Thursday - February 12, 2015

A Knight Of The Knit

Wool sweaters warm dirty birdies, so oil-spill penguins can stay warm until they get their feathers back right.

After a number of oil spills off Australia’s southeastern coast left penguins in danger, the Penguin Foundation launched its Knits for Nature program and asked volunteers to knit sweaters for penguins.

Oil separates and mats penguins’ feathers, letting cold water seep in and making them cold, distressed and less effective hunters. Sweaters help warm the birds — and prevent them from preening themselves and swallowing the oil — before they’re washed by wildlife rehabilitation workers.

One of the knitters to answer the call for penguin-friendly sweaters was 109-year-old Alfred “Alfie” Date, Australia’s oldest person.

Date has over 80 years of knitting experience. He quickly jumped on board after nurses in his long-term care home asked him if he’d life to help out a few penguins.

“The girls who used to work for me, they’ll tell you I’m a sucker. I can’t say no,” Date told 9stories.

The Penguin Foundation had such a good response to their request for sweaters that it’s no longer asking for contributions, claiming to be adequately stockpiled in anticipation of future oil spills.

“We do not need any further jumpers,” the foundation’s Lauren Jones said.

“We are incredibly grateful for the donations we have received and the time and effort creating them.”

Isn’t that nice? I had no idea these even existed. A wooly penguin jumper sounds like some kind of sicko sex perv, down under or not!

Posted by Drew458     on 02/12/2015 at 05:57 PM   
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   Wednesday - February 04, 2015

A Hare Raising Tail

A “huge flock” of jackrabbits in a Fargo, North Dakota, neighborhood has homeowners feeling jumpy.

More than 50 jackrabbits the size of small dogs have been hopping around backyards and a park of a new development in South Fargo, resident Kayla Straabe told ABC News today.

“Every day, I feel like the crazy rabbit lady chasing them out of the yard where they’re having a hay day,” Straabe said. “There’s at least 40 to 50 everyday, and they’re in our yards and by a children’s park.”

She said the city pest control department told her that they couldn’t do anything about the jackrabbits, technically wild hares, because they were wild animals.

“I was told we should poison them, which I will absolutely not do,” Straabe said.

There is no city ordinance that deals with depopulating rabbits in the area, Fargo Police Lt. Joel Vettel told ABC News.

“I can’t imagine someone would suggest poisoning the rabbits, but it’s true we don’t have anything in place to allow us to deal with the rabbits,” Vettel said. “What residents can do is start a formal process to get an ordinance, which is usually done at committee meetings.”

Straabe said the critters were cute at first when a few appeared about two to three months ago. But now, they’re frustrating, she said, noting they’ve multiplied and that they are now leaving their droppings everywhere and devouring trees and shrubs.

Pretty unbelievable. North Dakota? The high plains, the wild west, the great wide open, heartland America? And they’re complaining to the press about bunnies and crying to the government that somebody should solve this problem for them?

This is what happens when you let liberals out of the cities, and allow them to move outside their protected college towns. Great googly-moogly.

Two solutions for you honey…

First up, the ultimate Green way, to deal with your suburban white guilt for encroaching on the jack’s natural habitat: import some wolves. Or a few dozen extra large coyotes. Half a dozen cougars. Sure, your pets are going to become snacks, and you might lose a few of your children here and there, but you’ll be doing it Gaia’s way, bringing back those apex predators, and completing the great Circle Of Life. We’ll even send you a couple native drums and some greasepaint, and you can have a big drum ceremony and dance around a small, carefully controlled, supervised, low carbon emission fire. At a safe distance, of course.

Second method, the standard American way. Go to the store and buy yourself a .22 rifle and a brick of hollow point ammo. Shut up, get to work, solve the situation yourself. Buy a few cases of canned tomatoes too, since prairie rabbit is kinda tough, and needs plenty of stewing.

Un. Frickin. Believable.

PS - Don’t go calling the hares the size of small dogs until they hit 30lb or more. In the real world, something the size of a small dog is the size of ... a small dog. Not that drippy eyed pocket yip-yip you keep because it’s a fashion accessory. That isn’t even a dog, at least not in terms of size metaphors.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/04/2015 at 10:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Animals • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Humor •  
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   Tuesday - February 03, 2015

Gonna Get It, Gonna Get It, Mine Mine Mine!

Here’s a small collection of snaps

h/t to SondraK

Posted by Drew458     on 02/03/2015 at 12:44 PM   
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   Thursday - January 29, 2015

They’re back!

I hear them. Drew calls them Satan’s little home wreckers. The squirrels got in again! In my dormer.

