Be Careful What You Wish For

..it might come true!

A BUNCH OF THINGS

A Screech of Gulls...

a Murder of Crows or a Parliament of Owls. I've always wondered who decided these creative collective nouns of animal species? You have to admit that some of them are remarkably perfect & self explanatory.

Here are a few of my favorites:
Implausibility of Gnus,
Dazzle of Zebras,
Scold of Jays,
Romp of Otters,
Charm of Hummingbirds,
Shiver of Sharks,
Cloud of Bats,
Pitying of Doves,
Array of Hedgehogs,
Unkindness of Ravens,
Exaltation of Skylarks,
Wake of Vultures,
Crash of Rhinos,
Parliament of Owls,
Ostentation of Peacocks,
Knot of Toads,
Flamboyance of Flamingos,
Tower of Giraffe,
Bloat of Hippopotamuses,
Prickle of Porcupines,
Gaze of Raccoons.

It would be fun to design a few collective nouns for various groups of Humans such as
a Plankwalk of Tea-Partiers,
a Spitball of Fox Newscasters,
a Brick of Black Bloc Protesters,
a Pustule of Paparazzi,
a Cocking of Gun Nuts,
a Lynch of Birthers,
a Weekend of Creationists,
an Ejaculation of Santorumites,
a Philandering of Gingrichists,
a Shifting of Obama supporters,
a Bewilderment of Ron Paulists,
a Capitulation of Romney supporters,
a Delusion of Michele Bachmannites,
an Absconding of Wall Streeters,
an Interruption of Telemarketers,
a Grandlarceny of CEOs,
a Spill of Big Oil Execs,
a Ransom of Lobbyists,
a Gist of Reporters,


You get the idea. Do you have some ideas or suggestions to add to the list?   

VACATION CRITTERS
Here are a few photo'd & shop'd images of other animals that I have seen over the past several summers whilst on holidays.

Deer, Black Hills South Dakota

Dragonfly, Salmon Arms, British Columbia

Mallard, Fort Whyte Centre, Manitoba

Alligator, Reptile Gardens, South Dakota

Goat, Heritage Museum Steinbach, Mb

Garter Snake, Hecla Island, Mb

Field Mouse, Winnipeg Zoo, Mb

Reef Shark, Mall Of America, Minneapolis

Plover, Hecla Island, Mb

Pronghorn Antelope, Custer National Park, SD

Mountain Goat, Mount Rushmore, SD

Bighorn Sheep, Golden, British Columbia

Reba, foster puppy, next door

Canada Geese, Wpg, Mb

FOREIGNERS MUST STOP EATING

by LORD TENNISANYONE

Pursuant to my recent reply to an electronic article published by my dear associate and ardent Large Hadron Collider denier, Vicus Scurra , concerning the Queen's 2009 message regarding the dietary peculiarities of foreigners, it suddenly occurred to me, that the greatest challenge of the new decade will be how we manage to preserve our beloved exotic animals and allow foreigners to share our planet.

Sadly those people have brought this all upon themselves. Unable to control their primal urges they fight amongst themselves and breed exponentially. 
Due to their self inflicted circumstance they are in the midst of subsequently eviscerating their local biospeheres where our beloved exotic animals live.
Bad form I say.

On the darkest of continents these people thoughtlessly trespass on our Game Preserves at will and shoot anything that bloody moves. Known locally as "Bush Meat" these foreigners are systematically eating our cousins, the Bonobos and Chimpanzees.

Dare I say that during the Colonial era in Africa the locals weren't allowed to tamper with our Game and everything seemed to be in order.
Now the whole bloody thing is out of sorts.

As if that wasn't enough of a perturbance, these foreigners also  massacre Elephants, Tigers, Gorillers, and Rhinos, leave the carcasses to rot, and sell their tusks, horns, paws, and penii, so that other foreigners can get boners, carve trinkets, and make bloody knife handles.


 

These voracious little buggers send huge floating factories into our bloody oceans to net, vacuum, dynamite, and harpoon anything that bloody swims or crawls..including our whales.

With all the fish nearly gone from the actions of these inconsiderate uppity foreigners, vicious Seals have started attacking and feeding upon my fellow Colonists.

