Category: Animals

Godspeed, Ben!

On By Sarah AngletonIn Animals12 Comments

On April 30, 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition opened to the world on the grounds of Forest Park in St. Louis. To walk through Forest Park today, nearly one hundred and nineteen years later, you almost wouldn’t know the fair had been there at all. The only structures that remain are the Art Museum building and a large, elliptical, walk-through birdcage that forms part of the St. Louis Zoo.

Pub. by Chas. M. Monroe Co. “Tichnor Quality Views,” Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Made Only by Tichnor Bros., Inc., Boston, Mass., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The aviary wasn’t originally intended to be a permanent structure. It had been erected by the Smithsonian Institute to house the birds it would display as part of the fair. When the fair was over, the city of St. Louis, which had long wanted a zoo, purchased the structure and by 1913 had erected a seventy-seven-acre zoological garden around it.

In 1916 the school children of the city donated enough pennies to acquire the zoo’s first elephant, Miss Jim, and the same year, St. Louis voters approved a special tax to support their new zoo, which today remains one of very few community-supported zoos in the world, offering free admission to visitors.

In 1921 came bear pits; in 1924, a primate house; and in 1927, a reptile house. The 1960s brought an aquatic house, a children’s area and railroad, and a significant renovation to the original aviary. Over the years the zoo in Forest Park has been improved a great deal, has expanded to cover ninety acres, and welcomed around three million visitors per year. It currently houses about eight hundred different species, including 9,200 animals.

Too cute to be contained. (not Ben). Alberto Apollaro Teleuko, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

But there’s about to be one less critter among them because on February 7, 2023, a four-year-old Andean bear named Ben escaped his enclosure. Fortunately, this happened in the morning before the zoo had opened to the public and Ben was tranquilized and secured without incident. Zoo staff added stainless steel cargo clips with 450 pounds of tensile strength to the steel mesh through which Ben had found his way to freedom. All was well.

Then about three weeks later Ben forced his way through the new cargo clips and escaped again. This time, the zoo was open. Visitors were ushered indoors while Ben was once again tranquilized and secured. With the exception of the cargo clips, no real harm was done.

Evidently, like so many St. Louis residents these days, with skyrocketing crime rates, a district attorney under fire who can’t even seem to keep the zoo animals behind bars, and yet more negative national media attention, Ben the Andean bear doesn’t want to be in the city. He’s moving to Texas.

And who can blame him, really? This delightful Houdini has been described by zoo staff as a fun and playful character. Soon he’ll get to trade his steel mesh in this currently struggling city for a moat at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas, right next to the Mexican border where thankfully there is little crime, a well-functioning system in place for keeping everyone well-organized and contained, and almost no media attention whatsoever.

Godspeed, Ben!

Prognosticator of Prognosticators

On By Sarah AngletonIn Animals, Traditions, Weather12 Comments

On February 2, 1887, exactly one year after Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper editor Clymer Freas suggested the idea of an official Groundhog Day, a group of well-dressed and maybe just a little bit silly local businessmen who referred to themselves as the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club began a tradition that has to go down as one of the most ridiculous annual ceremonies I actually pay attention to.

I refer of course to that preferably not so bright Candlemas morning when the world’s most famous rodent named Phil appears before an adoring public to make an official statement regarding the amount of winter weather that remains to be endured.

The groundhog, aka woodchuck is an animal that is at least as good at long-range weather forecasting as it is at chucking wood, which it would probably do a lot of if it could. Image by Mona El Falaky from Pixabay

Officially known as Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinaire, Phil is allegedly the oldest groundhog on record at the whopping age of 136. That’s approximately 130 years longer than the expected lifespan of a groundhog.

Phil’s “Inner Circle,” which includes the world’s only human speaker of Groundhogese, explains that his exceptionally long life can be attributed to a life elixir he takes every summer, the side effects of which can cause him to occasionally change his physical appearance somewhat dramatically.

Okay, it’s quirky. Maybe even just plain weird, but the Groundhog Day celebration draws as many as thirty to forty thousand visitors to the tiny town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania every February second. Hordes of groundhog enthusiasts flock to Gobbler’s Knob, the site of Phil’s proclamation near Downtown Punxsutawney, and probably spend a fair bit of cash while visiting the community.

