What problem, you may ask. The problem of many African animals facing extinction. Currently, some animals are being pushed towards extinction because the people in Africa have to eat (yeah, the nerve of them). It is called bush meat.
The rising and often illegal trade in bushmeat—wild-caught animals, often threatened species such as primates, birds and elephants—threatens African biodiversity and could drive numerous species into extinction. Finding replacements for that trade could solve the need for both income and subsistence in many African communities. The answer, according to experts speaking at a meeting held in Nairobi this week, could include promoting beekeeping and farming jumbo-size African rodents known as cane rats (two species of the genus Thryonomys) for food.
Bees, of course, make perfect sense. We do that here. But then, I tried to imagine how rats could feed a nation - I've seen them in the pet stores, there's not much meat on them. And really, how good could they taste?
The cane rat is not your average subway rat. It can grow almost two feet long and weigh 20 pounds.
That’s about the size of a healthy cat or a small dog.
In parts of West and Central Africa, cane rat meat is considered a delicacy. People have traditionally hunted the animals in the wild, but in Cameroon there are efforts underway to domesticate them.
Imagine your Harris Hawk trying to tackle one of those.
Rats have been a food source for thousands of years - This seems like a good plan to me.
This squid has always got a smile on its face! The skin pigmentation of this little deep water squid gives it a huge grin, while the tentacles seem to form a mass of curly 'hair', combining to give it an almost cartoon appearance.
The Piglet squid, Helicocranchia pfefferi, is roughly the size of a small avocado, and is common in the deep water of virtually all oceans, living at depths of around 100m/320ft.
Its common name comes from its habit of filling up with water and the unique location of its syphon, with a wild-looking tuft of eight arms and two tentacles.
Since Wednesday the wind has whipped up and it is supposed to be blowing 25 - 35 for the rest of the week. I won't be able to fly the birds, but will be finding other ways to spend my time.
We built this bridge over the creek that runs along our property. We can finally easily cross to go exploring.
Seemed like as good a place as any to set up the trail cam. If we see deer - we may try to set up a stand and bag one before the end of the season.
Is Chupacabra, the monster of the south, eating your livestock and dragging away your children? What is this evil fiend? Science Daily has an explanation:
...[T]he real fiend is not the hairless, fanged animal purported to attack and drink the blood of livestock; it's a tiny, eight-legged creature that turns a healthy, wild animal into a chupacabras, says University of Michigan biologist Barry OConnor.
The existence of the chupacabras, also known as the goatsucker, was first surmised from livestock attacks in Puerto Rico, where dead sheep were discovered with puncture wounds, completely drained of blood. Similar reports began accumulating from other locations in Latin America and the U.S. Then came sightings of evil-looking animals, variously described as dog-like, rodent-like or reptile-like, with long snouts, large fangs, leathery or scaly greenish-gray skin and a nasty odor. Locals put two and two together and assumed the ugly varmints were responsible for the killings.
Scientists studied some of the chupacabras carcasses and concluded that the dreaded monsters actually were coyotes with extreme cases of mange -- a skin condition caused by mites burrowing under the skin. OConnor, who studies the mites that cause mange, concurs and has an idea why the tiny assailants affect wild coyotes so severely, turning them into atrocities.
In a recent "Monster Talk" podcast posted on Skeptic magazine's website, OConnor explained that the mite responsible for the extreme hair loss seen in "chupacabras syndrome" is Sarcoptes scabiei, which also causes the itchy rash known as scabies in people. Human scabies is an annoyance, but not usually a serious health or appearance problem, partly because our bodies are already virtually hairless and partly because the population of mites on a given person usually is relatively small -- only 20 or 30 mites.
Evolutionary studies done by OConnor and his former graduate student Hans Klompen, now an associate professor at Ohio State University, suggest that the scabies mite has been with us throughout our evolutionary history, giving humans plenty of time to develop defenses. When humans began domesticating animals, Sarcoptes scabiei found a whole new realm of potential victims. Domestic dogs, like humans, have played host to the mites long enough to evolve the ability to fight off mange, but when the condition spreads to wild members of the dog family -- foxes, wolves and coyotes -- watch out.
"Whenever you have a new host-parasite association, it's pretty nasty," said OConnor, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a curator in the U-M Museum of Zoology. "It does a lot of damage, and mortality can be relatively high because that host species has not had any evolutionary history with the parasite, so it has not been able to evolve any defenses like we have."
