We have never attempted to conceal our fascination with movies starring non-human primates. That quirk of our character shines through yet again in this week’s Bad Movie Friday installment, featuring the 1951 Ronald Regan vehicle Bedtime for Bonzo. Suffice to say that the trailer above makes us weep for the scientific literacy of Eisenhower Era [...]
Entries Tagged as 'animals'
That’s What You Get for Not Hailing to the Chimp
February 26th, 2010 · No Comments
Tags:animals·Bad Movie Friday·chimpanzees·movies·primates·Ronald Reagan·Tamba
Supply, Demand, and Pugilistic Marsupials
February 4th, 2010 · 2 Comments
Apologies for being late with this year’s obligatory Australia Day post. Though we’ve never had the pleasure of visiting the island continent ourselves, we’ve long enjoyed the company of Aussie compatriots—especially those we’ve encountered while roaming the far corners of the globe, since the Aussies always seem to know where the bar is. More importantly, [...]
Tags:animal cruelty·animals·Australia·boxing·kangaroos·marsupials·Primo Carnera·sports·Woody Allen
The Arachnids Shall Inherit the Earth
February 2nd, 2010 · 2 Comments
One of our favorite barroom debates concerns which animal will become the planet’s dominant species once a comet, asteroid, or accidental release of sinister nanobots makes human civilization go the way of the Zastava Koral. The smart money’s usually on the cockroach, due to its alleged ability to survive a nuclear Armageddon. And no one [...]
“There’s a Female Up There Circling Mother Earth”
January 22nd, 2010 · No Comments
Not much time for Bad Movie Friday this week, as we’re scrambling on the Secret Major Project™. So this vintage anti-Soviet propaganda film about the travails of Laika will have to suffice. It gets really amazing around the 42-second mark, when one of Laika’s American peers dons granny glasses in order to peep the space-race [...]
Buried Whales, Cont’d
January 22nd, 2010 · 3 Comments
Our recent post about the hazards of whale burial attracted a celebrity commenter: Steve O’Shea of the Auckland University of Technology. Best known for his squid-hunting endeavors, O’Shea is also overseeing the research into the public-health consequences of interring beached whales. He takes us to school thusly:
I can assure you that E. coli is the [...]
Tags:animals·cetaceans·giant squid·New Zealand·public health·Steve O'Shea·surfing
Thorned Bonanza
January 19th, 2010 · 9 Comments
We’re certainly all for the Czech Republic’s willingness to step up to the plate and become a laboratory for drug-policy reform. But in their haste to craft decriminalization legislation that could kick in with the New Year, Czech lawmakers appear to have done a grave disservice to a rising agricultural sector: the cactus industry:
A week [...]
Tags:agriculture·animals·China·Czech Republic·drugs·pigs·trade
File Under “Illusions, Shattered”
January 14th, 2010 · 8 Comments
Whenever the stress of big-city living starts to wear us down—which seems to be happening an awful lot these days—we briefly fantasize about chucking it all in favor of life as a shepherd. We can trace this pipe dream back to our grade-school viewing of Fletch, in which Chevy Chase’s titular character facetiously replies “I’m [...]
Animal Rights in Lahore
December 1st, 2009 · 3 Comments
We shudder to think how PETA might react if the organization had access to Lahore’s bustling camel market, which buzzed with more activity than usual in the runup to Eid al-Adha:
The camel traders who brought camels from different cities of southern Punjab and Sindh were sold like hotcakes on Friday evening. The traders too reduced [...]
Twilight of the Panthers
November 23rd, 2009 · 2 Comments
It’s been a rough year for Florida’s official animal, as 15 percent of the state’s remaining wild panthers have perished (largely due to being hit by cars). Now comes particularly grisly news out of Yeehaw Junction:
An anonymous caller reported seeing a dead Florida panther by the side of the Florida Turnpike near Yeehaw Junction. That’s [...]
Tags:animals·black-footed ferrets·Florida·panthers·wildlife management
Stars and Stripes Pale in Comparison
November 10th, 2009 · 3 Comments
A pal of ours recently quipped that he’s always had a yen to visit Mozambique, albeit because he’s always dreamed of traversing the sandy beaches of the Bazaruto Archipelago. No, our friend is attracted to the nation for a single, simple reason: he digs flags that feature weapons, and Mozambique’s official banner certainly qualifies.
