On biodiversity
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Monday, September 13, 2010 18:16
VIEWED: 2859
PAGE 3 of 5
Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
I have a feeling many HAVE been written, Magons, and I agree wholeheartedly. Just look at Cesar Millan!
My wife is about half convinced that I'm going to be mauled to death by some stray dog one day, but I just don't see it happening. Whatever it is, pheromones, visual cues, body language... I've got it. She didn't believe I was a "dog whisperer" until there was an aggressive Dobie in our yard one day, and I just walked out and sat in the grass while he faced off towards me and barked and snarled, trying to warn me off and let me know that he was a dangerous character. I wasn't buying it; I sat down, averted my eyes, lowered my head, and he came over and sat in my lap (more like ON my lap, since he was a good 85 pounds!) and started licking my face and chewing on my ears. At that point, we were fast friends, played a few games (if you can get your head under the dog's head and neck, you win - it's play, but it's also a dominance game played among the pack), he let me put a leash on him, get him some food, and find his owners and take him home.
A lot of it is just paying attention, and not "threatening" the dog in any way. Making eye contact is a challenge. Showing teeth is a threat. Averting your eyes and not squaring off against the dog tells him that not only are you not a threat to him, but you're also not threatened BY him, which tends to put them at ease and make them more curious than scared. And of course, dogs being so eager to please, if you turn away from them just a bit, while NOT looking at them, they INSTANTLY want and crave your attention, because they want to make you happy.
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Friday, May 28, 2010 - 20:32 To AnthonyT:
Go fuck yourself.
On this matter, make no mistake. I want you to go fuck yourself long and hard, as well as anyone who agrees with you. I got no use for you.
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Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.
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Oh very funny, Byte - more like,
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotGoodWithPeople
Type 2 of course, side order of THIS.
(This is why you don't piss off faeries and suchlike)
As for the racoons, I don't see it changing their behavior one way or the other, since they already try to shake me down every chance they get, even the newbies, it's the first damn thing they do, cause they reaaaaly WANT my Starlight Mints - one of the newbies is wanderin around near my place right now, didn't see him but I heard him steppin the dry leaves (which is how I know he's a newbie) so he's checkin the place out, good luck to him, cause most of em wind up roadkill in less than a week.
And then there's Bummer, who won't beg off no one, but he's smart enough to use tools, VERY rare for a raccoon, he'll use a stick to hook the bait out of the live traps since he looooves bolonga, and that is what they bait the traps with, oh, and did I mention he's fekkin HUGE as well as shaggy ?
He can't get his fat ass IN the traps even if he was dumb enough to fall for one.
He has some kinda deal goin on with the squirrels - which are the provenence of the maintenance guy, they follow him around cause he chucks em various seeds and nuts all the time, likely a good cause of why they're so damn fat, but they seem to act as sentries for Bummers den as well since he's dug in at the bottom of their favorite trees.
Me and the squirrels don't get along, they like to wind up my cats through the window, which, if it gets on my nerves too much, results in me starting to pull the door open, and then hauling ass up a tree all quick like - Kallista couldn't catch one, even as fat as they are, but Puppy ?
Shit, they'd be DEAD, Puppy doesn't "play" with her prey, doesn't screw around, and has that spine-snapping chomp thing down to a fekkin science...
Which, is why I don't ACTUALLY let her out there, cause coming back with a decapitated lardass squirrel would be seriously gross and likely piss off the maintenance guy just a lil bit.
The bunnies now, that all started earlier when we had a bunny population problem, which got resolved when the owl came back and brought his girlfriend and they ate most of em, save for the one I had been calling up to that point stupid-bunny for hanging around me, but then renamed Fivver cause he WAS smart, and capable of making a cognitive connection most bunnies never manage.
Most of this generation of em is his progeny, and they hang around my rounds patterns and me outta habit, rather than intellect, cause that dimwit by the laundry room actually plowed into my leg last round, stupid idjit.
They do that dart-stop-sentry-stealth movement pattern, and he went to dart, and be both zigged in the same direction and the dim lil critter bounces offa my prosthetic leg, then hunkers down a couple feet away looking all mortified in that freeze-and-pretend-to-be-invisible thing they do, with me cussin him for a fool, of course.
As for the birds, I am pretty sure they'd let me bottle feed em or something, so that sounds like a workable idea - albeit I still consider em pretty damn obnoxious, mind you, although not as bad as Llamas, I HATE them, and the feeling is entirely mutual.
Magons, I think some small part of it is that my body language is also a little different than most humans, and on top of it when dealing with an animal I understand enough of THEIR body language to emulate what can be emulated by a human, this to an almost freaky degree between me and cats especially.
Mikey, that wouldn't work for me, I have to handle dogs a little differently.
You see, while I am quite fond of them, I am not *as* fond of em as I am other critters, and happen to also be somewhat mistrustful of them thanks to a few bad experiences.
Friendly dog ? no problem, love em to death, play with em all day, spoil em rotten - but if you look real close and careful you'll notice no dog, no matter how friendly, ever, EVER gets a free shot at my back, and here's why.
I've
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Mike; well done...you watch Millan? Just what he does with territorial dogs, because most of them are just that, and some reacting out of fear. BUT, there are dogs that doesn't work with, bear that in mind, 'cuz you COULD be mauled if you read the signs wrong.
