About Zanesville

Last week both Esquire and GQ published big stories on the Zanesville, Ohio zoo massacre. Read both articles, if you have time, but if you only have time for one [and even if you think you don't], read Esquire's version. Staff writer Chris Jones establishes a sense of unease, of dread and sorrow, and builds on it, and makes everything about that grim event very real and deeply affecting. Jones has said that he hoped to achieve the "spare beauty" of police reports from that night, and he has done that. He also wanted to write "something that would scare the shit out of people," and he's done that, too.

GQ's Chris Heath takes a different approach, and covers more ground. He writes about the police operation, details the life and misadventures of zoo owner Terry Thompson, and interviews others in Ohio who keep exotic animals. Heath's report is as thorough as anyone could wish, and would have been a perfectly tolerable effort, if only Chris Jones hadn't written such a corker of a piece on the same event for Esquire.


The following links have to do with 1) the work of creating a story, and 2) the race between GQ and Esquire to get a long-form Zanesville article in front of the magazine-buying public. Those not interested in the behavior of competing publishers and competitive journalists should probably give these links a miss.

Gawker: Why Did Esquire and GQ Both Publish Huge Zoo Massacre Stories on the Same Day?
Chris Jones of Esquire on His Zanesville Zoo Massacre Story 'Animals,' 'The Most Dramatic Story Of The Year'
Chris Jones on "Animals," his Zanesville Zoo massacre story [forum discussion, joined by the author]

And one more:
Dear Hollywood: Don’t forget Cincinnati Magazine’s Zanesville massacre story

Photo above: Sumatran tiger, ueno zoo tokyo japan, by children of the neon god on Flickr.

I've found my people [Brown Recluse division]

That would be the Brown Recluse spider, ha very ha.

So many years...! So many years I've spent patiently explaining that your aunt in Pacoima or your grandfather in Carmel was actually not, I repeat, not bitten by a Brown Recluse spider, because the Brown Recluse doesn't live in California, and even where it does live, it isn't running around biting people. It's shy and, well, reclusive. And did I mention that most medical doctors are not arthropodologists? May I add that most medical doctors do not spend their days researching bacterial infections, Staph infections in particular? Here's someone who does. Oh, kids, how this makes me smile:

It's not a freaking spider bite

Via this:
MRSA, spider bites and denial

And here's more:
“Spider bite” lesions are usually diagnosed as skin and soft-tissue infections

And more:
Spider!

And more:
Male funnel-web spider [ at somethingscrawlinginmyhair.com — awesome-sauce, I'm telling you]

All with lovely linkage. Like this:

An approach to spider bites: Erroneous attribution of dermonecrotic lesions to brown recluse or hobo spider bites in California Canada [pdf]

California does have a Desert Recluse. [Spider!] It's shy, reclusive [quelle surprise] and reluctant to bite. Just for you, Californians:
Brown Recluse and Other Recluse Spiders

Photo credit: awesome shot of a spider at Kent Ridge Park in Singapore, by Tripod Ape, at Flickr.

So not Rick Perry

True story: while riding through a remote meadow in the Colorado Rockies, a mountain biker who is not Rick Perry startles a mother bear with cubs. The mother bear is hella upset. Did I mention that the mountain biker is not Rick Perry?

Shots were taken, which is to say photos in this case, and you can read the whole excellent thing here. Biker/blogger KB also loves trail cams and dogs! Romping and Rolling in the Rockies is one to bookmark, if you ask me.

H/T: the most excellent CougarMagic.

[Wonderful photo by Jim Liestman at Flickr/Creative Commons. Click to embiggen.]

In other news

Baby mountain lion in the Santa Monica Mountains. Photo by the good folks of the National Park Service.

Three words: Radioactive. wild. boars.

"When I write to tell you to go outside and experience nature, I am writing inside and you are reading inside and neither of us is outside experiencing nature." True dat.