The movie that put Punxsutawney and Phil on the map was actually filmed in Woodstock, Illinois, which also has stupid cold February mornings. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

And so, it makes perfect sense to have continued the event since the 1993 film Groundhog Day forced Bill Murray to live the day over and over again, and let the world know about this silliest of festivals. What makes less sense is that the annual tradition occurred for one hundred and six years before that. I somehow doubt that the members of the original Punxsutawney Groundhog Club foresaw a day when Hollywood would come knocking on Phil’s burrow.

Then again, they do have a connection to the Seer of Seers, and his accuracy in predicting whether spring is right around the corner or we will experience six more weeks of winter, is about 36%. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s less accurate than a coin flip.

But he is just a really old rodent. And groundhogs have not always been a part of such predictions. The Candlemas long-range forecasts themselves are actually much older, with a general acceptance that “If Candlemas Day is clear and bright, Winter will have another bite.”

Looking at this halfway point between the winter solstice and vernal equinox as a predictor of weather patterns coming into spring even predates Candlemas as a part of the Celtic celebrations of Imbolc. Groundhogs didn’t get mixed up with it until German immigrants brought the tradition with them to Pennsylvania and made it their very own.

Phil, looking super thrilled to be here. Chris Flook, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

But I guess it’s okay that they’re mixed up with it now. Punxsutawney Phil’s festival in Gobbler’s Knob has inspired at least thirteen similar festivals throughout the Eastern United States, because I guess it’s something to do while we wait out the last six or so weeks of winter. So, here we go again.

I have been known from time to time to be delighted by silly traditions and I confess that I have a fair few bizarre events on my bucket list. Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, dear reader, is not one of them, mostly because February mornings in Pennsylvania are really stupid cold. For you, however, I did watch the livestream of Phil’s pronouncement this morning from the comfort of my warm living room while still in my pajamas.

I may not have been there, but Miss Pennsylvania was, and so was the governor of the state, as well as a large number of reporters who were probably questioning their career choices. The top hat-clad president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club was there, too. He had a lengthy conversation with a rodent, who I’m sad to say, predicted six more weeks of winter, and there’s only a 64% chance he’s wrong.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Hares, Hounds, and an Unlikely Superfan

On By Sarah AngletonIn Animals, Sports18 Comments

It’s been about two hundred years since the students of the Shrewsbury School in England invented a new game in which they pretended to engage in an epic rabbit hunt. A couple of students took off running through whatever winding path they wished, carrying with them scraps of paper to drop along the way and lay down a trail. These were the hares.

This guy looks like he’s ready to catch
some rabbits. R.H.Moore: All about dogs; a book for doggy people New York,J. Lane,1900. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
item/75529, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

After giving the hares about a ten-minute head start, the next wave of students took off in hot pursuit, doing their best to follow the paper trail “scent” and locate their prey, like good “harriers.” These hounds were usually the younger of the remaining students because older, bigger students rarely tolerate being referred to as dogs.

At last came the field. These were the oldest students who really got their wriggle on and went in for the metaphorical kill. At least I assume it was metaphorical. The whole thing was designed to resemble the traditional hare or fox hunt. It was also a pretty good way to get some exercise.

In general, I approve of exercise and as I’ve mentioned once or twice before I have an almost irrational hatred of rabbits, so it might seem like this game would be right up my alley. Except that it isn’t, because I also have an entirely rational hatred of running. I’ve mentioned that once or twice, too.

The game of “hare and hounds” (referred to sometimes as “paper chase”) certainly does require a lot of running. In fact, it wasn’t long before this game became a competitive sport at public schools throughout England and soon after Oxford and Cambridge. By 1876 the sport held an English national championship.

Ok, no there weren’t really 25,000 athletes. But it was a lot. And not one of the runners you can see in this picture is my son.

Eleven years later it had come to the United States. By then the imaginary rabbit had long been abandoned and the sport had become known as cross country. Today it shows up all over the world with lots of crazy people (referred to sometimes as “runners”) who just run through the countryside. For fun, I guess.

