuteo unicinctus) has produced demonstrably tamer and more cooperative birds in as few as five generations---I've been witness to this in my lifetime.

The popular reporting on this study seems to focus on the notion that domestic animals and their wild counterparts could be separated by few or even a single gene; that somehow all of what makes a "wild animal" wild is encapsulated in one trait.

As anyone who has lived and worked with animals both wild and domestic can tell you, it's nothing like that simple.

Animals, regardless their origins or number of generations in captivity, are incredibly (irreducibly) complex beings, individuals every one. Their complexity mirrors their environments, which even in the Spartan conditions of a laboratory may be more variable than we like to assume. In "the wild," those variables are innumerable and subject researchers to principles of uncertainty, acknowledged or not.

The result is enormous diversity and confounding truths. Very tame animals, for example, are common in the wild. Island endemics like those of the Galapagos are well known, but any falconer with sufficient experience can tell of wild-taken hawks flying freely to hand in a matter of days and behaving entirely at ease in human company. Steve's falconry mentor even had a pair of free-roaming goshawks eating from his hand.

Conversely, stories of domesticated dogs attacking the hand (this study's key signature of the 'wild type') are so commonplace as to serve as the classic example of what is not news!

What can the science of genetics tell us about these cases?

Volumes, I'm sure. But I'm equally sure that the complicated truth about our genes and our environment will never be wholly revealed in the lab. It may never be wholly revealed at all, but merely intuited and approximated by those (like falconers, sheppards, hunters) whose lives intersect and entwine with wild and domestic animals. For many, that will be revelation enough.

News from The Front

The situation on the ground since my last Revolutionary Update is good. The troops are flourishing, even as the local heat and dry spell continue. Pictures to follow.

But first, I'm pleased to forward this Revolutionary Report from our friends The Barrows, who are furthering their plan for financial independence by putting in their first garden. Begins Garden Sergeant Major Soo:

"After days of digging and forty bags of compost and garden soil from Home Depot, we found ourselves with 240 square feet of lumps of clay. I reassured Gregg that in time, with plenty of compost, these lumps would somehow change into the rich, dark, crumbly, loam shown in all of my gardening books. I don’t think I convinced either of us."

What Soo and Gregg have accomplished after that uncertain start is amazing. See for yourself!

Henry Chappell also writes in with news and pictures of the war effort in his neck of the woods, and this well-deserved raspberry at Big Ag.


Back at Camp Mullenix, the battalion stands at parade rest.


The tomatoes have nearly reached the top of their 10-foot high poles and are full of fruit.





The lettuce still looks nice but is decidedly delicate now in this heat. And I think the taste of the leaves has suffered some. An interesting and ongoing experiment in summer greens.




Here the blackberries peek through the weathering yard fence. They are small and tart but the girls still like to sprinkle them on their morning cereal.




Both the pole beans and the bush beans are now producing. These have been a big hit with the kids. Speaking of beanpoles, the sunflower is almost as tall as B.

And note Rina to right, standing guard against rogue squirrels.





And here's what a day's harvest can bring....



I bring these updates to you mostly out of pride, but also as evidence of what good (what Resistance!) may be possible, even in the suburbs. None of us is a farmer; we all have jobs and families and other hobbies to distract us. And yet there is space and time enough to grow a little something to eat and a little bit farther from our tragic economy.

Trapped!

Sunday afternoon I heard a loud buzzing noise coming from the living room, and found this broad-tailed hummingbird had flown in through one of the french doors. He was totally disoriented and trying to fly through closed windows. I opened doors and windows and tried to shoo him out.

He flew up to the top of a door where he rested for a while and then went up to a second-story window and tried to fly through it. Connie climbed a ladder up there, caught him in a towel, and released him on the deck.

He revived himself at our feeder and went back to fighting with the other hummingbirds for feeder access.

Pronghorn peace

I’ve been watching a young pronghorn doe this past week, as she’s been hanging out, alone, in the hay meadow on the north side of the highway. The native grass is growing really well, the irrigation ditch is full, and it’s very beautiful, quiet and peaceful. The most disturbance that occurs there is when the ranch truck drives in once a day to feed Bambino, the fat bull residing in the corral for about another week (at which time he gets to go back to his cow herd).