Mountain lions of the Santa Monica Mountains. Great overview by Gary Valle [H/T CougarMagic]. On second thought, maybe I'll stay inside. [Near midnight here in the San Bernardino National Forest. Plus: radioactive wild boars.] The cuteness! [And oh, the humanity.]

Oklahoma Pre-wash Cycle. Awww.

And finally: Goodbye, Snaffles. Splendid and deeply moving eulogy for a wise, wonderful horse.

Why are bear cubs so adorable?

Dunno. They just are. I wuv them.

Now that the snow is melting, wildlife is popping up all over the SoCal nightly news reports: bears, mountain lions [see links below] and what-do-you-mean-this-isn't-New-Mexico far-ranging birds. [Shout-out to fellow birder S-, who photographed a Greater Pewee — is that an oxymoron? — up at Arrastre Creek today in the San Bernardinos. Since 1900 only a dozen or so of these Central American flycatchers have been spotted in California, according to the latest eBird stats. Darn day job... I'll get you anyway, Pewee!]

Topic. Bear cub adorableness:





Local mountain lion link fest:
"Just feet from my front door"
This just in: Wild animals live here
Woman survives mountain lion scare
Staring down nature's nose

Dead zone

"An oil-soaked bird floats dead," victim of the Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay, 2007. SF Chronicle photos [above and left] by Michael Macor.

Gut-wrenching: the Gulf Coast oil spill "could become the nation's worst environmental disaster in decades."

"The terrible loss of 11 workers may be just the beginning of this tragedy as the oil slick spreads toward sensitive coastal areas vital to birds and marine life and to all the communities that depend on them", said Melanie Driscoll, an Audubon bird conservation director, who is monitoring the situation from her base in Louisiana. "For birds, the timing could not be worse; they are breeding, nesting and especially vulnerable in many of the places where the oil could come ashore." [Source.]

From a must-read post, Complete and Utter Disaster:

We’re in the midst of spring migration, a time of year when hundreds of thousands of neotropical migrating songbirds are teeming onto our continent from parts south, many of them taking a route that famously leads them to jump the Gulf of Mexico in one swoop. It’s a flight that can take up to 20 hours and leaves birds completely famished and exhausted. To say that it’s difficult is an understatement. It’s one of the truly amazing behaviors in the natural world. And now at the peak of migration, for those birds taking a path straight across the gulf with a bullseye on, perhaps, crucial bits of coastal habitat like Alabama’s Dauphin Island or Florida’s St. Mark’s NWR, the last stretch of migration has to be through a sooty, black curtain of oil smoke several thousand feet high.

Updates at the International Bird Rescue Research Center's blog.

All links in this post via the most excellent Mike McDowell, who wrote on Facebook that "everyone who voted for "Drill Baby Drill" [should] start heading down to the gulf coast to help clean oil off of critters."

As old and jaded and cynical as I am, I still have trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that we [consumers, voters, Americans] allow this sort of disaster to happen. It shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't be happening.


Commenter Bill on Coyote Crossing writes: "For all of you out there who care please lessen your use of the oil based economy, and, at the very least, don’t do business with BP."

Coyotes: "We will dance on your graves, puny humans"

Great photo of an amazing predator: Northern Alberta coyote, by ru 24 real on Flickr. [Click to embiggen.]

It's coyotes in the news week here in Bloglandia. A round-up of the good, the bad and the ugly:

The bad would have to be news of 18,000 coyotes killed by hunters in five months, brought to you by the Saskatchewan, Canada bounty program. Just cut off the paws and collect $20 per animal, and if it's easier to kill a few dozen coyotes in neighboring Alberta and chop their feet off and dump their bodies in front of someone's farm, well, keep in mind that there's a fine for littering. Littering is bad! [Photo of the carcasses by Rick Price, who wasn't anticipating a truckload of dead coyotes when he set off to photograph local wildlife last week.] Trevor Herriot has more about the consequences, intended and unintended, of coyote control here, on his excellent Grass Notes blog.