It’s definitely not my kind of sport, but I have been working on becoming a superfan because my youngest son has decided he would like to spend his high school years as a crazy person. He started this past spring surprising me, and possibly himself, by deciding to run distance events in Track & Field. Turns out he’s pretty good at it, and improving rapidly.

I, however, have discovered that cross country is a difficult sport to spectate. His first meet of the schoolyear occurred earlier this week at a very crowded park with what felt like about a thousand other schools, each with at least twenty-five runners. I exaggerate, of course, but only because I rarely could pick out my son in the pack.

I may not love running, but as long as I bring one of these to the meet, my son is happy enough to grant me superfan status.

I lined up with thousands (probably) of parents along the start and saw a mass of runners take off. I really can only assume he was among them. Then I shuffled along with the crowd to another part of the course, held up my camera to catch a picture of him running past, and failed to find him before the horde of spectators began once again to shuffle into a new place and I missed him again.

I did see him cross the finish line, right at his goal time for the event. I caught up with him afterwards to give him his special sport recovery drink I’d been keeping cold for him and to tell him how comfortable he had looked on the course. I assume that was probably mostly true since he was smiling. At least it seemed like the kind of thing a superfan parent should say.

I really am proud of him, though I’m not sure where he got his love for the sport. It’s probably safe to assume that is wasn’t from his mother who mostly thinks running is stupid. But just maybe it stems in part from a shared innate drive to hunt down rabbits.

A Mini Fridge, a Microwave, and a Bear

On By Sarah AngletonIn Animals, Education12 Comments

I confess this is one of my favorite times of the year, as everyone is getting ready for school and activities are firing up all around. Once I get through the drudgery of the start-of-the-year forms, I start filling up my calendar with all the fall fun. The homework stress hasn’t started yet for the kids, the teachers aren’t yet overworked and overtired, the slate is clean, and everyone is optimistic about the school year to come.

There’s probably room to squeeze in a bear. Image by Peggy Dyar from Pixabay

And because I live in the suburbs tucked in between two major interstates that run from a lot of heres to theres, it’s also the time I get to see a steady parade of U-Haul trailers, loaded-down trucks, and overstuffed minivans. I enjoy watching the college students headed out on new adventures, carrying wishes for what the year will bring, dreams for their unfolding futures, and lots and lots of stuff.

All these college-bound vehicles are packed to the gills with microwaves, mini fridges, bean bag chairs, and other scraps of hand-me-down-furniture. Some lucky students might be transporting a television or even a game console in addition to the computer, desk lamp, bedding, and laundry baskets they will actually need. It’s all the stuff of home, or at least near enough to make their new home away from home more comfortable and less intimidating.

As much as I enjoy seeing this, I am painfully aware that this time next year, we’ll be transporting my first born to some campus somewhere in a vehicle filled with much more stuff than he really needs. I’m sure he’s already devising a plan to con his brother into letting him take the Xbox, which will definitely not work, and if he can manage, he’d probably also like to take the dog.

Lord Byron, no doubt devising a way to flout the rules. National Portrait Gallery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Of course, that won’t work either because even if the rest of us could part with the family pet, my son will most likely be living in a dorm where he certainly won’t be allowed to have a dog. If the university is smart, it will also specify that the restriction includes any animal that doesn’t fit neatly into a ten-gallon aquarium, because they will have learned a lesson from Lord Byron.

Romantic poet George Gordon Byron, who was something of a rock star in his day, left for Trinity College in Cambridge in 1805, no doubt carrying the many things he would need to establish a comfortable life as a student away from home. But the one thing this young man, already known for passionate obsession and a tendency to flout the rules, really wanted to take with him to school was his dog.

Byron was an animal lover whose affections ran to a wide range of animals throughout his short life, including, according to his contemporary Percy Shelly, “ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon.” And that was just at one time. Over the years his exotic collection allegedly included at least a crocodile, several peacocks, more than one badger, a wolf, and a bear.

College essential. NasserHalaweh,
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Trinity College said no to the dog, but they had no specific rules addressing some of Byron’s other more exotic friends, and so he brought along his bear instead. Because there was no specific rule against it, and I’m sure much to the chagrin of Byron’s classmates, the college let it stand. This after they asked him what they could possibly do with a bear and he replied simply, “he should sit for a fellowship.”