Posted by Christopher     on 01/29/2015 at 04:06 PM   
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   Saturday - November 29, 2014

But They’re So Cute!

2008 24 deer X 2 =

2009 48 deer X 2 =

2010 96 deer X 2 =

2011 192 deer X 2 =

2012 384 deer X 2 =

2013 768 deer

Buck’s Hollow, in Staten Island’s Greenbelt, might sound like a natural home to whitetail deer, but the New York City parks department is doing its best to keep them out. [ and failing, of course ]

The department, which is restoring the forest in the area, has surrounded six acres with eight-foot fencing intended to keep the deer away. In the past year, workers removed invasive species like Japanese honeysuckle and Chinese wisteria from the parcels. Next year, the department will enlist volunteers to plant 8,000 trees and shrubs — native species like red maple, beech, cherry, sweet gum and spicebush. The plan is to keep the fence around the four plots of land, called exclosures, until the saplings are 10 feet tall or big enough to survive the deer’s voracious appetites.

Deer are a relatively new presence in Buck’s Hollow, which is named after the Dutch word for goat, bok. While the city has a robust population of small mammals like raccoons, groundhogs and skunk, deer were scarcely seen in the five boroughs before 2000.

As recently as 2008, a state count of deer on Staten Island put their numbers at just 24; the animals were believed to have swum from New Jersey. But that number has exploded: An aerial count of the herd last winter, using infrared technology, put the number of deer in the borough at 763.

State Assemblyman Joe Borelli, a Republican whose district includes the Greenbelt, said the department should instead install permanent signs in those locations. And he believes that the city should move to thin the deer population.

“Every option should be looked out at, whether it is successful methods of birth control or lethal culls,” he said. “Something needs to be done, clearly.”

A new task force made up of representatives from several city agencies and the State Department of Environmental Conservation is studying how to control the deer population. At the very least, city officials want to alert the public not to feed them and to be careful on nearby roads, especially at dawn and dusk when deer are most active.

No, what they need is a crossbow hunt, special season. Issue 900 tags, one deer of any age or gender per tag. Wipe them all out, because the next crop is here in Carteret NJ, thinking “That river is only 200 yards wide. We could swim it easy, and get out before the pollution sets our fur on fire.”

Posted by Drew458     on 11/29/2014 at 11:53 PM   
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   Wednesday - November 19, 2014

Juxtaposition In The News

Eva Shockey knew she was placing herself in the crosshairs of anti-hunters before she posted a photo of herself posing with a 510-pound bear she killed last week to her Facebook page.

The famous co-host of “Jim Shockey’s Hunting Adventures” told Field and Stream:

“My dad warned me before I even got involved with the show that I was going to have to deal with anti-hunters. I’m a huge target for them because I’m a smiley young woman, and I’m different than who they’re used to dealing with.”

But Shockey, 26, had no idea the flood of venomous comments would be so extensive, or that the story of her hunt and its aftermath would gain national attention in the mainstream news.

She killed the bear, the largest she had ever harvested, on the fifth day of a hunt with her father in Hyde County, North Carolina. Bears are responsible for extensive crop damage in the region, she explained on Facebook, and hunting helps control the bear population.

But this was such an impressive animal, and the photo was bound to attract lots of attention. Critics found their way onto Shockey’s fan page by the hundreds, and opened with both barrels. She spent most of the day removing the harshest comments “so other people don’t have to read them.”

Shockey told The Blaze that one commenter, in reference to a Facebook photo of her posing with her dog, stated that she “should kill that worthless dog you have instead.”

The hunter’s response: “Apparently hunting a bear, eating/donating all of the meat, and putting money towards conservation is a bad thing, but killing my puppy is OK. If this logic isn’t totally insane, I don’t know what is.”

That’s a pretty big bear, even for my rustic corner of NJ.

An earlier report on Fox News said she was receiving upwards of 5,000 death threats a day. I haven’t checked, but I’m pretty certain that the parents of that Indian guy who was eaten by a bear a couple weeks ago over here near Butler NJ weren’t among the threateners.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/19/2014 at 10:21 AM   
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   Tuesday - November 18, 2014

Smile For The Camera

This pupster knows when the paparazzi are nearby. So Hollywood.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/18/2014 at 10:59 PM   
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   Friday - November 14, 2014

I’m crazy about bats!

But you knew that. This is Barking MoonBat.

You will love this short video.

I’m not a fan of pesticides, but neither are farmers big fans of crop damage. Hmm, if only there were a flying creature that could help out with this problem. Wait, there is! Bats save the United States alone an estimated $3.7 billion a year by reducing crop damage and pesticide use.