The ugly: that would be the let's-all-shudder-at-a-hick-and-his-dogs article by Juliet Macur of the NY Times. Quote: "Dogfighting became a felony in all 50 states in 2008, in no small part because of Michael Vick, the N.F.L. star who went to prison a year earlier for his involvement in a dogfighting ring." Seriously, that's an actual quote from the article. It's inaccurate, and of course dogfighting is actually nothing like hunting coyotes with greyhounds, but whatever. I really, really, really hate Macur's lazy mash-up of ignorance and condescension. I don't think it's journalism — it's just crappy writing.

By way of contrast, consider how Ms. Macur might have gotten along with the folks at the Master of Fox Hounds Association’s seminar, which brings us to the good:

In the months leading up to the Master of Fox Hounds Association’s biennial hunt staff seminar, we’d already heard a lot about Dr. Stanley Gehrt and his urban coyote presentation. He’d done this presentation at an MFHA meeting in January that had everyone talking, so we were especially curious to hear it ourselves. And, boy, was it worth the price of admission.

Gehrt is an assistant professor and extension wildlife specialist at Ohio State University. His urban coyote study in Chicago started in 2000 and is the longest-running coyote research project in North America. Using radio tracking collars, the study has followed 440 coyotes in 10 packs and revealed fascinating details about their lives, including how they form packs, which ones don’t pack up, how they develop their territories, what they hunt, and how they adapt to living in an urban environment. The results, as presented in his lecture “Uncovering Truths and Debunking Myths about City Coyotes,” were eye-opening.

Read the whole thing — a fine and fascinating read — over at Full Cry: A Hound Blog. Definitely beats suffering through a 1200-word mock-the-Okie piece in the NY Times.


Related:
MFHA hunt staff seminar, part 3: The Old Guns
Texas ass hat Gov. Perry shoots coyote [Makes me wonder how I ever manage to get a bunch of dogs in and out of the cabin, after dark, with coyotes dodging around in the shadows night after night, and me without a .380 Ruger. I don't pack a pistol when I hike in snake country, either. Daredevil is my middle name -- right, peeps?]

Pacific Flyway

These Ross's Geese winter in California, raise young in the Arctic. Thanks to groups like Ducks Unlimited, the species is thriving and extending its range. Photo by NDomer73 on Flickr: click for big.

Migration is so awesome. Arrivals, departures... I'm missing these handsome little souls, who wintered in the backyard brush pile, and these busy gents, who wintered here too and have also headed north. [As a wise woman said: "Remember that someone else is waiting for them, and will be happy to see them arrive."] Great photos by The Digiscoper, Mike McDowell. And look who just showed up! A heart bird:

Western Tanager, by Phae on Flickr. Click for bigger.

This coming weekend I'm planning to bird Big Morongo, which is Pacific Flyway Central at the moment. Migrants everywhere you look.

*************

An extraordinarily moving report on an 18,000 mile migration:

“I just did a talk yesterday for some colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey,” Gill told me not long after E7 had been tracked to New Zealand. “And I showed these graphics of E7’s flight and said, ‘Okay, the flight is nonstop, no food, no water, no sleep as we know it, flying for eight days,’ and there was just this silence in the room, and I could see their minds trying to wrap around this—as does mine. I try to be objective as a scientist, but this just . . .” Gill’s sentence trailed off as he seemed unable to summon up the right word to describe his reaction.

More about this amazing flight here, from the USGS Alaska Science Center Shorebirds Research website.

The last leg of E7's journey is the most extraordinary, entailing a non-stop flight of more than eight days and a distance of 7,200 miles [...]

Since they are land birds, godwits like E7 can't stop to eat or drink while flying over open-ocean. The constant flight speeds at which E7 was tracked by satellite indicate that she did not stop on land.

Godwits do not become adults until their 3rd or 4th year and many live beyond 20 years of age. If 18,000 miles is an average annual flight distance, then an adult godwit would fly some 288,000 miles in a lifetime. [Source.]

E7's tribe: Bar-Tailed Godwits, by nkenji on Flickr. Click for big.

