The Urban Pantheist

Abby the Baird's tapir sniffs down into her pool.

( more cute zoo animals! )

Ever since I learned it existed, I've wanted to see the La Brea tar pits. That alone was reason to go to Los Angeles. This main lake by the road is actually a pit created by humans 100-150 years ago, digging the tar out because it's a useful substance. Native Americans also dug the tar out to use as an adhesive and water-proofing agent. I had the impression before that the animals would sink in tar over their heads, but that's probably not what happened. According to the information in the Page Museum (the museum associated with the tar pits) a large animal got stuck once a decade or so, and predators would swarm in and feed--getting stuck themselves. Fossilized fly pupae and other insects show that the trapped animals were exposed for some time before their remains sunk into the tar to become the most important record of ice age life known.

( more tar pit, more museum! )

Over the weekend two different people reported seeing a black bear in Dedham (hey, I live there!), a suburb bordering Boston's southern neighborhoods. Then it was seen in Needham, our slightly wealthier neighbor to the west. Just now, on the universal hub twitter feed it was reported that the black bear was seen on the Brookline/Newton line near Lost Pond.

This bear is within a very short distance of being a truly Boston bruin--I wonder how long it has been since the city actually had bears within its borders. I only hope some dipshit doesn't do something stupid to get the animal killed.

Edited to add: Bear now mapped.

EDITED TO ADD:
The bear was darted and captured, or should I say recaptured. Not long ago (a month ago?) the same 180 pound male bear was removed from Cape Cod and relocated to the Quabbin Reservoir area (Massachusetts most pristine wilderness created by flooding four central Mass towns and protecting the land around it) but he wandered east to Dedham and Brookline. Now he's been moved to Western Mass, but I haven't heard where. How about Springfield?

Here we are in yet another exotic Oregon location, this time with our beer bellies prominently displayed. Where are we? Well here's a hint: we followed a series of alarming signs along the road to get in.

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Jill took me to meet an expert on invasive plants, who worked for the government of the States of Jersey. To my surprise, most of the invasive management done on the island involves native plants. In the past, livestock grazing kept certain plants from becoming dominant; there used to be a great many small cattle and sheep farms on the island. These days there are fewer, larger farms, and some native plants have no pressure on them any more, and can grow out of control.

The plant pictured above is gorse, a dense and prickly evergreen shrub. A landscape dominated by gorse is impassible.

( stand back, this post gets very very pretty, but it takes a couple dozen photos to get there )

On Monday my dad and I went on a Yellowstone Wildlife Safari, organized by Flying Pig and led by a naturalist from the Yellowstone Association. The first wildlife we saw on this tour was a pair of coyotes.

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