"Slow news week—let's go with our cat-predation package!"
This is what the more mainstream of our two local "alternative weeklies", Seattle Weekly, opted to run as a cover story this week:
The Lost Cats of Poverty GulchI'll confess that I have not read the story in its entirety (still working my way through last week's Economist ("World on the edge") and just loaded up with this week's ("Saving the system"), and maybe it turns into a work of reportage that would make Joseph Mitchell and Hunter S. Thompson cry . . . but it appears to be all about how people who live in this one heavily-wooded greenbelt area tend to have a lot of cats go missing at the hands (paws? jaws?) of coyotes. With all due respect, WHO CARES?!?! It's hard to think of a more trivial story, or a week when it would seem more incongruous for it to show up on the front page of any publication.
Here's a classic bit from the story. I will let you find the authorial/editorial self indulgence that is in the finest tradition of Seattle alternative journalism, while I note a problem with the "scientific" explanation being put forward:
A 2004 paper authored by Russell Link, an urban wildlife biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), seconds Convy's notion. "In Washington," Link writes, "these intelligent and adaptable animals now manage to occupy almost every conceivable habitat type, from open ranch country to densely forested areas to downtown waterfront."
And occasionally, they like to eat pussy.
"Cats are thought of by coyotes as a competitor for prey," says Link. "A coyote is going to eliminate that competition."
Now, I could be wrong, but I doubt coyotes are picky eaters. They are not sitting around nibbling buttered scones and tut-tutting that these churlish cat-things are apt to put a dent in the population of delicious rabbits. I'm sure the coyotes are killing the cats in order to eat the cats [
cue Schwarzenegger Terminator voice: "I would."]. It's also a rather poor evolutionary strategy for predators to pick fights with other predators in order to keep them from competing. That's like getting in a knife fight with the next person in the interview line at Wal-Mart: not worth it from a risk or energy-expenditure perspective—just try to do a little better in the interview. Also, I'm confident that cats are not "thought of by coyotes as a competitor for prey." Do you really think a coyote has the slightest idea of what a cat does or doesn't do vis-à-vis the coyote's prey (besides simply being it)? It seems unlikely. Plainly, the benefit package at the Department of Fish and Wildlife is not attracting the cream of our biology graduates.
Labels: local Seattle media, mocking others, pets, things that seem stupid to MWR (abridged version)
MWR violates Seattle's "passive neighbor" policy
On my walk to work this morning I violated one of Seattle's unwritten codes of conduct by
confronting a stranger about what he was doing. I had just observed a well-dressed man with two small brown dogs as he waited for one of them to defecate, then walked away. After he was well away from the site, walking somewhat behind me, I addressed him with "You're not going to clean that up?" (Not the friendliest thing I could have said, but my CPU did not display enough other options.) Response: "Yes I
am going to clean it up . . . thank you for your concern. I've got two dogs here." Yielding nothing, but in a friendly tone, I said that I
was concerned and you saw that all the time these days.
"Thank you for your concern." I think that if you are seen walking away like that from a pile of excrement, showing no sign of returning, the only logical conclusion an observer can make is that you are fleeing the scene of the crime. (It may surprise you to know that I was once briefly responsible for walking two small dogs in an urban setting. When one of them finished, I cleaned up immediately . . . despite the apparently insuperable challenges involved.) I'm not sure what this guy expected, except not to be called on what he seemed to be doing. I have no reason to disbelieve what he told me, although I must say that while I really try to avoid stereotyping, if you showed me a photo of a guy in a black blazer walking a matched set of little brown dogs on Capitol Hill at 8 a.m., the caption "Not a Passive-Aggressive Narcissist" isn't the first that would leap to mind.
Of course, within a block I was treated to a nice view of some other dog's refuse. I do have a solution to the problem. It is a zero-tolerance dog-confiscation policy. If you are observed not cleaning up after your dog, you lose your dog and—this is important—you are never allowed to find out what happened to it. Maybe it was adopted, maybe it was euthanized, maybe it's living on a farm somewhere or toughening up at Vick's Home for Wayward Dogs. Whatever happened to it, you are done with that dog. And, of course, you would be banned from owning another dog for, say, five years.
You might assume this is just another one of my fanciful blog suggestions, but I would love to see this solution implemented. Society has a real interest in having clean sidewalks, medians and parks. As far as I can tell, there is no societal interest in allowing swine in human form to own dogs.
Labels: a modest proposal from MWR, pets
Collect them all!
But if a
parasite is your pal, is it still a parasite? Or has it become a symbiote?
Labels: pets
Honestly
Now some are crediting Velvet with saving the three climbers' lives by contributing body heat. I have seen nothing anywhere about how wholly absurd it is to take your dog on an expedition to the top of Mt. Hood. Something is actually very wrong with our culture when no one but me is making this point.
What kind of equipment did Velvet have? Doggie crampons? Was he roped up? What if he'd slipped and plunged 2000 feet to an uncertain fate (probably involving doggie-smashing and/or doggie-freezing-to-death, but maybe he would have shaken it off and gone to live on a farm). Anyway, how come it's not cruelty to put an animal in this situation?
Labels: pets
I'm sorry, but who takes a dog on a mountain-climbing expedition?
"They also have a Labrador dog with them that is cuddled up with them to help them keep warm," Gubele told AP Broadcast News. "My understanding is that they are experienced rock climbers, but not necessarily experienced in mountain climbing."
Still, officials were worried.
"There's always danger of exposure on Mount Hood," Gubele said.
"They're wet, shivering and cold," said Jim Strovink, a spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff's office.
Relatives of the climbers said the black Lab was named Velvet, Gubele said. - Associated Press, February 19, 2007
There ought to be a concept of incompetence
per se, like negligence
per se in the law of torts . . .
Park Ranger: How can I help you?
Climber A: Well, we're heading up to the summit. We wanted to check with you about conditions, leave our gear lists and contact information, and rent mountain locator beacons.
Park Ranger: Great, it sounds like you've really thought this one through.
Climber B: Thanks—can't be too careful in February.
Velvet: Arf!
Park Ranger: I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I can't let you climb Mt. Hood today.
Labels: pets
Who cares?
Puggles, Labradoodles, Maltipoos, Bagels. Is a hyperdesigned hybrid dog a better dog, an overpriced mutt of a dog or no dog at all? - New York Times Magazine, February 4, 2007 (cover story)
Really, who cares? This is like asking if there should be NEW Doritos Blazin' Buffalo Ranch
® Flavored Tortilla Chips. Get whatever dog you want. It's a DOG.
I will have to read the article, however, as it surely will contain precious material even if, as I suspect, no one has yet crossed a cocker spaniel with a mastiff. Here's a great line from a purebred breeder: “There was only one really perfect thing on the face of this earth, and he was crucified. To us, the pug is pure.” I think she just likened pugs to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Not a connection I would have made on my own.
But Doritos Nacho Cheese
® Flavored Tortilla Chips . . . they're savior-rific
®!
Labels: mocking others, pets
. . . if you know how to listen
From a TV commercial I saw yesterday for some pet product:
"Odors are their way of telling you that they're not clean."
Labels: pets
