The Urban Pantheist

Animal lovers and Environmentalists are usually thought to be the same people. Realizing that certain animals, through the acts of humans, have themselves become environmental problems, complicates the matter.

Perhaps no issue polarizes animal lovers and environmentalists like free-roaming and feral cats. While I was on vacation, I read this magazine article about the subject. It's a relatively long piece that deserves to be read, but I'll boil it down: Free-roaming cats in present an environmental problem through the killing of native species and the spreading of disease; trap-neuter-release programs are spreading and growing through the perception that they help solve the problem, when the evidence is that they do not. In other words, animal lovers who oppose lethally controlling feral cats, are coming into conflict with environmentalists. The animal lovers are currently winning this conflict, with more and more municipalities accepting and promoting TNR programs.

The article provides some helpful resources, including some information from the American Bird Conservancy. Also included is a link to this product, a bib that your cat can wear to protect bird species--it has the added benefit of making the cat more visible to drivers.

I predict that if this photograph survives 20 years, it will be hilariously anachronistic.

for example(s):
this

and this

Now, 40 years ago... hmmm...

I cleaned the flying insect traps earlier this week. (Then began deploying them.)

I don't know if you follow Kinky Friedman on twitter, but I wanted to share what he said today. "During the VietNam war, I was in Borneo with the Peace Corps helping farmers who'd been farming successfully for 2,000 years learn to farm." I thought that was pretty damn funny.

Also on twitter, but also also on LiveJournal, I learned about a music video for an incredibly boring Bruno Mars song (that's not redundant, the man has some talent) starring Leonard Nimoy. You will believe an 80 year old man can be hilariously cantankerous without uttering a word! Google it, I won't link to it here.

And finally, from our good friend @MichaelPollan, here's a short video showing a small market in what must be an unbelievably densely populated corner of the world. Is there no place to sell vegetables nearby that doesn't feature regularly scheduled risk of death?

Hey, I know most of you if you're going to read my movie reviews already do, but there may be some new people. I reviewed Inception

There were a few essays about the shooting in Arizona that I wanted to keep around, to read in the future, or show my dad maybe.

The Wrath of Fools: An Open Letter to the Far Right

The Rude Pundit: "Dear Right-Wingers, You Are All Muslims Now"

And behind the cut, ( Tom Tomorrow's strip about it )

I'll be doing this once I have space to do it, but I'm writing it down so I'll remember, and so you all can try it too: Grow mushrooms on junk mail.

Oyster mushrooms are usually cultivated on sawdust or cereal grain, but apparently do well on office paper. The scientific study in that link determined that under the right conditions you can get a greater than 100% production of edible mushrooms from paper. Meaning (I think) from 10 kilos of paper you could grow, say, 14 pounds of oyster mushrooms. The secret ingredient is water. I'm not sure why more isn't being done to encourage growing food on waste products (though some marketing savvy would be needed to make that sound less gross to a public that wrinkles its nose at brown mushrooms and apples with spots).

I'm going to use junk mail because I hate it so much and there is so much of it in my life, and it would be nice to see it rotting and something good coming out of it. Giggling Wizard should try it on his farm, using soiled cardboard crates or old newspaper or something. Sustainably grown gourmet food!

I suspect the difficulty might be in growing the right kind of fungus--if the oyster spawn didn't take, you might end up with a big barrel (or bag) of dark gray slimy gunk. But that's a risk I'm willing to take, once I have room to keep the barrel away from the house.

Mushroom cultivation link!
Buy spawn here!
Or buy spawn here!

Let's talk about urine, shall we?

( Read more... )

Okay, time to clean up my tabs! ( linky linky )

I could do something productive while I wait for Alexis to come home, but I think I'll share some links (and clear the tab-clutter away) instead.

Everyone likes multi-species interactions in zoos. That's why this photo of a zebra eating stuff out of a hippo's teeth made the BBC's website.