BABY BATS!

Posted by Christopher     on 11/14/2014 at 04:31 PM   
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   Monday - October 20, 2014

wonder hond!

My samizdat post for the week.

This is the greatest idea ... until some whingy arse “i’m allergic” fagasaurus comes along and effs it up. Give it half a year. But for now ... awesome on paws.

snagged from Theo’s, of course.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/20/2014 at 04:33 PM   
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   Thursday - September 25, 2014

Sometimes I’m Afraid To Ask

Donkeys Reunited After Polish Sex Scandal


follow the link if you must to the latest big story from Poland.

Or read an excerpt here, below the fold. 

Posted by Drew458     on 09/25/2014 at 04:07 PM   
Filed Under: • Animals • Humor • Typical White People: Stupid, Evil, Willfully Blind •  
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   Wednesday - September 24, 2014

nom nom nom nom

Posted by Drew458     on 09/24/2014 at 09:50 PM   
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   Monday - September 22, 2014

Hikers Horror

In The Woods? Stay With The Group, Always

A man hiking in a heavily wooded area of northern New Jersey was attacked and killed by a black bear during the weekend, police said on Monday.

Darsh Patel, 22, of Edison, New Jersey, and four friends encountered the bear on Sunday afternoon in the Apshawa Preserve, about 40 miles (64 km) northwest of New York City, according to the West Milford Township, New Jersey, police department.

The bear began to follow the hikers and they scattered, police said in a statement. Four of them regrouped but Patel was missing and they contacted police, it said. Patel’s body was found about two hours later.

”Evidence at the scene indicated that the victim had been attacked by a bear,” the statement said.

A bear was located at the scene and euthanized, police said.

Black bears are common in New Jersey, where they typically are not aggressive and tend to flee from humans, according to the Department of Environmental Protection website.

I added the italics to the text above so you can read between the lines. They’re saying on the radio that the guy was half eaten.

WEST MILFORD - Current evidence suggests a black bear killed a hiker in Apshawa Preserve on Sunday. If that is the case, the incident would mark the only fatal bear attack ever recorded in New Jersey.

Police said there was evidence that Edison resident Darsh Patel, 22, had been attacked by a bear when his body was found a few hours after he had been separated from his hiking companions following a bear encounter.

Police said in a Sunday release that the five men, all from Edison, had been hiking together in the 576-acre nature preserve on Sept. 21 when they encountered a black bear that began following them.

“They became frightened and attempted to flee the area,” said West Milford police Lt. Keith Ricciardi in the release. “During the confusion the group became separated as they ran in different directions.”

Wow. That’s amazing, really. In all the centuries that people have been here, nobody ever got et by a bar before.

The Ashwara nature preserve, not even one square mile, is located about 2 miles northwest of Butler/Bloomberg NJ. The area is known for having a huge bear population. Black bears have become a nuisance there, raiding garbage cans etc. They even break into homes looking for food. When the state does have a bear hunt - sometimes it gets cancelled due to protests - this area always produces lots of bears. Waywayanda State Park, the most bear-dense part of the state, is just a couple miles north of this place.

[2013] After reaching near-extinction in the 1970s, the Garden State bear population burgeoned by the early 2000s. But as the animal population grew into the thousands with ample food sources in the nation’s most-densely populated state, officials opened up a week for bear hunting in December.

Hunts in 2003 and 2005 brought in 328 and 298 kills, respectively. After a hiatus of a few years and some battles in court, the hunt resumed in 2010 under a new, five-year bear management plan.

The latest hunts easily set records, but kill totals have dropped each year — from 592, to 469, to 287 last fall. This year’s six-day season is expected to “harvest” about 240, said a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, Larry Ragonese.

“I think we’re moving toward a better balance,” Ragonese said.

Bear contact with people decreased 20 percent from 2011 to 2012, and another 20 percent leading into this year’s hunt. Bears now number between 2,500 and 2,800 — down from the 3,400 estimated before the 2010 hunt, officials said.

Signs at the preserve parking lot mention nothing about potential bear encounters, but residents in the heavily wooded corner of Passaic County said bear sightings are common in the area, especially in spring, summer and fall. [well duh, because they hibernate in winter]

Many were shocked to hear of the fatal attack.

“Probably two, three times a week you’ll see them sometimes,” Bloomingdale resident Harvey Miller told WCBS 880’s Peter Haskell. “I was kind of scared about it.”

