Geocaching

I went geocaching yesterday with the grand kids and my son Jay. It was a lot of fun and we actually found some of the items we were looking for. We didn't find one item we were searching for, however. It was supposedly at a bus stop where there were four large planters with heavy vines and lattice work. We searched all through the planters and though we did find a pair of blue jeans just lying there, we never found the nano-magnet we were looking for. But what we did find was a tiny, baby tree frog. He was hiding on one of the vines and we almost missed him. He was brown and blended in so well with the vine that if we weren't truly searching we never would have seen him.

And that got me thinking. We drive or walk by hundreds of bus stops and other places every day and never see the little critters who make their homes in the trees, vines, ponds and canals around us. Finding this little guy was a treat, much better than finding the nano-thingy or whatever it was we were looking for. It was fun to see something wild in nature, even if it is only a lowly tree frog. Naturally, we pointed out our discovery to the kids who delighted in seeing something wild in nature too. Usually when they are looking at wild animals they are sitting on bleachers in some theme park somewhere. 

One of the places we went to on our journey was a pond where the geocache hint warned us about a resident alligator in the pond. We were wary since we did have three little kids with us, but there was a part of me that was really hoping to see the alligator. 

There is life all around us. When I look out over the sea and watch the waves, or gaze at a storm rolling in from the east over the ocean, I think about all the life that is teeming below. There are so many species in the sea that there are some we haven't discovered yet. When I look at the sky I think about all the birds who fly there. Sometimes, I see a lone duck flying across the sky and I feel sad because I know ducks have mates and I wonder if that duck's mate was shot down by a hunter. 

I've been accused of filtering everything I say and do and see and hear through my love for animals, which is so central to my life. I guess there are worse things to be accused of.  I admit it, when I am not reading about animals or writing about them, I am researching facts about them or watching documentaries, but not all documentaries. 

My husband is the type that likes to flip around the tv stations using the remote. Sometimes he'll stop on a nature program, thinking that maybe I would enjoy it. But I don't like those programs. They always, always start out by telling you how wonderful this critter or that critter is, how remarkable or talented they are. Then WHAM BAM, they hit you with some sobering, sad, tragic statistic about how we are killing them all and wiping out a whole species. This keeps me up for nights on end until I can't stand it anymore and have to cope by either settling down for the night with my buddy Capt. Morgan or stuffing my face with Twizzlers. 

The last such program I saw was on public broadcasting and was truly disturbing. It was about this really cool cave in Borneo that's home to millions of animals. Bats live there, and so do swifts, little black birds. The bats "hang out" during the day when the swifts are out doing their thing, and the swifts inhabit it during the nighttime when the bats are out eating mosquitoes. The swifts build amazing little nests using their own saliva and bits and pieces of whatever they can find. These nests adhere to the side of the cave, like tiny balconies hanging off the walls. It takes months of painstaking work for these little swifts to build their nests so they can lay eggs and raise their young. The nests are a stunning pearlized off-white that has a glow to it when illuminated by artificial light.

Of course, then the film took a turn for the worse. I knew it was coming when the narrator (why are they always so British?) said "The only known enemy for these little birds is man" as they show these Borneo bozos rappelling down the side of the cave and stealing the nests by the bushel. They take all the nests because they sell them for a delicacy called Bird's Nest Soup. Naturally, the fucking Asians are behind this epicurean nightmare, just like they are with Shark Fin soup and bear bile. So these little swifts who have been living side by side with bats and building their little homes for several millennium are being threatened with extinction for the sake of the palates of some assholes who can't see the forest for the trees.

I wish I could change the world, but I can't and all the Captain Morgan and Twizzlers in the world won't ever be enough to drown my depression about the state of affairs for animals in the world. Anyway geocaching just may be my new hobby. But it's more about just being in nature and seeing things I miss when I am in my car than it is about finding nano-magnets.I better enjoy the tree frogs before someone decides that eating them cures insomnia and they are wiped off the face of the earth. 

We all know how the public becomes outraged when hearing about animal abuse that animal welfare is a big deal with the American Public. As a member of the Green party I never thought I would ever endorse a GOP candidate. So what I am about to say surprises me to no end.

I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to Congressman Alan West. Rep. West has co-sponsored the Animal Fighting Spectator Prohibition Act, H.R. 2492, to crack down on the criminals who finance dogfights and cockfights with their admission fees and gambling wagers. He has also co-sponsored the Puppy Uniform Standards and Protection (PUPS) Act, H.R. 835, to strengthen the protections for dogs in large-scale puppy mills; the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, H.R. 2966, to stop the export of American horses over our borders to Canada and Mexico where they are slaughtered for a high-priced appetizer; and the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, H.R. 1513, to save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars by phasing out the costly use of chimpanzees in invasive research. Rep. West was one of the first co-sponsors of H.R. 3798, the Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012, which is supported by the egg industry and animal protection groups, to provide a stable future for egg farmers and improve the treatment of egg-laying hens. When I met with him in Washington D.C. to lobby on behalf of pit bulls I found him to be extremely caring and concerned about the cruelty and abuse heaped on this most misunderstood breed. I think the public should know about how caring Congressman West is about animals. The Humane Society of the United States has over 8 million members who care about animals and vote. I hope the other politicians take note of the fact that even though the animals cannot vote, they have a voice.