Midnight links: rabies/vaccines/titers

Austin - stream of bats at sundown. Photo by Wordyeti on Flickr. "A single little brown bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquito-sized insects in a single hour, while a pregnant or lactating female bat typically eats the equivalent of her entire body weight in insects each night." [Source: Bat Conservation International.]

It all started when the most excellent Julie Zickefoose rescued a young bat. And then another bat. Julie has forgotten more about nature and about wildlife than most of us will ever know, and she took all the standard precautions and figured the rabies risk was smaller than negligible.

Then things got complicated. There are bat strains of rabies as well as canine strains, and scientists don't know much about the bat strains. "Certainly these kinds of viruses, under the right conditions, can establish very persistent latent infections. I personally don't agree that we know that an asymptomatic bat cannot transmit the disease."

Good news: the bat turned out not to be rabid. Sad news: in order to test the bat for rabies the little creature had to be killed. Super-helpful news: Julie was thoughtful enough to share all kinds of bat and rabies information with her readers. A good thing, since I'd like to sign up for this.


Vaccines are a special area of interest and concern for dog people, and on Thursday Pet Connection's Kim Campbell Thornton reported on the latest vaccine news from the Rabies Challenge fundraiser in San Diego.

In light of which, I'll quote Julie Z:

The deal with the [rabies pre-exposure] shots is you get your titer checked every two years (about $40), and if the rabies antibodies are still high, you're OK. One woman I know says hers has held for 15 years and counting.

15 years! Nice to know, if you're interested in safely extending the required interval for canine rabies boosters [and I am]. Thanks to Julie for the great blog posts, and may her pre-exposure vaccinations not hurt a bit.

American in Africa gets away with murder

"Elephant Skull, African Safari 2009, Botswana, Africa." Photo by godutchbaby on Flickr.

I love when I read something and think it's terrific, and a writer I admire like mad reads it and thinks it's terrific, too. The piece is The Hunted, by Jeffrey Goldberg, in this week's New Yorker.

To quote TNC: Check it out. It's a ripping good time.

A home run of cuteness

Awesome shot by Steven J. Kazlowski, who somehow survived the cute overdose and has the photos to prove it.

Did I say home run? This is an out-of the-park, extra-innings, World Series grand slam of cuteness. From the Mail Online:

Photographer Steven Kazlowski, 40, snapped the otters drifting across Saw Mill Bay, in Prince William Sound, off the south coast of Alaska. The sound has more than 3,000 miles of shoreline and is home to around 70,000 sea otters.

[Whoa, dudes. According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service [pdf link], "Three population stocks of sea otters exist in Alaska today. The statewide population is believed to number around 70,000 animals." Thousands of sea otters died in Prince William Sound as a result of the Exxon Valdez disaster, and research indicates that the population has not recovered fully. The current sea otter population of PWS, according to a 2003 aerial survey quoted here [pdf], is estimated to be nearly 12,000.]

Steven, from Seattle, United States, said he had to wait for almost eight hours before he got the snaps of the otters.

He said: 'I had watched this area for several days and I found a rock which I thought would make a great place to watch the otters from.

'I had been hiding there for about eight hours one day when I saw the otter with its baby drift by.

'It was fantastic that after all that time I was rewarded with these images.

'The baby was just sleeping in the sun as its mother she floated in the sound on her back. It was something I will never forget.'

Visit the Mail Online to see the cuteness in all its embiggened glory. [H/T: Petville.]

Tonight: new wildlife series from the BBC, Discovery Channel

"African straw-coloured fruit bats in flight, Kasanka National Park, Zambia." Photo by Kieran Dodds for Discovery Channel / BBC.

This Sunday, from 8-10pm ET/PT on the Discovery Channel, catch the premiere episode of Life.

From the NY Times review:

Fans of programs like “Nature” on PBS are already aware of just how exquisite the best wildlife filmmaking is these days, thanks to ultraportable gear and high-definition video, but the wealth and variety of material in “Life” may surprise even those viewers. (“Life” was made in partnership with the BBC, as was an earlier series, “Planet Earth.”)