Every day, I drive in slowly, soaking up the scene, watching the ducks splashing in the irrigation water, willets and curlews probing in the mud, ospreys and redtails screeching above, killdeer trying to distract me away from their nests, cottontails nibbling this and that. There is so much wildlife here at this time of year it’s amazing, and we try to leave everything alone since the atmosphere here is very similar to the peace we seek on the lambing ground with our ewes.

Today, the lone doe had a small smudge of brown standing next to her - she had given birth to her first fawn. By the time I got the truck turned around to leave, and get a few shots with the camera, the baby had laid back down, hiding, and the mother had disappeared on the hillside above the meadow. I guiltily took a few shots with my big lens, and left. When I drove back down the highway a few hours later, I noticed the doe was back in the meadow, nonchalantly grazing and taking it easy. Ah, peace on earth.

The Apprentice

Falconry continues through the ages in one of two ways: Either it springs spontaneously from the fertile mind of some bootstrapping biophile, or it passes down from one to another through an apprenticeship.

Some combination of the two is also possible. My own introduction to the sport was largely self-starting but later molded by a series of formal and less formal apprenticeships.

I’ve sponsored two apprentices myself, both of them a while back; they are now experienced, successful falconers and longtime friends. Others (maybe half a dozen) have expressed serious interest in falconry and come so far along as to swing by the house for a tour or attend a local hunt. Several dozen more over the last 25 years have called or emailed once but not been seen since.

This year, finally, one seems on track to go the distance. I signed his state paperwork last week and will get a tour of his new-built facility some weekend soon. He has been over for a visit and gone hunting. He bought a number of good books and the necessary equipment. He is bright and young enough to do the work and to enjoy it, I think, fully.

I wish him well and will help him on his way, or help him at least build the foundation of what could be a much larger and longer-term project.

Should he persevere, his involvement will grow, and his sport will take a shape all its own. My role will morph and diminish in time. Someday (sooner than it seems possible to him now), we will be colleagues and fellow journeymen in a sport that is bigger than us both.

But I have to say the odds do not favor his perseverance. There is no lack of character or desire to blame but rather the facts of his well-established career and family that could easily end his falconry, as they have many others’. Something will have to shift---maybe everything---to accommodate the practice of this new passion. The elements of his life must change shape along with his falconry, “so long as they both shall live.”

There is not much I can do to affect the outcome of that. At one time I thought the sponsor’s role large enough to have vast influence and carry great responsibility for the student’s future.

It is not, and it does not, although it is nonetheless vital for any real progress in falconry.

So this new practitioner will have to do what I have done and what all do who remain: continue to learn from his own experiences and from others, and continue to stoke the fire of his interest in the sport so that it will reward a lifetime of learning. At its heart, falconry requires a love for its elements, the hawks, the prey and their shared environment, that is not convenient or even sensible in any modern context. It is wholly of another time and state of mind. I find it good for that reason and innumerable others.

Happy Anniversary

I guess we got busy and lost track, but Friday was the fourth anniversary of the Querencia blog.

Matt here: I had this line tagged on to the above post but given Reid's notice of our "bloggiversary," I think it should better go in this one.

"...I’m happy to think our Querencia blog represents the good old things, like falconry and other human bonds with the wild; and like the process of apprenticeship, a proven human way to keep these bonds strong. "

Thanks to Steve for the inspiration and the space to share!

Suburban Wildlife

At lunchtime today when I was walking over to the burger place, I saw these goose families on a play date in the neutral ground between the hotel parking lot and the ice-cream place.



Soon after I got there, the gardener came though with his noisy aeration machine and sort of broke things up. Time to cut across the parking lot to more congenial surroundings.

More on Paleoindian Art

I just wanted to jump in to talk about Steve's post on that beautiful etching on bone of a mammoth or mastodon recently discovered in Florida. The only thing I can think of that is anything like it is this carving that was found in the 1870s at Tequixquiac in central Mexico. It is the sacrum of an extinct llama that has been carved so that it looks like the head of a coyote. It is not securely dated but was found in Pleistocene deposits and has been generally accepted as genuine. There are some other etchings on bone from Mexico that are reputed from this era, but they aren't authenticated at this time.