Now that is an outside-the-box, divergent kind of thinker, the kind of guy you want helping you solve a problem. You might even want him as a college roommate because he definitely knew how to have a good time, if that wouldn’t mean that you’d also have to live with a bear.

I assume that Trinity College has since changed its rules regarding exotic pets on campus. I know that here in Missouri, while we do occasionally get bear sightings along our interstates, I’ve not yet seen one stuffed into a minivan on its way to school in hopes of being granted a fellowship.

A Jury of Slimy Philosophical Counselors

On By Sarah AngletonIn Animals, History, Weather11 Comments

It’s been a crazy couple of days here in the Greater St. Louis area as historic flash flooding has overwhelmed roadways, swamped cars, and caused a lot of damage to homes and businesses. By historic, I mean this was the biggest rain event this region has ever seen since records of such things exist starting in 1874.

According to the National Weather Service, in just six hours, the rainfall total surpassed the previous record set in a 24-hour period in 1915. To put it in a slightly different perspective, the St. Louis area received approximately 25% of its normal annual rainfall total in something like twelve hours, and closer to a third in some areas. It’s a hot mess.

This is one of the interstates we travel daily. A friend sent me this picture and I don’t know whose it is originally. I will gladly give credit or remove as requested.

Now, let me reassure you that though my suburban town did receive impressive rain totals and is in some places dealing with damage from the flood waters, my personal home is relatively elevated and has remained dry. I’m certainly very grateful for that. Other than having to alter schedules and commutes, my family hasn’t been particularly affected by the downpour.

Prior to the deluge, we St. Louisans had been experiencing a stretch of drought and we needed the rain, so we were more or less delighted when Monday brought us cloudy skies and occasional drizzles with the promise of a nice overnight thunderstorm. We just hadn’t anticipated so much rain so quickly.

It’s not that our weather forecasters hadn’t mentioned the possibility of a lot of precipitation and maybe even some flash flooding. We all accepted, I think, that it wasn’t going to be an ideal night to tent camp in a creek bed. But it’s not easy to anticipate an event that, to the best of our knowledge, has never happened before.

Dr. Merryweather chose to use 12 leeches so his prognosticators wouldn’t feel “the affliction of solitary confinement,” which I admit is far more consideration that I have ever given to a leech. Image by István Asztalos from Pixabay

Even with all their university degrees, computer models, and fancy greenscreen maps, meteorologists have a pretty tough audience to try to reach. It’s just that they deal in probabilities and sometimes, the most probable thing that might happen, isn’t the thing that happens. The last highly anticipated St. Louis snow-pocalypse, for example, yielded less than an inch of light dusting. A little flash flood warning wasn’t going to scare us much.

Now if the meteorologists had run their prognostication by a “jury of philosophical counselors” consisting of at least twelve leeches, then that might’ve caught our attention. And if 19th century English physician and leech enthusiast George Merryweather had gotten his way, that might’ve been what happened.

As a practicing physician in the era of physicians not always knowing what they were doing, Dr. Merryweather spent a lot more time than the average non-physician thinking about leeches. One thing he observed was that their behavior tended to change with the weather. He wasn’t the first to realize this. For a long time, people who had nothing better to do had noted that leeches rise out of the water when a storm is coming and roll themselves into a ball when the storm is at hand.

But amazingly, Dr. Merryweather was the first to design a leech-powered weather predicting device. He called it the “Atmospheric Electromagnetic Telegraph, Conducted by Animal Instinct,” which he then shortened to the “Tempest Prognosticator.”

You can see a replica of
Merryweather’s fancy contraption,
minus the leeches, in the Whitby Museum in the UK. I have no doubt it’s worth the trip. Badobadop, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creative
commons.org
/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It was an impressive apparatus, consisting of a circle of twelve glass jars arranged around a large metal ball. Each jar contained a little bit of rain water, a leech, and a whale bone striker at the top, which when bumped by a leech climbing into the bottleneck in anticipation of a coming storm, would strike the metal ball and give a warning of impending inclement weather. When enough of Merryweather’s slimy little philosophical counselors sounded the alarm, he knew a storm was on its way.