The scale is among the most striking things. We’ve long been used to seeing big cats run down antelopes, and there are plenty of large animals here. But there are also insects, hummingbirds, fingernail-size amphibians. Who shot the rollicking images of an inchlong pebble toad rolling like a small stone down a mountainside in Venezuela? Someone with a heck of a lot of patience, that’s who.

Honestly, what kind of person is following inch-long pebble toads as they go rollicking down mountainsides in Venezuela? Funny you should ask. Here's a NY Times profile of The Calm Men Who Bring You Exotic Animals.

My spring-fu is strong

No more winter browns. American Goldfinches are going through the closets, doing some spring cleaning, getting rid of the old stuff. [My local Goldfinches are a tad further along than this.] Photo by Doug Greenberg on Flickr.

What the well-dressed male Goldfinch will be wearing in a few weeks. Photo by Eric Bégin on Flickr.

Western Bluebird [and House Finches] by jek in the box on Flickr.

And they say we don't have seasons!

It went from wet and cold and dark to warm and sunny overnight. Birdsong everywhere, bazillions of birds, everything insanely green and sunny and beautiful. Hawks are nesting, turkey vultures are soaring, owl chicks are growing [owlets will be banded tomorrow [March 20] at 3:00 PM Pacific Time, webcam fans], and life is good.

I can't believe the Project FeederWatch season is almost over.

I looked out the kitchen window this afternoon and saw a big crowd bellying up to the birdbath: a flock of maybe 30 Cedar Waxwings, half a dozen Western Bluebirds, a Robin, some American Goldfinches, a warbler or two, all at the same time, everyone banking and landing, or drinking, or diving in and splashing. It was beautiful. All photos from Flickr/Creative Commons, because I don't digiscope. Yet.

Cedar Waxwing by ru 24 real on Flickr.

Cedar Waxwings by drewweber on Flickr.

American Robin. Beautiful photo by cruadinx on Flickr.

"What is the first law of the foot?"

Photographer Dave Bonta writes: "A first-year female captured on our property and fitted with a transmitter as part of a research project by the National Aviary and the Carnegie Museum's Powdermill Avian Research Center. See here for background, and the main blog post here." Photo from Dave Bonta's Flickr set, golden eagle, via that Illinois Birders' Forum thread from the previous post. Click for big.

Illinois: Golden Eagle attacks White-tailed Deer

Ye gods.

Via the most excellent Birdchick: check out this amazing photo series of a Golden Eagle attacking a Whitetail. Props to Eric Walters of the Illinois Birders' Forum for posting the story and photos, and for having his camera handy for one of his "most exciting Illinois birding experiences over the last three decades."

Great Backyard Bird Count

The guaranteed-to-make-you-gasp-out-loud-when-the-sun-hits-him-just-right Costa's Hummingbird. Photo by bcsing on Flickr, taken 1-08-10 on the Lower Colorado River.

Feeders filled — check. Binocs — check. Regional checklist — check. Perfect 74F weather — big giant check. [Sorry, snowpocalypse people.] This weekend it's all about The Great Backyard Bird Count, "an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent."

Why participate? Aside from the fact that it's hella fun, the GBBC helps birds. And birds, as the great Canadian writer Margaret Atwood explains in this wonderful essay, are not merely beautiful and fascinating. Birds are the canaries of Coal Mine Earth.

[T]imes change, and we're heading back towards an older way of reading the birds. It's Fates of Nations time again, and ill omens seen through birds in flight – or the absence of them - and deadly prices to be paid for getting what you want. The birds have something to tell us again, and the truths are not comfortable ones.

Recording your counts this weekend during the GBBC is one way to help birds. Another way to help is by making birdhouses for them. The most excellent Birdchick shows us what a well-designed birdhouse should look like:

Our feathered friends

Hail to thee, blithe spirit: Fossil feathers reveal dinosaurs' true colours. Above, an artist's impression of Sinosauropteryx, from Wikipedia.