There are a number of Clovis-era bone rods, shaft wrenches and other functional pieces known from North America, but none with representational art on them that I'm aware of.

You may recall that I had a post in September, 2007 about a possible mammoth or mastodon petroglyph, found underwater in Lake Michigan. It's nothing like the quality of this piece. If you click through that post it links to some other discussions I've posted about possible Paleoindian art and the problems with it.

Mammoth Art

An incredible artifact, a piece of bone with an image of a mammoth carved in it, has been found in Vero Beach. It may be as old as 14,000 years.

"No similar carved figure has ever been authenticated in the United States, or anywhere in this hemisphere.

(Snip)

"Etched into the bone by a highly sharpened stone tool or the tooth of the animal is the clear image of a walking adult mammoth or mastodon. Extensive tests over the past two months have shown that the image was created when the bone was fresh, presumably right after the animal it belonged to was killed or died.

"Experts who have examined the bone, found at a location which has not been publicly disclosed on the northern side of Vero Beach, concluded the carving and surface are of the same age – 12,000 to 14,000 years old — with no evidence of recent tampering (see accompanying story on tests that have been performed to date).

"Dr. Barbara Purdy, professor emerita of Anthropology at the University of Florida, on May 19th told Vero Beach 32963 discovery of an image carved into a bone by a prehistoric human is unprecedented in North America, and she called the find by fossil hunter James Kennedy “the oldest, most spectacular, and rare work of art in the Americas.”

HT Grayal Farr

Puppy Mills?

Gail Goodman sent this interesting essay from the UKC on "Puppy Mills" What are they? Should we even use the word?

"Twenty years ago, animal activists created the phrase “puppy mill”. Back then, it was only applied to commercial breeders, and then only to those who were breaking the law by neglecting their dogs. In a futile attempt to placate activists, many hobby breeders adopted the term “puppy mill” and used it to separate “them” from “us”. It was a mistake then, and it’s rapidly becoming fatal today. Every one of these so-called “anti-puppy-mill bills” has a definition that could easily include breeders of hunting and show dogs. Every time you use that phrase, you’re contributing to the idea that dog breeders need to be regulated out of existence."

There is a lot more here and you should read it all. It can happen anywhere. Just today Vladimir Beregovoy forwarded me a letter from a desperate Oregon breeder. In part:

"I'm mounting a campaign here in Oregon to file a class action lawsuit against the State for these laws as they take away both our Fourth and Fifth Amendments Rights. I found a non-profit group, Oregonians In Action, who fight for individual owners' rights, particularly in land use. I'm also getting one together in our county (Columbia) because of all the new changes plus their Land Use head, Todd Dugdale, told me I have to get down below 10 dogs by Jan 1, file for a $960 Type II Home Occupation permit, and pay $30 per dog per year in order to be able to keep over 3 dogs now. And I live in unincorporated county. I asked what if I had more than 3 dogs, he said they could all be confiscated, and if I did the rest (Type II etc) anything over 9 needs to be put to sleep. Plus I would be fined $500 per day plus have to pay for all the confiscated dogs' care at unreasonable fees if this happened. And my kennel wouldn't pass their new rules anyway as it now requires 5 acres minimum with a heated & airconditioned building at least 100 feet from my house and would have to have a separate kitchen/bathing facility in it, with concrete floors with a center drain with a separate septic system. This is for over 9 dogs and for a commercial kennel. There is no place for private breeders under these draconian laws.

"Mind you, I've been continually and duly licensed and inspected as a hobby kennel here at my current address for 20 years now. But there is no grandfathering allowed now."

To paraphrase Trotsky again (and it WAS Trotsky!): "You may not be interested in AR, but AR is interested in you."

Rainy range

We've been blessed with a rainy spring and the animals respond accordingly. This is the yearling Aziat Rant playing with Rena, the two-year old Akbash (the all white one), this morning as the sun was coming up over the Wind Rivers.