The really weird part is that it worked, kind of. Or at least it worked as well as other weather predicting equipment of its day. It had limitations, of course. The leeches, who aren’t known to be great communicators, weren’t forthcoming with the direction of a storm, and to be honest, probably wouldn’t have predicted record-breaking flash flooding any better than today’s computer models could.

In the end, Dr. Merryweather’s invention was not adopted as the gold standard of weather prediction he believed it would be. The tempest prognosticator was expensive and required some upkeep as water needed to be changed every week and the jury wanted feeding once in a while. Also, outside of the 19th century medical profession, most people agree leeches are slimy and gross.

But I’m picturing the article headline that might have been: “Leeches Predict Historic St. Louis Rain-Pocalypse.” Something like that would have lit up everyone’s social media feeds and gotten a fair number of clicks, I bet.

A Tuesday for the Rabbits

On By Sarah AngletonIn Animals, History16 Comments

In July of 1807, Alexandre Berthier, then Chief of Staff to Napoleon Bonaparte, made a slight miscalculation that led to what has to be in the running for most epic battle in human history. This occurred shortly after the signing of the Treaties of Tilsit, which ended war and sealed an alliance between France and Russia and pieced apart Prussia. The treaties represented significant wins for Napoleon. The battle that followed, and which is regularly reenacted in my backyard, did not.

What you can’t see in this painting is the bunny that has caused Napoleon’s horse to rear back in sheer panic. Jacques-Louis David, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Napoleon asked Berthier to help him celebrate his recent accomplishments by treating his men to a rabbit hunt. Berthier obliged, rounding up a couple hundred to a few thousand (depending on who you ask) of the fluffy-tailed, long-eared, twitchy-nosed spawns of Satan and caged them all at the edges of a field to await their fates at the ends of a large number of gun barrels.

What happened next comes as a surprise to no one who is me, but when the bunnies were released, they didn’t scatter away from the threat. Instead, they swarmed the hardened soldiers who, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the rodents* coming after them in pursuit of carrots or whatever, dove for the cover of their carriages.

According to David G. Chandler, expert on Napoleon (and perhaps rabbits), the monstrous creatures flanked the hunters and converged on the imperial coach, some of them managing to leap inside and directly threaten the emperor, who was forced to prove his mettle by engaging in hand-to-hand combat, flinging the beasts from the windows in a highly imperial fashion.

Possibly the most epic battle in human history. An average Tuesday for most rabbits. Image by Ruben Porras from Pixabay

The history rumor mill would have us believe that the entire incident was Berthier’s fault, because instead of taking five minutes out of his busy schedule to round up a few thousand wild rabbits, he pulled together the hand-raised, relatively tame variety from nearby farmers. These rabbits didn’t know that Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the most feared military leaders in the world. They just knew he was some guy who didn’t seem to want to give them carrots.

Maybe. But I also think that Napoleon and his men underestimated their foe, because rabbits are just the worst.

Finally maybe sort of a kind of win.

I have been at war with the fluffy little jerks for nearly a decade. They eat all my flowers, tear up my garden, and torment my dog. They’ve even caused him permanent injury with their stupid little nest holes that pockmark my yard. And without the benefit of a waiting carriage to imperially jump into, I have been somewhat at my wits’ end.

That is until this year. In a stroke of genius, I took globs of the fur I brush out of the dog every day in springtime and stuffed them around the bases of the rabbits’ favorite munchy lilies, some of which have managed to bloom for the first time in years.

For this moment, I am winning the battle, but I know it won’t last long. The rabbits, who in previous years have been known to stand in front of the dog just beyond his invisible electric fence simply to mock him, are perfectly aware that he’s no more match for them than Napoleon was.

*I do acknowledge that rabbits are no longer classified as rodents, but until 1912 they were, because rodents or not, they are vermin with constantly growing teeth and terrible bloodlust.  

New Zealand Rips a Big One

On By Sarah AngletonIn Animals, Current Events, Law23 Comments

Those of you who have followed this blog for a long time may have noticed that rarely does it venture into topics that could be considered very serious. You may have even wondered at times why a thoughtful writer such as myself would mostly avoid using my platform, which includes tens of people, to discuss the things that really matter.

