Bad animals as a weapon against bad animals

Sometime it seems that this blog could just as well be called "Humans never learning," but as we saw in the previous post, there are some exceptions, where people have stood up to bad animal behavior instead of making excuses for it.

Now, in an interesting twist on this, humans are actually using bad animals against bad animals in Australia.

Humans often do animals the favor of broadening their horizons by taking them to see the world, and typically, animals tend to repay this by devastating their new homes. We've seen this in the case of the brown tree snake in Guam, which has basically eaten all the native wildlife as well as committing various offenses more directly against humans.

Another famous example is the cane toad. Farmers brought cane toads to Australia in the 1930s, and, in exchange for a whole new continent to live on, they asked only that the toads eat a certain beetle that infests sugar cane fields. Seems like a fair deal, right?

Instead, the toads pretty much ignored the beetles and instead have spread over Australia, devastating the native wildlife, as you can learn in the book and movie Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, which I highly recommend as a true cinematic milestone in the documentation of bad animal behavior.

Years of attempts to control the invading amphibians have failed, but now scientists may have found a simple solution: a little cat food, which gets you the help of an extremely nasty little insect, the carnivorous meat ant.

As reported by The Telegraph:

"It's not exactly rocket science. We went out and put out a little bit of cat food right beside the area where the baby toads were coming out of the ponds," University of Sydney professor Rick Shine told public broadcaster ABC.

"The ants rapidly discovered the cat food and thought it tasted great."

Attracted by the cat food, the ants also mercilessly attack the baby toads, eliminating about 70% of them immediately, and most of the toads that escape the initial attack die later as well.

Targeting the toads as they hatch is a particularly efficient approach, since the eggs are laid in huge masses and tens of thousands of young may be emerging at the same time. And the ants have an important quality: they're impervious to the toxins that the toads use to defend themselves from predators.

It sounds foolproof, but I'd watch out for one thing: how are those ants going to "thank" us later for the fantastic free meals?


Check out this site for a terrifying closeup of the meat ant (scroll down past the perfectly innocuous meat ant researcher) as well as tons of information direct from cane toad experts, and here you can read about the new sequel to the Cane Toads movie.

Ominous closeup of a cane toad where it ought to be, in central America, by Flickr user Brian Gratwicke.

Hail to Heroic Humans

So many of the humans in the stories reported in this blog just don't get it. Again and again, we've seen people make excuses for animals or, worse, even enable them.

So it's a pleasure to recognize a couple of true role models in the fight against bad animal behavior.

In the first case, a squirrel was put in its place when it was banned from riding a rollercoaster in England.

Workers noticed it riding the revamped Sonic Spinball roller coaster as it was tested in the mornings and joining visitors who were offered an early go on it before the official opening.

The grey-haired animal was also caught stealing food from the workers.

A spokesman for the Staffordshire theme park said: "It was getting in the way of builders who were painting. They couldn't carry on because they would end up with paw prints in the paint."

Alarms were installed that emit a warning noise inaudible to human ears but designed to ensure the squirrel, nicknamed Sonic, avoids the ride in future.

I'm sure we can all agree that that's the sort of thing we want to see more of. But even more impressive is the case of a woman who was attacked by a shark while snorkling and escaped by punching it.

"I thought 'this shark's not going to get the better of me' and I started punching it on the nose, punching, punching, punching," she told local media.

"And then it got me under the water, but not much because I started kicking at its neck."

She lost quite a lot of blood and is going to have to undergo a number of surgeries, but the woman sees a bright side. Apparently there are unanticipated rewards for those who stand up to bad animals:

"I have to have a new remodelled bottom, so that's a positive," she said.

Photo of that stinking scofflaw squirrel from The Mail.

Game bird revolt crosses the pond

Perhaps it's no surprise that it all began where Thanksgiving started: For years, turkeys have been attacking people in Massachussetts.

But recently, as we saw in November, the same behavior has sprung up elsewhere: in Philadelphia, and although the tactics were different, I think we can also count the turkey in New Jersey who was trying to cause accidents at a freeway exit.

A more ominous development has now come out of England - you know, the old England. Since there are no wild turkeys there, it appears that other tasty game birds are being recruited to the cause - in this case, a pheasant. According to The Telegraph:

The vicious bird has launched several unprovoked attacks on villagers in recent weeks.

Men, women, children, prams, bikes, dogs and cars are said to have have fallen foul of the bird in Newsham, near Richmond, North Yorkshire.

There are tales of the plucky cock lying in wait for children to get off the school bus, before chasing them screaming to the village green.

One grandmother was left with a scar on her leg after being unable to beat the bird off with her handbag, and the postman is reportedly unwilling to deliver mail to the village for fear of attack. Another resident says that the bird tried to get into her house.

Despite treating the entire town like his property, the pheasant's main residence is the yard of one villager, who, like many of the people involved in these incidents, is entirely unclear whose side she is on. At first, she sounds like someone who's got her head screwed on straight:

"At first we thought he was a friendly bird because he would always like to come out and make his presence felt when anyone called round.

But he's actually quite an unpleasant bird, not very nice at all. He jumps up at the kids' school bags. It's worrying how he's gone on to attack people."

But then she goes on:

"We are happy enough for him to stay for the time being but if the attacks go on I'm sure he won't be around for long.

We haven't seen him for a couple of days which is a bit worrying."

People, when will you learn?