I know what you're thinking. Looks just like a Spotted Towhee, right? Or close enough. One of my favorite visitors:

Spotted Towhee by Rick Leche on Flickr.

A young Cooper's Hawk showed up in the yard last week. The first time I saw him he was staggering around on top of the brushpile like a drunk in a dark room, with a dozen sparrows and finches frozen beneath his talons. He fumbled around for a bit and flew off, but returned the next day and nabbed a warbler. Collateral damage: an American Goldfinch that I suspect was injured trying to escape. The goldfinch lay on the ground panting and flailing, and I got a shoebox with a towel ready and called one of our local wildlife rehabilitators.

Although some might be inclined to put a poor goldfinch out of his misery in a case like this, keep in mind that 1) killing him yourself is a violation of federal law, and 2) he might have an excellent chance of recovery with the help of a skilled rehabber*. Sad to report, this little guy didn't make it. Plan B: pop tiny body in freezer for delivery at later date to local raptor rehab.

*Related:
Hummingbird Hospital
Hummingbird Hospital Part 2
Hummingbird Hospital Part 3
Release Day

I am so buying a bunch of these

This decal will look great on the truck's rear window. And on the fridge at the cabin, and on my laptop, and in the classroom ... Purchasing info here.

Mountain lion in your driveway? Bear in the barn? Hippies in the hot springs? Who ya gonna call? Around here, it's usually senior wildlife biologist Kevin Brennan of the California Department of Fish and Game. Here's Kevin carrying a drowsy young mountain lion away from a local elementary school:


Fish and Game Wardens and wildlife biologists in California do incredibly important work, and these days the department they work for needs public support more than ever. Consider:

California's game wardens protect wildlife and public resources and enforce hunting and fishing regulations. But warden numbers have been depleted by attrition.

Today there are about 210 field-level game wardens to patrol the state, recognized as the lowest ratio of wardens to population of any North American state or province.

Money from the special stamps will pay for training and equipment for game wardens. The stamp comes in the form of a sticker that can be affixed to a car window. Anyone can purchase a stamp; it does not have to be purchased with a hunting or fishing license. [Source]

As if budget cuts weren't bad enough, the California Department of Fish and Game is reeling from the tragic loss of three biologists and a pilot who were killed in a helicopter crash last week. [A memorial fund has been established, and this article tells how to make a donation.]

Times are tough indeed for the good people who protect so much:
* more than 1,000 native fish and wildlife species, 6,300 native plant species and 360 threatened or endangered species
* California's 159,000 square miles of land (414 square miles per warden)
* 1,100 miles of coastline, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, 4,800 lakes and reservoirs and 80 major rivers

And with the lowest ratio of wardens to population in North America! Buying a bunch of stickers is the least I can do to show my thanks. That, and a new sidebar link: it should be just a few inches to the right.

Big whoop: Coyotes yip, shriek, howl the night away

" Anything you can sing, I can sing louder
I can sing anything louder than you
No you can't, Yes I can, No you can't, Yes I can
No you can't, Yes I can, yes I can!" Coyotes on Flickr by matt knoth.

Gah, I love this music. Great big hat tip to Camera Trap Codger, the man behind this beaut of a photo and many others.

Heard something like Track #3 right under the window up at the cabin this summer. Coyotes are loud. That scrawny chest hides a mighty amplifier. Track #6 and Track #20 sound like standard cabin serenades, the ones that wake me up at two or three in the morning happy to be warm and safe inside. Great vocalists, coyotes.



Wild Coyote Sounds at Soundboard.

Must adopt baby beluga at once

Mom and baby are both doing well. Photo from the Shedd Aquarium, via ZooBorns.

This is quite possibly the most adorable thing I have ever seen in my entire life. From [where else] ZooBorns, where you can also see a video of the birth itself. And now I must return to work, dreaming of my baby beluga...