One can hardly believe that these heartless bastards perform the barbaric practice of hacking the fins off of millions of bloody sharks every year, dumping the rest of the dying creatures into the water, in order to make expen$ive bloody soup to supposedly bring good luck and get boners.

Unfortunately eating our cousin Apes which have 99% of our DNA isn't the most egregious violation. What will eventually tip the scale and force us to take affirmative action is the irreconcilable practice of eating our beloved best furiends... 

Dogs.
Bloody Hell!

My old chum Charlie Darwin would not have been surprised at our discovery that all large megafauna were obliterated and became extinct as we marched out of Africa and conquered the other continents.

The animals that evolved alongside of us in Africa had enough bloody sense to run away or eat us. The new species that we encountered were thick as a post and just stood there as we poked them with sharp objects.

The fossil record shows that we annihilated the competing predatory species and inadvertently upset the natural balance allowing the prey animals to overpopulate and devour their food supply whilst succumbing to accompanying disease, before we killed and ate them all.

Nowadays it's bloody well impossible to enjoy a tender butter-roasted Dodo...

not to mention that a proper Gentlemen can no longer even enjoy a pleasant afternoon bagging a Thylacine ?!

pity.

That being said, we in the modern world have taken responsibilty for the missteps of our ancestors and developed an inexhaustable supply of frankencritters on huge factory farms....
 so why can't those foreigners figure it out?

We want to be able to enjoy hunting and photographing the exotic animals on safari in our far off lands and if these foreigners wish to continue sharing our planet, then they must stop eating our animals and especially our furiends.
My Word! 

Resqueakiem for an Intruder

Wise words by Scott Alexander

CANADIAN CUSTOMS

CHRISTMAS IN CANADA

LIFE is yummy

All is right in the world.
I have started watching a new nature series called LIFE which is hosted by my idol, Sir David Attenborough...
who if I am not mistaken, believes that he is invisible to other animals.

Unfortunately, because I live next to the United States, I am forced to view the americanized version.

The original Beeb version was tailor-made for the zany over-the-top animal-lovers in the United Kingdom. 

As many of you are aware, the Brits annihilated 99% of their own fauna millenia ago and to this very day, the entire island nation remains safe for enjoying picnics in the woods.

Regrettably, the largest creature to be found in jolly old England is the Badger.

Even as I write this fascinating-informative post, back in jolly old England, hordes of inbred, gin & tonic fueled members of the upper class are wreaking havoc on the remaining 17 Badgers!

These shameless scoundrels are making short work of those nasty-little-buggers ever since Fox Hunting on horseback with golf clubs was banned in 2008.  

Trapped on a desolate animal-free landscape is precisely why the Brits now go absolutely gaga whilst catching a glimpse of a f*cking bird?

"I say Penelope, I do believe I've caught a glimpse of a Great Tit "
"Oh Charles, r e a l l y, must you be so crass?" 

However, on this side of the pond, Merkins are more "into" killin' and eatin' critters.

So, thanks to extensive market research, the producers made some alterations and have wisely chosen to tweak the show and present the new program as; 

LIFE "tastes like chicken"

After seeing the episode on FISH,

I'm not sure if there is going to be a sequel?

Faster, Higher, Stronger?

In the Animal Olympics we're Fatter, Slower, Smarter!

Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister has written "Manthropology/The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male" and he has speculated that prehistoric Australian Aborigines could run faster than Olympic Sprinter Usain Bolt..
the world's fastest man who can cover 100 Metres in an amazing 9.58 SECONDS!

McAllister's conclusions are based on a set of fossilized footprints that suggest one of the men reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge.
Bolt ran 42 kph at the Olympics.


"In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberized tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.But if they can do that speed of 37 kph on very soft ground I suspect there is a strong chance they would have outdone Usain Bolt if they had all the advantages that he does. We can tell that T8 is accelerating toward the end of his tracks."

 See for yourself 

When it comes to SPRINTING, Humans have always been pretty pathetic.
We have never done very well whether running away from carnivores or "catching" dinner in a flat out race.