“We see them in our neighborhoods all the time and there’s never been any aggression towards anybody ever,” said parkgoer John Davidson. “Everyone was shocked because this has never happened.”

“I don’t feel safe at all,” one hiker told 1010 WINS’ Rebecca Granet. “I’m sure there’s bear in all the woods on all the trails but we haven’t encountered anything like this before.”

If you see bears 2 or 3 times a week all the time, your area is overrun with them.

Ironically, a long-planned seminar is being held at the township building at 7 p.m. Monday on how to coexist peacefully with black bears.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/22/2014 at 11:41 AM   
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   Thursday - September 04, 2014

But I Don’t Even Have A Dog

Drat, where is the other sock in this pair? It was here just the other day! I looked everywhere, and it’s just plain gone. But I’ll hang on to hope, and put it in the box with all the other mono-sock “sole survivors”, my local Land of the Lost.

A family in Oregon had an even worse missing sock problem. And a very large, very dumb, very sick dog. Hey, ya think there’s a connection?

Imagine eating, say, five large pizzas in one sitting and you get some idea of what the Great Dane must of have been experiencing when his owners hauled him into Northwest Portland’s DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital.

The symptoms? Repeatedly vomiting and retching. Oh, and not eating.

...

Dr. Ashley Magee took the dog to a back room for X-rays. She found what was described as “a lot of foreign material in his stomach,” said Shawna Harch, the hospital’s communications specialist.

Whatever was in the dog’s stomach couldn’t be digested, and that meant surgery. ...

During the nearly two-hour surgery, she must have thought she was working in a department store as she pulled out sock after sock after sock.

In the end, Dr. Magee removed 43 1/2 socks.

That 1/2 sock remains a mystery.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/04/2014 at 08:20 AM   
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   Wednesday - August 06, 2014

No Thanks, I Ain’t Going

Giant Bugs in China

Two massive Asian insects in the news today; a giant dragonfly to creep you out, and vicious giant hornets the size of sparrows that can kill you. Gee, I can’t wait to go to China. Yes I can. Schedule my trip on the 12th of Never.  Yuck!!!

The world’s largest flying aquatic insect, with huge, nightmarish pincers, has been discovered in China’s Sichuan province, experts say.

According to the Insect Museum of West China, local villagers in the outskirts of Chengdu handed over “weird insects that resemble giant dragonflies with long teeth” earlier this month.

Several of these odd critters were examined by the museum and found to be unusually large specimens of the giant dobsonfly, which is native to China and Vietnam.

The largest one measured 21 centimeters (8.27 inches) when its wings were open, according to the museum, busting the original record for largest aquatic insect held by a South American helicopter damselfly, which had a wingspan of 19.1 centimeters (7.5 inches).

Large enough to cover the face of a human adult, this scary-looking insect is also known among entomologists as an indicator of water quality, says the museum.

Recently discovered? I hardly think so. I’m sure the Chinese already have 10 different recipes for the thing.

Giant killer hornets have killed at least 42 people in China since July and left more than 1,600 injured and dozens more suffering from multiple organ failure and severe allergic reactions.

But the Asian giant hornets aren’t just a problem in China—they’re also found in other countries, including nearby South Korea and Japan.

Travelers would do well to know how to behave if they’re faced with these deadly creatures (tip: walk away, don’t run).

In person, the Asian giant hornet, which is the largest hornet species in the world, looks like “the wasp analog of a pit bull” with “a face that looks like you just can’t reason with it,” said Christopher K. Starr, professor of entomology at University of West Indes in Trinidad & Tobago.

These hornets are found throughout East and Southeast Asia, in countries such as in China, Korea, Japan, India and Nepal.

And they’re big. The giant hornet extends about 3.5 to 3.9 centimeters in length (1.4 to 1.5 inches), roughly the size of a human thumb, and it has black tooth used for burrowing, according to an animal database at the University of Michigan. The queens are even bigger, with bodies that can grow longer than 5 centimeters (2 inches).

The species feed their young the larvae of other insects and use their mandibles to sever the limbs and heads of their prey. The giant hornets are attracted to human sweat, alcohol and sweet flavors and smells. They are especially sensitive to when animals or people run, according to Xinhua.

Every breeding season, the giant hornets produce an average of 1,000 to 2,000 offspring, Schmidt said. They feast on other insects such as wasps and bees, launching coordinated attacks on the hives of their prey.

Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!!!

PS - the hornets managed to stow away in a pottery shipment to Europe, and are now in France. How soon until they get to the UK?

Posted by Drew458     on 08/06/2014 at 04:45 PM   
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