Well, thanks to the nation of New Zealand and its necessary and impactful attention to a dangerous problem facing the entire world, I have reconsidered. That’s right, the time has come for us to have a critical conversation in this space about farts.

This cow clearly smelled it. And we all know what that means. Image by Brigitte Werner from Pixabay

While absent through much of this blog’s own history, passing gas has been on the minds of humanity for millennia. This truth was revealed by the 2008 discovery of an ancient fart joke carved upon a Sumerian tablet that dates to around 1900 BC, making it the oldest joke so far discovered.

Other notable moments in the history of flatulence include a god in the mythology of the Innu people of Eastern Quebec and Newfoundland who communicates exclusively through the breaking of wind, the alleged Pythagorean belief that a careless person could accidentally fart out his soul, and a series of Japanese art pieces from the early 19th century depicting, probably satirically, battling samurais cutting a lot of cheese.

But Samurais were far from the only people to have killed with a good toot. Both first century Roman Jewish historian Josephus and the Ancient Greek writer Herodotus, known as the Father of History and Some Stuff He Mostly Made Up, attributed large, deadly battles to the offensiveness of well-timed flatus.

St. Augustine had a slightly more positive view of gaseous emanations, suggesting in his 5th century work The City of God that evidence of perfect bodily control as would have been enjoyed before the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden is that some people can produce song through their flatulence. We probably all have that one friend.

This is what it looks like to have the power to destroy the world. Image by Frauke Feind from Pixabay

For the most part, passing gas has always been a little bit funny and kind of rude and, apparently incredibly destructive. At least that is what New Zealand law makers have decided. It’s long been rumored that livestock farts are one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gases and in New Zealand, where people are outnumbered by cows two to one and by sheep more than five to one, the best way to combat the problem is, obviously, to tax the livestock. And so that is the plan, according to Climate Change Minister and apparent savior of Planet Earth James Shaw.

Now, I can almost hear the objections of you naysayers out there whining about the financial burden on farmers and ranchers. You may even go so far as to suggest that the effects of this move will certainly trickle out through the economy, transforming the industry into something much less sustainable and, as other nations follow New Zealand’s bold lead, ultimately contributing to the problems of already threatened global food supply chains.

To that I say that ridding the world of farts was never going to be easy. It was always going to require determination and sacrifice. Like all things worth doing, and most things that aren’t worth doing at all, it will come only at great cost. I’m sure we can all agree that it’s time for the cows to pay up.

Say What?!

On By Sarah AngletonIn Animals, History14 Comments

In 1774, German naturalist Johann Matthaus Bechstein published a treatise on cage birds in which he mentioned an African Grey Parrot owned by Cardinal Ascanius. This bird could perfectly recite the Apostles’ Creed. I’m sure that took some dedication on the part of the cardinal, but it’s not terribly surprising that the parrot could accomplish such a feat.

African Greys, which live for a good sixty to seventy years, are known for their intelligence and loyalty as well as their ability to mimic the sounds and words that they hear, particularly those they hear frequently. Clearly, the cardinal was a pretty pious man, or at least it was important enough to him that his bird thought so.

Andrew Jackson, looking respectable and not at all like a man who swears at his parrot. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Evidently Andrew Jackson was not as careful about what was said around his pet bird, an African Grey Parrot named Poll. Jackson had purchased Poll when he won his presidential bid, thinking it would be a good companion for his wife Rachel. The Jacksons weren’t really part of the scene of political elites in the US and he feared Rachel would feel a little outclassed and isolated. Unfortunately, she died between his election and inauguration, leaving Poll in the president’s care.

But Poll must really have been a pretty good companion because the bird certainly had a lot to say when the then former president died in 1845. The parrot was present at Jackson’s funeral, along with thousands of mourners, and according to the account of the officiant Reverend William Menefree Norment, Poll had many words to share. The only problem was that those words were of the variety that might get one kicked out of a funeral.