Have a lash at these comparisons..
Cheetah          113 kph/70 mph

Pronghorn     98/61
Lion/Gazelle 80/50
Race Horse   75/47
Kangaroo       70/43
Ostrich           69/43
Grizzly           48/30
OLYMPIC SPRINTER 42 kph/26 mph
Elephant        40/25
Mamba           32/20
AVERAGE EARTHLING* 24 kph/15 mph
*about the same as an OLYMPIC MARATHON RUNNER
Crocodile        17/10

What we eventually learned/adapted to do,
was to out-run our victims...
but but our predators..not-so-much..

however, thanks to acquiring bigger brains,
we invented smarter ways to kill our predators.

See for yourself

"Most mammals can sprint faster than humans — having four legs gives them the advantage. But when it comes to long distances, humans can outrun almost any animal.

Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, we can stay cool at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals.

On a hot day, the two scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon.

Why would evolution favor the distance runner?

The prevailing theory is that endurance running allowed primitive humans to incorporate meat into their diet.

They may have watched the sky for scavenging birds and then run long distances to reach a fresh kill and steal the meat from whatever animal was there first."

btw:

When it comes to SWIMMING after things to eat or away from things that want to eat us, we totally suck!

Have a lash at this..

Sailfish             113 kph/70mph
Mako Shark    97/60

Killer Whale   77/48
OLYMPIC SWIMMER  7kph/4mph!!

Basically we never stood a chance of going toe to toe with our prey or predators.
We lucked out and somehow managed to live long enough to evolve into runnin' fools who eventually learned how to outlast "yummy" prey, and throw pointy sticks at "mean" predators.
And the rest as they say, is Ourstory.

DEERLY DE-PART-ED YEARLY

This morning's Paper had a feature report on the stag-gering number of Deer that are killed by motorists in Manitoba..10,000 a year!

Of those about 400 Deer are killed right here on the streets of Whateverpeg (pop 700,000).

This caught my attention because this weekend I am heading out to a family gathering in the Sandilands area about 100 Kanadian MileS to the East.

Last year we saw atleast 30 Doe staring into our headlights along the roadside. Drivers must slow down because they are unpredictable.

You don't want to hit a Bear or a Moose either.

In 2001 a Manitoban hit an 880 pound Black Bear and lived to tell about it..totalled his vehicle.

I bearly missed one last year near Grand Beach. 

You especially want to avoid hitting a Moose.

Deer stand about 3 1/2 feet tall and weigh a couple hundred pounds, but a Bull Moose, like my pet Mr Horny, can weigh over 1500 pounds and stand 6'5".
You'd think that they'd be hard to moose?

Moose are the perfect height for going over the hood, through the windshield, and right through what would be left of the occupants.
Do the Math.
1500 lbs @ 100 kpm = Terminal Impact.

Deer seem prone to get caught in the headlights at dusk and dawn and October/November is particularily troublesome because it is the rutting season.

The BUCKS are uberhorny (ok antlered) and the DOES are nervous. So respectively they're both totally pre-occupied with having and avoiding sex...
just like kids in High School. 


There is a viral photo on the Interwebs of this Pole-Deer that was supposedly struck by a train and became lodged atop a hydro pole on the outskirts of Whateverpeg.

According to this Guy it could be a hoax because there is no trace of the carcass in the shadow..hmm?

According to a State Farm Insurance report, there were 2.4 million collisions between deer and vehicles in the U.S. between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009.

I wonder if other countries had similar problems with wildlife and vehicles. 

In NSW Australian motorists hit about 23 Kangaroos a day. One report stated that about 6,000 Roos were killed on the highways last year...
my guess is that figure is waaaay higher.

I found some advice for motorists..
"If an encounter with a deer is inevitable, then you should hit the brakes up until the very last second of impact; suddenly releasing the brakes will send the deer propelling into the roadway rather than into your windshield."
60 sec.video

Most motorists get injured or killed while trying to avoid hitting the Deer and end up hitting a very unforgiving tree or pole or worse yet, oncoming vehicles.

I've had an ultrasonic Wildlife whistle on the hood of my Van for years, right next to the Twin M2HB .50 cal machine gun.