In these unfortunate animals, large numbers of mites burrowing under the skin cause inflammation, which results in thickening of the skin. Blood supply to hair follicles is cut off, so the fur falls out. In especially bad cases, the animal's weakened condition opens the door to bacteria that cause secondary skin infections, sometimes producing a foul odor. Put it all together, and you've got an ugly, naked, leathery, smelly monstrosity: the chupacabras.
Do mite infestations also alter the animals' behavior, turning them into bloodthirsty killers? Not exactly, but there is an explanation for why they may be particularly likely to prey on small livestock such as sheep and goats.
"Because these animals are greatly weakened, they're going to have a hard time hunting," OConnor said. "So they may be forced into attacking livestock because it's easier than running down a rabbit or a deer."
While the chupacabras has achieved legendary status, other wild animals can suffer just as much from the effects of mange mites, OConnor said. In Australia, the mite is killing off wombats. "They presumably got the mites from dingoes, which got them from domestic dogs, which got them from us," he said.
And a related mite, just as insidious, can drive squirrels to self-destruct. In his graduate school years at Cornell University, OConnor observed mange-weakened squirrels falling from trees. That observation led him to conduct an informal survey to see if mangy squirrels also were more likely than healthy squirrels to end up as road kill. They were, suggesting that being tortured by mites somehow made the squirrels less adept at dodging cars.
So school was canceled today - I spent the morning getting other peoples properties ready for the storm. We took in their deck chairs, put away anything that could be turned into a projectile. I Shut down power to the hot tubs and pools... and the whole time it was a gorgeous day.
There was a cool breeze and the sun was shining. Light clouds scudded across the sky
Slowly the wind started to pick up. Went to the store and bought some supplies.
The kids were excited for the storm and cleaned our house while I was out. They readied everything for the storm. When I got home we checked the hive, then strapped it down. I made sure all the birds were fed. Then we were about as ready as we could be.
Then we checked out the beach. The birds were all hanging low, staying grounded. And the surf began to pick up. Right now, 9:00, we're watching the Steeler game and waiting for the storm to really hit and hoping the satellite doesn't quit on us. We should be asleep when the winds start to get bad. I'll post some pictures tomorrow.
Albert has been spending his time across the ocean, doing his duty to the people there. He's put together a program to help the troops. If you get a chance -take a look and maybe donate a yo-yo.
2010-11 Fishing, Hunting and Trapping Regulations also Effective Aug. 1
RALEIGH, N.C. (July 12, 2010) – The proposed hunting and trapping rule changes approved by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission in March 2009 but delayed for legislative review will go into effect on Aug. 1, 2010.......
Then there was lots of lawyerspeak, and about halfway down the page it said..
Allow falconry on Sundays, except for migratory game birds.
Yee - Haw!!
It has been a few years now that NC falconers have been working on getting Sunday falconry allowed, and it has finally happened. It has taken public meetings, letters, emails and a few well placed words to local senators. While I cannot claim to have played any sort of pivotal role, I did play, and it took lots of people to make this happen.
This is a huge breakthrough for me, as I often hunt in the same areas as deer hunters. We've come into conflict before. My hunting is loud and fast as I chase squirrels through the canopy (I'm not usually in the canopy, that would be the squirrels) - deer hunters often don't like this. ( though I had one guy thank me for flushing the deer he shot).
Sunday hunting takes me out of conflict with those deer hunters. It should open up areas for hunting earlier in the season.
There is a great debate going on over at The Mindful Carnivore. It started with a simple blog post about hunters donating meat to the hungry. There was outrage.
It is interesting to try to understand the other side. I don't get it, but then again, I eat meat.
Take a look - follow the links - read the comments. Hey, put in your two cents. Its worth your time.
My parents live in upstate New York. Smack in the middle of their suburban neighborhood, with Starbucks, Applebees, the mall, and Walmart is a sheep farm.
When I was in high school, it was considered a "landmark". As in.... "Take a left at the smelly farm."
I appreciate the farm much more now than I used too. When we visit over Christmas and in the spring, it is a pleasure to see the ewes with their babies wandering the fields. Then, one day, they are miraculously all sheared (shorn?).