I knew when they walked up to each other nose-to-nose that play fights would soon break out. The lambs grazed along contentedly, completely unconcerned with the big dogs nearby.



When the dogs got tired of playing, it was back to guard duty. Rant loves his lambs and checks them frequently. Since it rained all night, everyone was wet and dirty.



And over on the lambing ground, the burros guard the back fenceline from intruders. When the herd moves down to the riverbottom for water and rest mid-morning, the burros always walk along the back fence before heading down - doing that one final check. Then they join the herd again, roll in the good dirt, and take naps until late in the afternoon when grazing begins again.

More Early Learning Experiences

I couldn't resist throwing in a couple of my favorite pictures. That's our daughter Lauren, age 18 months (?) working on the excavation of a rockshelter in the foothills west of Denver. You'll have to guess who that tall brunette is standing behind her.


Here's our son Travis, age 4, helping trowel out a level in a test unit in a prehistoric Madisonville Phase site in northern Kentucky.

Manteca

And speaking of animal by-products: courtesy of Michael Blowhard we find that in the world of fashionable food, lard is again cool.

Canned Meats of the World

I absolutely had to share this tour of canned meat from around the world that I ran across. Had to post the picture of my personal favorite, the brown curry mole crickets, though it barely won out over the BBQ flavor bamboo worms.

How many brands on this list have you eaten? I believe I'm at five. Not sure what that says about me.

Who Were the Cannibals?

More and more it has been suggested that we interacted little if at all with our close cousins the Neanderthals. Though there is still some controversy it mostly seems that we did not interbreed, finding each other too strange.

Some have wondered, more in literature than in science, if the appearance of our hairier relaatives made tehm the prototype for trolls and wild men-- "Grendel".

Now it seems we may have been their monster rather than they ours. A new study in the Journal of Anthropological sciences has found evidence of Neanderthal bones butchered like those of deer, and even Neanderthal teeth used as ornaments by our species.

"...Now the leader of the research team says he believes the flesh had been eaten by humans, while its teeth may have been used to make a necklace.

"Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, said the jawbone had probably been cut into to remove flesh, including the tongue. Crucially, the butchery was similar to that used by humans to cut up deer carcass in the early Stone Age. "Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them," Rozzi said."

Of course the conflict may have gone both ways-- Neanderthals were physically stronger than Cro- Magnons. But it doesn't look like we were friends, at least in Europe.

Wildlife research

I photographed this bison tangled up in its radio-collar in Yellowstone National Park a few weeks ago. Unfortunately these sights are becoming more common.

There is no doubt that the use of radio-telemetry collars revolutionized wildlife research and its use is now rather common. We’ve learned a lot about specific wildlife populations already, and the opportunities for research seem endless. But I’ve got to admit, I sometimes grow weary of wildlife telemetry and some of our other modern methods of wildlife study.

I long for the days of old when a naturalist/ecologist/biologist simply followed along at a discrete distance and observed an animal’s natural behaviors, taking notes and writing detailed journal entries about what was observed. This sort of recording of information gave us a much more intensely personal view of the life of individual animals of a species. I long for those first-hand accounts that are too often now discounted as simply “anecdotal.” It was reading these anecdotal accounts that captured my interest in animals as a young child, and later on as a teenager. At 16 years old, I was flunking high school science (utterly bored with studying cell structure) when my teacher let me do an extra-credit project. I read “Golden Shadows, Flying Hooves” by George Schaller detailing first-hand observations of a lion pride in Africa. I followed up on the book by writing my own report about animal behavior. That’s when I finally learned that science didn’t suck, as the school had me firmly believing prior to then.

Finding accounts like those recorded by Schaller is getting more difficult, but within minutes I can download hundreds of wildlife research reports based on GPS recordings taken with the assistance of radio-collars. There have been great improvements in technology, with lighter-weight transmitters allowing tracking of smaller animals, and additional battery power available to allow longer-term tracking of larger species.

Despite its cost, it seems that satellite telemetry is a really common tool for wildlife research projects in my region. This process generally involves capturing an animal once, installing the collar and letting the animal go, tracking the animal from an office far away via satellite upload. There is no repeat contact with the study animal unless it’s to retrieve the collar at the end of its use.