Given his [...]
Tags:animals·bears·flags·Medieval history·Russia·Yaroslav the Wise·Yaroslavl Oblast
Vincent van Guenon
November 3rd, 2009 · 2 Comments
The industry that exists to service laboratory primates is surprisingly vast. Our close genetic cousins can’t just live off kibble while caged, nor can their brains remain limber with nothing more than a hamster wheel to occupy their time. So companies like New Jersey’s Bio-Serv exist to peddle “primate enrichment” products designed to make captivity [...]
The Steakification of Blitzen
October 26th, 2009 · 5 Comments
The rapid warming of the Arctic may delight those keen on easier shipping, but it’s been nothing but terrible news for reindeer and their human overseers. On the Yamal Peninsula, the indigenous Nenet people are watching in horror as their precous herds break legs upon the gravel now popping up from the melted permafrost. And [...]
Tags:Alaska·animals·food·meat·Nenets·reindeer·wildlife management
Casting With Disaster
October 15th, 2009 · 5 Comments
As we went digging into our pocket for some change this morning, we came up with a piece of currency sure to give the vending machine a case of indigestion: a 20 shilling coin from Kenya, a souvenir of our recent East African jaunt. Before tossing back the useless money in frustration, however, we noticed [...]
Tags:animals·Burma·coins·currency·economics·Ivory Coast·Kenya·North Korea·politics·Roman Empire·Turkmenbashi·Turkmenistan
Counting the Jumbos
October 6th, 2009 · 2 Comments
While perusing this AFP piece about a poaching bust in the Central African Republic, we stopped and mumbled “hmmmmm” upon reading this hard-to-swallow stat:
Experts say some 38,000 African elephants are killed each year for their tusks.
Really? That seems like such a ridiculously high figure; at that clip, wouldn’t the species (or, to be precise, the [...]
Tags:Africa·animals·Central African Republic·crime·elephants·ivory·wildlife management
Escape from Cat Island
September 29th, 2009 · 1 Comment
Back in March, we brought you news of mankind’s triumph over the rodent denizens of Rat Island, Alaska. Now comes word that many thousands of miles to the south, a veritable Cat Island (aka Wake Atoll) has been similarly scourged of its furry invaders (PDF):
At the end of the second week in July, we had [...]
Tags:animals·cats·rats·rodents·Wake Atoll·wildlife management
Unwinged Pegasus
September 22nd, 2009 · No Comments
Via the invariably spectacular Ptak Science Books blog, a quick peek back at the brief heyday of airborne horses:
“Sep 1850 English Aeronaut Gale on horseback suffocated Bordeaux”. Is this the first man-on-horseback-in-flight death? And death by suffocation? (?) I’m not so sure that the ascent records for 1850 would’ve made allowance for running [...]
The Venom Trade, Cont’d
September 18th, 2009 · No Comments
In yesterday’s post on Pakistan’s troubled system of snake-venom collection, we opined that technology seemed to have changed the field little. But if we’d read the latest issue of the journal Toxicon, we wouldn’t have been so quick to make such blanket claims. Because as it turns out, a Florida cottonmouth researchers are blazing trails:
Scientists [...]
Tags:animals·antivenin·Captain Eo·Florida·Michael Jackson·reptiles·snakes
Mortality as Morality, Cont’d
August 25th, 2009 · 2 Comments
Eleven days ago, we questioned whether it might be immoral to keep certain animals captive in zoos. Our hunch is that a species’ ability to thrive in a zoo is based not only on its physical needs, but also its intelligence—animals who become aware of the limits of their existence will certainly suffer psychological stresses [...]
Tags:animals·cetaceans·orcas·philosophy·wildlife management·zoos
Mortality as Morality
August 14th, 2009 · 4 Comments
We’ve yet to fully sort out our feelings about zoos. On the one hand, we obviously love us some exotic animals, especially those who occasionally turn on Man. (Yes, we’re macabre like that.) But the concept of captivity makes us more than a wee bit uncomfortable; we’ll never forget our last trip to the Bronx [...]