Anthropomorphism and Non-Human Animals

I have a confession to make. I have a betta fish. I know, I know, I should never have bought him. As with puppies, we see these poor bettas in tiny plastic cups and we want to bring them all home and give them a bigger habitat. But when we do that, we only create a market for for these poor little guys. But though I may preach a big game, I am only human, so I succumbed and bought a beautiful blue betta. I've had "Fuego" for a few months now, and I love him as much as I do my dogs and cats. He's a cool fish. He actually lies down on the bottom of the tank at bedtime, and goes to sleep like any other animal. The first time I saw him do it, I thought he was dead, but he was simply sleeping. Fuego (named for his gorgeous sapphire blue color--Sapphire, shortened to fire, then Latinized to Fuego) has a great personality.

But I fear he's lonely, really lonely. I have spent hours on the Internet trying to find out how I can resolve his loneliness. I have put other fish in the tank with him, with tragic results. They commit suicide (or are murdered) as they keep jumping over the side of the tank. they would rather be on the floor than in the tank with Fuego. Fuego keeps building beautiful bubble nests, which the experts assure me that means he's a healthy, happy betta who is looking for a mate. But I've been told if I put a female in with him, he will mate with her and then either kill her, or she will kill him. I guess that's one way of ending a bad marriage. I put a minnow in his tank and he hovered over "Gilligan" to assess him, then gave me a look that said "Hey, Idiot, this isn't a female betta!" and swam into his little cave and refused to come out. While I was watching, he seemed to ignore Gilligan. But when I found Gilligan on the floor a few days later, I knew Fuego either mentally or physically abused him to the point where Gilligan felt commiting suicide was preferable to life with Fuego. Sadly, this was not the first time this happened.

Am I anthropomorphically assessing my Fuego? Is it possible that he's "just a fish" and he isn't lonely at all? Some of the betta boards claim that bettas can die of boredom or lack of enrichment. I hope that's not the case. I guess I can get a female and then move her to another tank, but then I am buying another betta and perpetuating the idea that people buy bettas and the pet store will just order another one.

So if anyone has any ideas, comments suggestions, guidance or advice, I'm all ears. I have a mirror outside the tank but he's wise to that. So if anyone has any OTHER ideas, please let me know.

League of Humane Voters A Good Idea

So I met with Kathrine McGill last night. I had met Kathrine in Washington D.C. at Lobby Day in July of 2011 and learned we are neighbors. She's been busy volunteering with the League of Humane Voters and trying to get this fledgling political action committee off the ground. The goal of the LOHV is to get animal-friendly politicians elected to office. The idea is, if we can form a voting block, like the NRA, for example, and get people elected to office that really give a damn, those people will then return the favor when we ask for animal-friendly legislation. What happens with a lot of the legislation that we manage to get to Tallahassee or even Washington D.C. is that they end up in the hands of hunters, factory farmers, egg producers and others who serve on these committees but who really don't give a damn about our legislation. If we can get people elected to office that care about animals, we may be able to make a difference. The League of Humane Voters is a nationwide effort with state chapters. They are not a charity, they are a political action committee.

If you can imagine what your dog or cat would want to say, how they would vote if only they could, you can imagine all that we can get accomplished.

Help Greyhounds-Call Tallahassee

There are currently two bills sitting on lawmaker's desks in Tallahassee. These bills would bring The Sunshine State into the new millennium and leave the old ways behind. Currently, there are only seven states where greyhound racing is still ongoing. Sad to say, Florida is one of them. The rest of the country seems to know something Florida has yet to learn: Greyhound racing is a cruel and dying industry and Florida needs to get with the program, according to Grey2KUSA, a greyhound advocate group. Florida has the embarrassing distinction of being the state with the most greyhound tracks, 13 of 22 operational tracks in the United States are in Florida. It doesn't make good financial sense to keep these tracks open since gambling on dogs decreased by 57% since 2001 (source: grey2kusa.org). Why Florida is perpetuating this cruel industry is a mystery.

I know from personal experience greyhounds are gentle and sentient creatures. They are sensitive and emotional, just like any other dog. The fact that they have been turned into little more than a commodity doesn't make them less sentient. I think that sometimes humans have a tendency to think of greyhounds, and pit bulls too, for that matter, as dogs who don't really feel pain or emotion. We do this to steel ourselves against the onslaught of emotion and sadness we would experience should we let down that barrier and allow the feelings to come flooding in. It's the same thing meat eaters do. They are aware of the suffering and cruelty inherent in the meat industry, but they don't want to think about it. To do so would require a change in behavior, and we can't have that.

House Bill 641 and Senate Bill 382 would decouple live greyhound racing. Decoupling means that Florida would no longer have a mandatory racing requirement that forces greyhound tracks to offer live greyhound racing as a “loss leader” for other, more practical forms of gambling. Those tracks who want to do away with live greyhound racing in favor of more lucrative gambling practices such as casinos would be allowed to do so under the new laws. If passed, this legislation would save the lives of millions of greyhounds.