Open sores and hair loss are frequent adverse effects from the use of radio-collars and other telemetry devices, as are animal entanglements in the collars themselves. Ill-fitting collars cause wounds and infections, and I’m afraid I’m seeing these effects more often.

This pronghorn was getting rubbed raw by its loose collar. It's a bad situation with the frigid temperatures we had this winter.


Behavioral effects of the use of radio-collars seem to be dismissed, but collared moose in Norway keep in groups separate from non-collared moose. Brightly-colored collars on deer have resulted in higher harvest rates by deer hunters able to see these colors from a distance. Water and ice build-up under and around collars has been an issue as well.

While we’re learning about wildlife populations with the increase in telemetry, we’re also losing a vital connection with the animals subject to the research. I see lots of collars in use these days, but my encounters with biologists in the field are now extremely rare. Somehow, I’m sure we’re losing something here.

I took these photos last month in the Star Valley area of western Wyoming. This trumpeter swan was being beat by its sliding neckband as it moved its head to feed.

Space Archaeology

A professor and grad student from LSU (you should be proud, Matt!) have an op-ed in the LA Times calling for the preservation of historic sites off-planet, such as Tranquility Base on the moon. Good forward thinking.

Also a priceless item in the comments. One commenter wants verifiable photos of Tranquility Base to prove the landings didn't take place on a soundstage, as conspiracy theorists have maintained for 40 years.

NPR / Monsanto Wedding

The American broadcast company National Public Radio and the global agri-chemical giant Monstanto made rumors of their courtship official in a lovely ceremony held earlier today.

NPR reporter Daniel Zwerdling travelled to India to cover an apparent organic farming counter-revolution in that country. Monsanto came along for the ride.

For sure, the so-called Green Revolution in industrial agriculture is hard to explain in any one piece of writing; it is, in large part, the story of contemporary world affairs as developed since the second world war. To tackle the issue head on, one would need to devote a lifetime's literary output to the problem.

So I'll accept some glossing over. But we can do better than ask the Monsanto press desk for a good quote, can't we?

"Environmental groups in India estimate that more than 300,000 farmers like Sharma have switched to organic growing methods in recent years, or have started the transition from conventional to organic farming. Comparisons between India and the U.S. are difficult because their economies and cultures are so different. But consider this: India has about three times the population of the U.S., but 30 times more organic farmers than the U.S.

"Sharma's story symbolizes the dilemma that developing countries are facing around the world: What's the most sustainable way to grow enough food? The answers will eventually affect people from India to Indiana, because the world's population is booming — and if fast-growing countries like India can't feed themselves, it could trigger more global instability.

"Agribusiness leaders and many government officials are convinced that genetic engineering will help prevent a world food crisis. Firms like Monsanto Co. have been inserting genes from animals and bacteria into plants so they can grow faster with less water and resist insects.

"Monsanto's India spokesman, Christopher Samuel, says the company's advances will double the yields of major crops over the next 20 years, while reducing the amount of land, water, fertilizer and pesticides needed — in the process 'protecting the environment and its natural resources,' he says."

This assertion is taken at face value--reducing land,water, fertilizer use compared to what? Or compared to when? At what other costs?---And somewhere near this point in the audio version of the story, a Monsanto-produced voiceover warns against the coming catastrophe of world hunger and lauds Monsanto's efforts to keep it at bay through better chemistry.

Although Zwerdling acknowledges the source of that voiceover, he fails to mention, in this piece at least, Monstanto's financial support of NPR.

When NPR is not granting the vast agribusiness corporation uncritical airtime for its propaganda, it is sending a subtler message about the doubtful future and general backwardness of a life without industrial chemicals:

"In the courtyard of his house in the village of Chaina, Sharma reviews his balance sheets.

"'Our rice yields under the organic system are almost as good as before,' he says, as his wife scoops up cow manure with her hands and pats it into disks to fuel the cooking fire. 'And we're spending much less money on inputs, since we're not buying pesticides and fertilizer — although labor costs have increased.'"

I don't know. Is it just me, or doesn't this whole silly organic movement just seem like too much trouble?