But on the whole, you're absolutely right, and if people just smartened up about how to deal with animals who read us like books, there'd be less fear of dogs who bark--and especially of breeds like dobies (the biggest wooses in the dog kingdom actually) and pits (who make fantastic, loving pets, by the way). We have a lot of Pits in Marin, since it's an animal place and there are lots needing homes; Pit Bull and Geyhound rescue are BIG here.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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I know there is biodiversity all over the globe...I've made the argument that it is exactly that which has made America great...what counts is what people do with it.
One of the coolest things in my lifetime. Is seeing, over the last ten years, the unbelivable return of the American bald-eagle up and down the connecticut river valley. Started as one nesting pair in Suffield and has spread up and down the river. On my lake we have Great blue harreans, hawks, owls, falcons, etc...But seeing the huge white head and tail cruising down too grab a fish is fantastic......
I can't wait till there is enough so I can shoot one 
.....Joking.
Now these bears are getting out of control though. I think it has to do with my generation not being the hunters our parents and grandparents were...not that it is a bad thing, however they are everwhere....Just saw a 400 lb male two nights back....fucking huge....And the deer forget it. Cars are dinged all over CT...the fucking things are everywhere...no-one hunts anymore
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One of my oldest friends was someone I met through the mail--yes, back then SNAIL MAIL; I saw a column by her in the newspaper--she was a great writer!--and wrote my appreciation to her. She responded and we wrote back and forth for the next two decades, and she and her son visited me here in CA.
Her commitment was to a strip of land which was bald eagle nesting grounds, which the local Illinois politicians wanted to run a freeway through (which went nowhere, pure pork barrel). She fought long and hard; had a several-hundred-year-old tree in her family home cut down, she and her young son run off the road, her horse killed, blackballed from being able to get a job, and eventually was shot herself. But she never gave up. She died recently--illness--and the world is a poorer place without her. Her name was Robin. There are bald eagles everywhere who are alive and breeding today who would not have been without her. It's people like these who make it possible for biodiversitiy to have even a fighting chance.
We have all those things here, too...except bald eagles. There's a lake down South that's a nesting ground, but we just got our first pair of golden eagles, and hope for more. I have loved the occasional stories of the peregrines re-introduced in the City...everyone knows where their nests are (one on the Bay Bridge!), and they're starting to be enough of them to help with the "feathered rat" (pigeon) problem!
Do you have Kites? I LOVE watching Kites dive for fish, and our Osprey population has skyrocketed in recent years. I love Osprey...well, I'm a nut for all raptors, I might as well admit it. Even turkey vultures, which by the way make excellent pets.
I'm guessing everyone knows that Ben Franklin wanted our national bird to be the turkey, because in so many ways it is superior to the bald eagle, but of course turkeys aren't "dignified" so he was out-voted.
I do agree about the bears, tho'...we're waiting for them to show up here. Their population increases partly because they're foragers, and foraging human food is plentiful for foraging! I don't like bears, probably more than any other species and yes, I know it's a prejudice, but bears are unpredictable, and that makes me fear them more than any other predator. I shuddered at your remark about seeing one...NO THANK YOU!
The deer problem, you probably know, is a result of man depleting competing predators. There's a lot to be said about THAT!
We've had some problems with cougar lately (puma, mountain lion, mountain cat, catamount or panther, whatever it's called in each of your areas), who are returning to California after nearly being wiped out from hunting and ranchers. They've been taken off the Endangered Species list and there are movements to hunt them again. We've had one up on Mt. Tam for ages--he was a myth until people started getting photos--and now they're all over the place.
It's very special to me, the fact that America had more biodiversity than most other places, but we're in crisis now, due to pollution, ecosystem destruction and things like overfishing. The whole world has a problem, obviously, but America is my country and I don't want to lose any species.
I won't go on or I'd start prattling about wolves, my favorite subject and one very endangered...
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off
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I'm sorry about your friend, Niki. It's amazing how threatened and violent the capitalist system becomes, with even a small challenge. Sounds like she had lots of guts.
I found myself bristling at your suggestion that America had more biodiversity than anywhere else. I don't think that statement is true, sorry. High levels of biodiversity exist the further away from the poles you are, and in areas where there is water..ie oceans, swamps, rivers etc. It is also dependant on levels of human habitation. The US may have had a high biodiversity because of those factors, but it would be on a par with other regions with similar charactersitics, and not as high as groups of islands near the tropics.
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Well, since we're on the topic, I got nuzzled and ogled by a weeber last round, he even held still while I got a pic for ya.
Lil baby possum, no bigger than my hand, kinda cute for an overgrown fuzzy-rat, ya think ?
He/she likes me though.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Well magonsdaughter, I meant compared to other countries. From coast to coast we take up a lot of space (lng and lat)..Have the icy waters of Maine and the desert, the great plains,and the Rockies, the bou of La, and the swamps of Florida, deltas, forests, old growth forests...I could go on forever...What I mean is we are not an island nation or an inter-continent country...We are a continent and have the biodiversity that made it possible to build the greatest nation this world has ever seen...Do you know America is the only nation on earth that can feed itself?...year round.....with no help from the outside. Canada can't do it, Russia can't do it, England can't do it...No other nation can do it. We can feed 350 million because of our size, climate, and biodiversity....And our women are fucking hot.
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Biodiversity is over-rated. We need white rice, white fish, white onions and white people.
You forgot mayonnaise!
YEAH! bland white food for bland white people, and bland white people for bland white food!
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Quote:Obviously you've never had really good, organic, farm raised white people. They can be quite tasty.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Biodiversity is over-rated. We need white rice, white fish, white onions and white people.
You forgot mayonnaise!
YEAH! bland white food for bland white people, and bland white people for bland white food!
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