Tags:animals·Bronx·Bronx Zoo·elephants·hippos·Malaysia·philosophy·primates·wildlife management·zoos
Beastmaster Errata
August 10th, 2009 · No Comments
Look, we’re big enough Mongolian monarchs to admit when we’ve goofed. And that’s exactly what appears to be the case with last week’s Bad Movie Friday post about the 1982 Marc Singer vehicle The Beastmaster. We riffed about Singer’s apparent refusal to save the life of the ferret that had just helped pluck him from [...]
Tags:animals·Bad Movie Friday·errata·ferrets·Marc Singer·movies·rodents·The Beastmaster·TV
Against All Cetaceans
June 18th, 2009 · 5 Comments
We’ve always been puzzled by the fact that the two main holdouts against international whaling laws are Japan and Norway—nations from opposite ends of the globe, with no apparent shared culture or history. How did these two countries form such a strong alliance in favor of the continued slaughter of aquatic mammals?
The stock explanation is [...]
Crime of the Cave Bear
June 11th, 2009 · 1 Comment
We’re in the midst of reading our pal Ulrich Boser’s book The Gardner Theft, which has taught us a heckuva lot about the art-crime world. One of the tome’s essential lessons is that 99.99 percent of art thieves are not experts, a la Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment. They instead tend to be lunkhead robbers who [...]
Tags:animals·art theft·cave bears·crime·paleontology·Sarajevo
The Winner in the Quagga Mess
June 10th, 2009 · No Comments
Despite mankind’s best efforts, the ultra-aggressive quagga mussel continues to spread unabated across our great land. Gorgeous Lake Tahoe is the latest victim, while the shellfish invasion’s in full swing over near Cleveland. And could the mussels even dim the Sin City lights someday? Nothing, it seems, can stop the quagga mussel, given the species [...]
Tags:animals·Cleveland·gadgets·Lake Tahoe·Las Vegas·maritime·quagga·quagga mussels·techonology
Man’s True Best Friend?
June 4th, 2009 · 3 Comments
One of Microkhan’s most faithful correspondents wrote in yesterday regarding our recent Taiwanese landmines post. Our piece quoted from a report on Mozambique’s mine removal program, which suggested that dogs were doing much of the detection. But our reader, who obviously knows Mozambique better than the Average Joe, points out that giant pouched rats are [...]
Tags:animals·Black Death·coal mining·landmines·Mozambique·rodents·weapons
“Crossover to the True Hybrid”
May 7th, 2009 · No Comments
When Microkhan posted yesterday about a California mule festival, he had no idea he was getting mixed up in a national spat. As several kind readers brought to our attention, the 40-year-old Mule Days celebration is a Johnny-come-lately compared to Mule Day (singular) in Columbia, Tenn. The hoedown in the Volunteer State is said to [...]
Tags:animals·California·crime·Mule Day·mules·Mules Days·Tennessee
Triumph of the Mule People
May 6th, 2009 · 6 Comments
For an animal primarily known for its stubbornness, the humble mule inspires a surprising amount of human love and devotion. Microkhan recently became acquainted with mule fandom via Western Mule Magazine, a publication that led him to discover Mule Days in Bishop, Calif. Held annually over Memorial Day Weekend, Mule Days is a true whopper [...]
Hippos Get the Shaft
May 5th, 2009 · 3 Comments
In light of February’s horrific chimpanzee attack in Stamford, Connecticut legislators have proposed a sweeping ban on pets deemed capable of harming humans. And they’ve spared no effort in identifying animals who they’d like to render bestia non grata in the Nutmeg State. This entry in the bill’s verboten list caught Microkhan’s eye:
(10) The elephantidae, [...]
Grieving Pachyderms
April 15th, 2009 · 1 Comment
Humans and elephants have been intermingling since time immemorial, so it’s a little surprising to discover that we’re still not entirely sure how our pachyderm friends deal with their dead. Oh, we’re pretty sure the mourn, and they appear to cover their pals with leaves and sticks, too. But those elephant burial grounds mentioned in [...]
The Fighting Bulbuls of Assam
February 24th, 2009 · No Comments
Every year ’round this time, the denizens of Assam throw a harvest shindig called Bhogali Bihu. Folks eat too much, dance around bonfires, and bang on dhols all night. Less predictably, they also watch drunken songbirds beat the tar out of one another.
Fighting bulbuls attract thousands of onlookers during Bhogali Bihu, and countless rupees are [...]