A few years back, they added some alpacas to the farm.... I never thought about the shearing process for those. I have some Alpaca clothing, but the process must be different for a bigger animal.
Over at the Beneficial Bee, she has done a great job of explaining the process. A few grown men, some shears, a grinder, and a tarp. It's an involved process.
Well, apparently not. It doesn't look like it makes much difference at all. Instead, we need to stop consuming so much.
ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2010) — If everyone became vegan and so ate only fruit and vegetables, then the reduction in greenhouse emissions for the whole of food consumption would be a mere 7%. The widespread adoption of vegetarianism would have even less impact, while organic food production actually leads to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Those are the conclusions of a research paper published in the journal Progress in Industrial Ecology.
So, eat meat, get less stuff - read the rest here.
It has been exactly one year since I started this blog. I have ended up with a nice even 250 posts. I don't know how you measure success in the blogging world, but I am enjoying doing it, and I appreciate those of you that come and read. Looking forward. I would like to end the season with over 30 head of game. For some of you that may not sound like much, but around here, that's doing pretty well. I'm already half way there with two more months to go.
I hope the hawks breed this year. They are both a bit on the young side - but this year I think (hope) we have a good chance.
I'm not much into resolutions - but I wish the best to those of you that are. Happy New Year.
Luscian over at his blog has caught his first big jack. The video is priceless. Take a minute and go over there and check it out.
My own hunting has been suspended for a bit. I completely fed up the birds on a whole chicken each. It took them almost three days to eat it and now they are fat and happy. It'll be a while before they drop enough weight to fly again.
In the meantime, we will be enjoying the season. My posts may be a bit more sporadic. More about the dogs - and the season.
Today is my wedding anniversary -so I am off to spend the day with my lovely wife.
To the falcon, the owl was unwelcome competition for its hard-earned meal, and so when the unknowing owl flew from the dunes to the beach, the falcon had had enough, and attacked. These photos show the interaction that ensued.
I ran out to Andrews today. He's out of town and his falcon got free of her leash. We got her all clipped up and she was kind enough to pose for a picture.
Christmas is just around the corner. I don't know you nor how you hunt, but one thing you need if you are in the field a lot is a good set of chaps.
I don't claim to be an expert in the field of quality chaps, but I can tell you what I have learned over the last few years; quality counts when it comes to chaps and rabbit hunting.
When I first started in falconry, I was determined to catch rabbits, I did not at the time realize how far in between my rabbit kills would be and how few of them I would actually see. I also underestimated the pain.
Briers here are prevalent and thick. Without a good dog, I became the beagle. I had to thrash the thorns. I tried it with just jeans.
My legs got ripped to shreds. I would come home bleeding and torn, then I would pluck thorns from my knees for days (they pop right out if you leave them a couple of days). I've ripped my legs and shins on barbed wire and scraped through fence posts. Thank god for tetanus shots.
I tried bargain shopping for chaps. I did the pants with the canvas fronts, cabelas, light duty chaps, everything, and what I learned is that you get what you pay for.
I have had myy chaps now for three seasons and they are awesome. I can wade through briers and thorns that I wouldn't even attempt in anything else. And I hardly feel what I'm wading through.
They are made by Filson and are called Tin Cloth chaps. It is like wearing armor, and definitely worth the money.
If you are going to hunt rabbits on the Eat Coast I highly recommend them for Christmas.
On our drive through Rocky Mountain State Park the other morning, I was amazed at the amount of wildlife that we saw. It might be that I have becoming jaded to the wildlife in my home state. I get used to seeing herons, osprey, fox, and raccoons. (wild boar, bald eagles, deer, etc.)
Many of the animals may be common in Colorado, but I hadn't seen them myself before. So for many of you they may be common, but for me it was a thrill.
I have never seen a magpie before. They are a member of the crow family and reputed to be just as intelligent and man are they good looking. I am sure that there are those out there who can share horror stories about these birds as apparently, they are fearless.
Here we see a mule deer, a marmot, and a pika. I never thought I would actually see a pika (not my pic).
I tried to get pictures of some of the more exotic (read "ones I don't often see") species, but I couldn't get them all. I was also amazed at how close I could get to almost all of them. I don't have much zoom on my little point and shoot, so any pictures I get are amazing.