The bird cussed up a storm and was carried away from the shocked crowd, who let’s face it, were probably just trying not to giggle. I mean, this was a man whose military prowess carried him to the White House where one of his first orders of business was to add a dozen spittoons to the place. He was a rough-around-the-edges kind of guy who was prone to fighting in duels, once gave the beat-down to potential presidential assassin, and who probably would have been banned from Twitter. Or at least his pet parrot would have been.

On standby under my desk, just in case I need to chat.

But he was also the kind of guy who carried on conversations with his pet. As a devoted pet conversationalist myself, I find that pretty charming. My dog Ozzie gets a lot of talking to. I bounce story ideas off of him, occasionally read him blog posts, and tell him the jokes no one else will appreciate. He’s a great listener, particularly when our talks include plenty of scratches behind the ears and the inclusion of the words “good dog.”

I don’t think he’s ever heard me recite the Apostles’ Creed, but I also don’t think he’s heard me do a great deal of cussing. Of course, if he has, I’m fairly confident that my secret is safe with him. With a life expectancy of only about fourteen or fifteen years, I sincerely hope Ozzie won’t be at my funeral. But even if he is, he’s a really good dog who loves me a lot. He won’t say a word.

Let’s Talk Turkey

On By Sarah AngletonIn Animals, Holidays19 Comments

In 1535, Spanish colonialist and historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés published his General and Natural History of the Indies in which he described for the old world some of the elements of the new, including hammocks, pineapples, and turkeys.

Though the turkey had already been imported to Europe by this time and had been greeted with enthusiasm by farmers who found that they were kind of delicious and got to work domesticating them, Oviedo’s work offers the earliest really good description of the bird that graces most US Thanksgiving tables.

By Jean Leon Gerome Ferris – Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=227219

But Europeans were far from the first to domesticate the wild turkey. More than two thousand years ago, the early people of Mexico could lay claim to that. Turkeys have long been an important part of most Native American cultures. Heavily featured in folklore, turkeys provided feathers for ceremonial headdresses, acted as insect control, and became a reliable food source when larger game proved more elusive. And in case you wanted to give one a try this Thanksgiving, the internet includes plenty of turkey recipes out of Mexico that claim to span millennia.

Image by MOHANN, via Pixabay.

Anthropological research from the last few years suggests Native Americans in what would become the southeastern US were also domesticating this most thankful of birds as early as 1200 AD. So, when Europeans started to do it, it wasn’t exactly a big deal.

It was, however, a pretty good idea because turkeys can be a challenge to hunt. They are incredibly skittish and can be difficult to lure in with calls, despite the fact that manufactured calls are better than they’ve ever been. And according to a lot of turkey hunters, it’s getting harder every year.

Part of the explanation for this is that in the early twentieth century, wild turkeys in North America were nearly extinct. They were facing increased habitat pressure and had been severely over-hunted. The fact that the population is flourishing today is a triumph of intense wildlife management, but also of the process of natural selection which obviously favored the birds that were too careful to get themselves successfully hunted.

As a person who has no particular desire to go turkey hunting, this doesn’t much bother me. But I do have friends and loved ones who enjoy the sport, or at least they are pretty sure they would if they could find success. Personally, I’m perfectly content to buy a domestic bird from the freezer section of my grocery store. Even if I have trouble finding the exact size I want, I have never failed to bag a turkey at the grocery store.

That is until this week.

If you read my post last week, you know that my family and I have been quarantined since my youngest son tested positive for Covid. He’s fully recovered and at this point none of the rest of us have developed symptoms, but the timing of our quarantine caused a problem.

Thanksgiving is saved!

With Thanksgiving coming up next week, we are really close to the time when we’d have to remove our frozen turkey to the refrigerator to begin thawing. Trouble is, though we did have plenty of toilet paper on hand, we didn’t yet have our frozen bird when we went into lockdown.

We do live in an area where it’s easy to get grocery delivery, but when my husband and I started thinking about a stranger picking out our Thanksgiving turkey for us, we hesitated. We realize this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but if you’re looking for a precise size, this close to Thanksgiving, sometimes the perfect turkey can prove a little elusive. And we didn’t want our delivery person to substitute seven Cornish game hens and some AA batteries when they couldn’t find the bird we wanted.

A smell this delicious transfers over Zoom I bet. Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

It seems even domesticated turkey hunting can be a little tricky.

