A Howl of Delight....and Ultrarunning

....because wolves have returned to California!!

Image and article credit here.  

From the article:

California’s first gray wolf pack since wild wolves disappeared from the state nearly a century ago was spotted in the woods in the northern part of the state, wildlife officials said on Thursday.

The pack appears to include a wolf photographed by state fish and wildlife experts last month, then believed to be alone.

“This news is exciting for California,” Charlton H. Bonham, director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in a statement. “We knew wolves would eventually return home to the state, and it appears now is the time.”

Pictures of the wolves – five pups and two adults – posted on the department’s website show the family in a meadow with tall trees behind them.

Officials said the pups appear to be a few months old. Officials learned of their existence thanks to cameras posted in remote parts of Siskiyou County near Mount Shasta, which snapped images of the pups and adults, the statement said. Officials have named the group the Shasta Pack.

I view it as good news--great news, actually--but some folks disagree, thinking the wolves will pose a danger to humans and their animals.  I've seen wild wolves at Yellowstone in the winter and it was one of the most thrilling days of my life.  To encounter one in the backcountry while running would be amazing. 

Alpaca Head

Here is one of the heirs to the Gary estate, whom we lovingly call "Alpaca Head."

Image credit Gary, with a Photoshop assist from cousin John

And here is a real alpaca so you can see the uncanny resemblance:

Image credit Gary.  The alpaca farm where I took this image is called Sugar Loaf Alpaca Company, near Frederick, MD.

Apparently Deer are Now Predators!...and Ultrarunning

....A plea for scientific accuracy from Gary, owner of Mister Tristan (the blog, not the 7-year-old human being).

Read the main headline of this ad from a gadget catalog that showed up in my mailbox a couple days ago.  I was totally unaware that deer are predators.  And I have a BS and an MS in Biology!

Maybe it's a man-made climate change phenomenon?

Most animals fit fairly cleanly into the categories of herbivore (plant eater) or carnivore (meat eater).  I do realize that many animals swing both ways; i.e., are omnivores, meaning they eat whatever they can, be it plants or meat.

But deer are NOT predators--they are as herbivorous as an animal can be!

Back to the ad--deer certainly can be nighttime pests, but not by virtue of being predators.

However, let's err on the side of caution and take the ad at face value: better be careful out there in the backcountry.  Never know when you might jump a vicious predatory deer that has YOU in his sights for dinner!

Animals "Adopting" Other Animals...and Ultrarunning

Light posting this week.

In keeping with my earlier post about the wolf pups at the Catoctin Zoo, via National Geographic we read this fascinating info about animals who may "adopt" other animals, even those of a different species altogether:

...in some cases, an animal will adopt one of its own species, which is instinctual. "Instinctively animals take care of young to help them survive and therefore pass on the family DNA," Holland said. "So I think there's some hard wiring in there that leads them to offer care to another animal in need. If it isn't a relative, there maybe some wires crossed, but I think the behavior comes from the same place."

 Greyhound with owl...image credit Nat Geo, here

I've never seen this phenomenon myself, but I'm waiting for the day when I'm running in the backcountry and see a squirrel riding on the back of a deer....

 

How to Survive an Elephant Charge...and Ultrarunning

Courtesy of the way cool site Boing Boing, we learn what to do and what not to do when faced with a charging elephant:





Your choices are:

1. Run between its legs
2. Turn and run away
3. Scream and yell

Were you correct?


This is especially for our Ultrarunning buddies in Africa and southeast Asia.  As for me, living as I do in North American where elephants are not endemic, I doubt I'll need this specific advice...although it's also appropriate strategy for dogs, bears and mountain lions, etc. 

In short, any menacing critter.

 

Things Ultrarunners Know: Animals

To complete tthe series of Things Ultrarunners Know, here is a repost of one on animals from 8 Jan 2011:

 

 

 

(Meadow vole image credit Wikipedia)

(Deer mouse image credit Wikipedia)

The other day, while running, I passed a road kill on a local road near my home. What made it a bit unusual was that it was a small critter, either a mouse or a vole.

One would think that a road-killed animal of such small size would have been completely smashed, but this one was not crushed; it was only slightly bloody about the head. But very dead.

That struck me as strange, meaning that the mouse-like animal would have been struck--but not run over--by a vehicle tire, as though it ran into the side of the tire. Now, I’m sure that it can happen that way, but my mind immediately thought “hawk” and I looked up to see whether I was under a tree or telephone pole where a raptor may have just dropped its partially eaten prey.

Nope, turns out I wasn't under any such perch, so the dead mouse or vole was in all likelihood just a road kill. But when you hear hoof beats, you think horses, not zebras. A hawk being involved seemed more likely than road kill, but I was wrong.

Why even bother with this pretty mundane story? Because it points to another example of what we ultrarunners know and “regular” people don’t. You see, we know local fauna in a way that most people don’t—we see dead animals up close on the roads. And we see live ones out on the trails and the roads. Without having taken a single zoology course, we ultrarunners have a pretty good idea of who in the animal kingdom lives nearby.

We know, for instance, whether the local cat population includes cougars, bobcats, lynxes, or none of the above. Or the difference between a skunk, an opossum, a raccoon, a beaver, and a woodchuck. How to distinguish between a red and a grey fox. Whether the deer is a whitetail of a mule deer. That the local large hawk is in all likelihood a red-tail, or how to ID one of the smaller raptors. And whether any bears (grizzly or black) live locally.

You get the idea. I plan to expand this theme of Things Ultrarunners Know into a series of posts on other disciplines such as meteorology, astronomy, geology, and hydrology, as a minimum. I previously did a post last May on this theme, about rain and getting wet.

We are a pretty smart bunch. Or at least observant.

 

 

Things Ultrarunners Know: Animals

(Meadow vole image credit Wikipedia)

(Deer mouse image credit Wikipedia)

The other day, while running, I passed a road kill on a local road near my home. What made it a bit unusual was that it was a small critter, either a mouse or a vole.

One would think that a road-killed animal of such small size would have been completely smashed, but this one was not crushed; it was only slightly bloody about the head. But very dead.

That struck me as strange, meaning that the mouse-like animal would have been struck--but not run over--by a vehicle tire, as though it ran into the side of the tire. Now, I’m sure that it can happen that way, but my mind immediately thought “hawk” and I looked up to see whether I was under a tree or telephone pole where a raptor may have just dropped its partially eaten prey.

Nope, turns out I wasn't under any such perch, so the dead mouse or vole was in all likelihood just a road kill. But when you hear hoof beats, you think horses, not zebras. A hawk being involved seemed more likely than road kill, but I was wrong.

Why even bother with this pretty mundane story? Because it points to another example of what we ultrarunners know and “regular” people don’t. You see, we know local fauna in a way that most people don’t—we see dead animals up close on the roads. And we see live ones out on the trails and the roads. Without having taken a single zoology course, we ultrarunners have a pretty good idea of who in the animal kingdom lives nearby.

We know, for instance, whether the local cat population includes cougars, bobcats, lynxes, or none of the above. Or the difference between a skunk, an opossum, a raccoon, a beaver, and a woodchuck. How to distinguish between a red and a grey fox. Whether the deer is a whitetail of a mule deer. That the local large hawk is in all likelihood a red-tail, or how to ID one of the smaller raptors. And whether any bears (grizzly or black) live locally.

You get the idea. I plan to expand this theme of Things Ultrarunners Know into a series of posts on other disciplines such as meteorology, astronomy, geology, and hydrology, as a minimum. I previously did a post last May on this theme, about rain and getting wet.

We are a pretty smart bunch. Or at least observant.