Speaking of animal photos, a camera trap in a small chunk of Southeast Asian forest caught a record 7 cat species. Kind of amazing biodiversity of predators, considering there are also other in the same forest, including dogs and civets.

Another photo essay from that part of the world shows a biodiversity of living animals in the local market, including dogs (but no civets).

Contrast that with this Portland farmers' market, which includes at least three species of mushroom.

Mushrooms are big business in Tibet, where they apparently make up 8.5% of the GDP. I haven't seen any comparisons, but this must be some kind of record. More interesting than that, is Tibet's second biggest mushroom crop is the insect parasite Ophiocordyceps sinensis (referred to as Cordyceps in most sources). The fungus infects adult moths, who pass the infection to their offspring. The insect lives a normal life (3 or 4 years, according to this article) until it's a full grown caterpillar, then the fungus consumes its body, and changes its behavior. Instead of avoiding dessication by burrowing deep into the soil, the caterpillar stays just under the top layer. When the infection is complete, the caterpillar dies, and the fungus sends an antenna-like mushroom to the surface to release more spores. Tibetan harvesters look for these tiny mushrooms and dig out the caterpillar-shaped fungal mycelium, which is used for medicinal purposes.

In case you don't spend as much on the internet as Roger Ebert does (NO ONE does--the guy is turning into a character from Snowcrash) or don't subscribe to the National Geographic twitter feed (you should--much less annoying than getting the magazine sent to you in a plastic bag) here's some stuff I found interesting lately:

Not to be outdone, the Atlantic Ocean has it's own giant plastic trash gyre. It's mostly invisible, composed of tiny flecks that look delicious to animals that eat tiny flecks of translucent floating debris. I assume they are mostly fragments of plastic bags, like the kind National Geographic sends their magazines in.

Anyone who has kept mice or rats in a tiny cage knows that they get overweight in no time. Unfortunately for the body of knowledge we've been building up based on them, it screws up the results.

By now you know that the Chile earthquake shortened the length of the day and knocked the planet off its axis, but have you seen the tsunami pictures?

Using the worst headline I've ever seen on a zoo website, San Diego Zoo tells us that kangaroo rats will nest in sand that smells of mountain lion urine, because smaller predators treat it like plutonium.

One Facebook friend keeps pressuring me to like Neko Case, but I don't see it happening. I heard the Carolina Chocolate Drops on Fresh Air, however, and I like them.

And finally, I often hear from people wondering why they have to endure ticks and mosquitoes and other parasitic organisms. This abstract from a paper on the subject says it beautifully:

"Taking into account that most of the known living organisms are parasites and that they exert a strong influence on the functioning of ecosystems, we can consider parasitism as a successful strategy for life. Because of the harm that parasites can inflict on man and domesticated animals, which can be expressed as economic loss, many parasites become pests. In natural ecosystems, parasites contribute to the prevention of continuous exponential growth of populations and, therefore, they also need to be conserved."

A zookeeper makes diets for small primates.

Unrelated to that, how about some mushrooms for dessert? I've eaten other mushrooms in the genus Lactarius but not the couple species called "candy caps." Now I want to. Not sure I want to drop San Francisco money on some though.

If you are a Portland Oregon person, I recommend you bookmark Urban Adventure League, the blog by my old friend Shawn Granton from the zine days. Like me he is a former Nutmegger who leads urban nature walks--but he takes it to the next level, leading urban nature HIKES and urban nature bike rides. This Saturday he's leading a workshop on long-distance (by my standards) bike touring, like with saddlebags loaded with tents and stuff.

Ever read a comic and thought that a 5 year old could do a better job writing this crap? Maybe he has.

Obligatory political note: undoubtedly you've already heard about Sarah Palin's hand note. Palin is the conservative's gift to the liberals. I can't wait to hear the talk shows take this story for a ride. What are her chances for running for president now? How stupid is too stupid for the teabaggers?