Fortunately, a hero emerged to rescue us from our predicament. My wonderful sister-in-law who lives a little more than an hour away from us, drove to our house to drop the perfect frozen bird on our doorstep. It should thaw in plenty of time for our favorite turkey recipe that doesn’t span millennia, but is still awfully good.

Barring any additional illness in the household, we should emerge from quarantine in time to hunt for all our own side dish ingredients, too. We have much to be thankful for this year!

I will be eating turkey next Thursday with my family, some live and most virtually, so I won’t be posting in this space. If you celebrate American Thanksgiving, I wish you and your loved ones a very happy holiday! If you don’t, then I wish you a very thankful Thursday!

A Nude Horse is a Rude Horse

On By Sarah AngletonIn Animals, Journalism15 Comments

It’s been kind of a rough week here in the United States. Anxieties are running high as we wait for the final results of what looks to be an incredibly tight hot mess of a presidential election between one guy that half the nation finds terrifying and another guy that the other half of the nation finds terrifying. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say we’re all a little stressed out.

So, I want to take a moment to harken back to a time sixty years or so ago when a political movement of critical importance took the country by storm and caused the well-informed citizens of the United States to scratch our heads and in one more or less unified voice, say, “Wait, what?”

My dog Ozzie, just as brazenly pantsless as the day he was born.

I refer, of course, to the great cause of the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA), which actually traces its roots back even further to a man named G. Clifford Prout, Sr. who was tired of seeing indecency in the fields and backyards full of frolicking, naked pets, livestock, and wild animals.

It was in May of 1959 when G. Clifford Prout, Jr. finally broke into the mainstream to continue the important work his father had begun, with an appearance on the Today Show on NBC. There he explained that SINA was pushing for the clothing of “any dog, cat, horse, or cow that stands higher than four inches or longer than six inches,” and touted the SINA slogans: “Decency today means morality tomorrow” and my personal favorite, “A nude horse is a rude horse.”  

Finally. Decency. photo credit: Hanafan It is no dog? via photopin (license)

The American media was intrigued, and so was the public. Prout worked for several years to spread the message that to allow naked animals to run amok, causing all manner of accidents as motorists become distracted by fields of naked cows and bulls, was not only irresponsible, but immoral.

Based in New York, SINA gained momentum, claiming branch offices in Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, and even London. Anyone could join as long as they desired to decently clothe their pets, and if they could get away with it, their neighbor’s pets, too. The organization would not accept money, however, because Prout was independently wealthy and the bylaws disallowed it.

Does one have to apply for the job of hoakster? Because I think I might enjoy that. Alan Abel by Cranky Media Guy at English Wikipedia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org

Of course, good journalism is hard work rarely done, and so it took a while for anyone to uncover the fact that G. Clifford Prout, Jr. was less nutter than fictional. He was a character portrayed by actor, writer, and director Buck Henry and created by hoaxter and mockumentary filmmaker Alan Abel who played the part of SINA’a vice president Bruce Spencer.

After CBS aired an interview with Prout, conducted by America’s most trusted newsman Walter Cronkite, in which Cronkite displayed amazing fortitude by not laughing out loud at his ridiculous guest, some members of the crew put two and two together. They recognized Henry, who at the time, actually worked at CBS. Cronkite was furious, but word was out.

Time broke the story of the hoax shortly after that in 1963, the animals took off their pants, and everyone (except Walter Cronkite) had a good laugh about it.

SINA was one of the most successful hoaxes Abel ever pulled off, though far from the only one. He was the man behind Omar’s School for Beggars, Euthanasia Cruises, Ltd., and a mass coordinated fainting episode that briefly cleared the audience from a taping of The Phil Donahue Show. He even made a fake run for Congress on the platform of selling ambassadorships, infusing the water in the drinking fountains in the senate with truth serum, and eliminating Wednesday to create a four-day work week. Actually, I’m in favor of at least one of those.

If he hadn’t passed away in 2018, I might assume he was behind the cluster that is the 2020 presidential election, too. At least I kind of hope it’s a hoax. That sure would make the journalists mad, but I’d probably laugh. Because this is seriously as ridiculous as insisting that horses wear pants.