This is a ground squirrel, here is a young elk buck, and of course a chipmunk (not my pic), which we don't have on the Outer Banks.
I took the drive with my father, who is an avid gun hunter. His major trip every year is to go to Wyoming to hunt elk, so seeing so many was a huge thrill for him and got his adrenaline pumping. He can't wait for the season to open now.
Impressive, no? I could have hit them with a rock.
And there was more, all in a short, 2 hour drive around the park.
Every so often, one of the kids in my class will ask me what I am afraid of.There’s not much.Sure I fear for my children, but that is not truly fear; that is more a constant worry that they will come to no harm.I don’t fear lightning, or tornadoes, or sharks.
Scary movies do nothing but startle anymore.Being startled is not fear.Fear is something visceral that creeps up from the pit of your belly causing your body to freeze, your breath to become shallow, your head faint.
I talk to the kids about it.Usually fear is caused by ignorance.If you don’t understand something, you are more likely to fear it.Sharks, snakes, bears, bugs, whatever it is, usually you fear them because you don’t understand.
One of the reasons I like to bring snakes to school is because I want the children to see that snakes are not scary, they don’t normally bite people, nor do they want to. For many people, getting bit by a nonvenomous, common snake would be the best way for them to get over their fear. It hurts less than a shot, or a bee sting.
What causes the children to fear them is not knowing what a snake can and will do.Respect is healthy.If you see a cottonmouth, give it the space it needs, respect it.Bears, respect them and you’ll be fine.There is no need for any irrational fear.
That is what I thought, until today.
In the summer I clean pools. It’s a great summer gig.I work shirtless and barefoot.No one bothers me when I’m working.It is quiet.
I had to do some work in a pump room today.It is a small, cramped room off to the side of the pool.Equipment hums inside, and all of the extra space is cluttered with other stored items.
My feet whisper across the threshold of the little room, and it takes a second for my eyes to grow accustomed to the dimness.I am all business.I lean forward, glancing down as my legs brush through some cobwebs, and begin work diverting the water from the main drain.My balance is a bit off, as I lean over the jumble of PVC pipes, and I have to put my weight heavily on my left foot.That is when I see it.
It stands on all eight delicate legs, one foot poised up, just off the ground, as if it is feeling the air with that one hairy foot.The abdomen looks huge, and glossy, and black.
There is no other spider quite like it; the black widow, and this is a big one. It stands no more than six inches from the soft side of my foot.
My breathing suddenly stopped, and I could imagine the spider inching closer to me, that one leg slowly caressing the outside of my foot as its fangs move closer.There was a knot in the pit of my stomach, and my legs froze.I couldn’t move.
I know all about black widows.They can’t even actually kill you, but the fear was real and inexplicable.In the sunlight that invaded through the half open door, I could see the cobwebs I’d scattered on the way in.They were the classic, haphazard web of the black widow.I mentally scolded myself for not being more careful.
The spider never moved.It seemed to draw in on itself, crouching down closer to the floor.
Then I shifted my weight, sliding my foot away from the spider.It regarded me coolly.As quickly as I could, I left the pump room.
Spiders don’t like filter cleaner.I retrieved my pump bottle from the cleaning bucket and emptied it on the spider.It wriggled and writhed, climbing higher in its web, until it curled up and fell to the ground, a lifeless lump.
I've had Gonzo since he was a young hawk and he came to me from Dave Mancini. He is a great bird who has been car hawked at different birds, flown from trees at squirrel and rabbit, and flown from a T-perch. He is a wonderfully efficient hunter that hunts in the 650 gram range.
Tess came to me by way of Wes Collins breeding project. She is a direct descendant of the Coulsins' famous White wing. I just acquired her for the 2008-09 hunting season. Her previous owner flew her extensively from the car at starlings, geese, and crows. She has been great at squirrels and has a ridiculously calm disposition. She flies between 900 - 950 grams.
sing and often illegal trade in bushmeat—wild-caught animals, often threatened species such as primates, birds and elephants—threatens African biodiversity and could drive numerous species into extinction. Finding replacements for that trade could solve the need for both income and subsistence in many African communities. The answer, according to experts speaking at a meeting held in Nairobi this week, could include promoting beekeeping and farming jumbo-size African rodents known as cane rats (two species of the genus Thryonomys) for food.
igh 20 pounds.