Photo of mad-eyed pheasant, hopefully via zoom lens from a great distance, from The Telegraph.

Prominent position for pervert parrot

As we have seen again and again, it's no wonder animals keep acting the way they do when people so often actually reward them for their bad behavior. In perhaps the most fantastic example so far, a parrot in New Zealand has been given a prominent government job in response to his worldwide fame - as a pervert.

A kakopo named Sirocco, member of a highly endangered New Zealand species, became an internet sensation due to a video clip in which he pleasured himself upon the head of naturalist Mark Carwardine, who was filming a TV series based on his book with the late Douglas Adams. (In case you haven't already seen this clip, you can click here. Or, more tastefully, not.)

Now, this perverted kakapo has been appointed official government "spokesbird" for conservation. The prime minister says of the bird:

“He’s very media-savvy, he’s got a worldwide fan base – they hang on every squawk that comes out of his beak. He’ll be a great official spokesbird for New Zealand,” he said.“Sirocco can speak very loudly on this topic and by the end of this campaign people will be a lot more aware of what’s going on.”

I probably don't need to tell you that the bird now has his own website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, etc.

I am appalled by the precedent that has been set here. Now that birds know that this is how to get ahead... well, for one thing, I think I'm going to start wearing a hat.

Even I can't think of a way to blame this on animals

Please excuse the temporary blogging outage due to snowpocalypse. To tide you over check out dogs shooting people at Dogster and some interesting warning signs from zoos.

Brief bad behavior updates

-In a recent post, a passing mention was made of elephants attending prenatal classes.

I'd have made a bigger point of this if I'd realized it was the start of a trend. Now we see elephants being taught to play basketball.

I'm concerned that these attempts to infiltrate our educational system are just the tip of the iceberg - an ominous step up from the animals getting fake online degrees. If there are any college admissions personnel reading this blog, please be on the alert and report if you get any applications that smell of pachyderm.

-In another recent post we debunked the motivations of an orangutan that has become famous for taking photographs.

We are confident that readers of this blog will be equally unimpressed by chimps who are making a movie and will not be fooled into buying Valentines gifts painted by penguins. Check out the link at Zooborns for more photos and description of this flightless artistic hoax.

Rabbit with a habit

If there's one thing this blog proves, it's that animals have all kinds of vices that you might have imagined were purely human. We've seen animals indulging in lust, vanity, drunkenness, gluttony, laziness, and lying, just to name a few.

There is almost nothing left... almost. But this one surprised even me: a rabbit in England that is addicted to gambling.

This compulsive gambler bunny is obsessed with a slot machine in the pub where he lives in Worcestershire. Pub landlord Ian Randall brought the rabbit indoors to escape a cold snap, and claims that his customers "took to him straight away." Apparently at least one of the rabbit's other vices fits right in: He enjoys cider - which in an English pub, does not refer to a fruit juice for children.

But aside from hogging what they call the "fruit machine," the rabbit has other unseemly behaviors, according to the Worcester News:

As well as trying his luck on the fruit machine Daisy has also been getting fruity with Mr Randall’s sons’ toy rabbit.

"Daisy" is a male, despite the name, and putting that together with the colorful pictures of tasty fruit on the machine and the alcoholic indulgence, he may well be a very confused bunny indeed. But while most of the pub's patrons are tolerant of this lapine interloper, a few of them are not confused at all about the proper way to react:

"There is a handful of drinkers here who would probably rather put him into a stew though,” Mr Randall said.

Sweet deal ends for rogue anaconda

At a park in Florida, ducks and geese had been disappearing for the past few months. "We would only find feathers all over the place," one witness said.

Waterfowl at the park are now safe again since a twelve foot long anaconda was evicted from its hiding place in a pond. It was captured last week by mounted police, according to the Orlando Sentinel. (No word on how the horses assisted.)

This snake must have thought itself pretty clever, living for free and feeding from the public trough. And this blog can only rejoice that it has been put in its place. But it's yet another case where the humans involved seem to have been asleep at the switch. It's no wonder animals get away with this kind of stuff: How do you not notice - for months - a twelve foot long snake?

Animals being treated humanly

As we've seen in the last four posts, some animals don't know their place, doing things that by all rights should only be done by humans.

But as this blog shows again and again, sometimes we only have ourselves to blame. It's no surprise if animals act like people if we treat them like people. This sort of thing is getting out of hand, and I don't just mean dressing dogs in clothes. I'm talking about stuff like pre-natal classes for elephants.

This trend has finally reached its pinnacle: two researchers have proposed that because dolphins are so intelligent, they should be considered "non-human persons."

As reported by the UK Times Online, the scientists base their argument on research showing that dolphins may be smarter than chimps, can recognize themselves in a mirror, pass on cultural activities, have complex problem-solving abilities, and blah blah blah. You know the sort of thing.

You might be surprised at this conclusion, but this blog has decided to support this proposal. Yes, we've seen that dolphins are gang rapists, babykillers, and pose a serious danger to innocent (if misguided)humans.

But you know what? It's about time we start treating dolphins in the same way that we treat human persons who do all of those things. I don't suggest that we should trust dolphins themselves to be the dolphin police like in the logo in the photo above, but as long as we can work out a system to arrest them and bring them to trial, this blog is fully in favor.


Inexplicable Turkish motorcycle police logo thanks to Flickr user noneck.

Animals behaving humanly, part 4

For the last of this series, the original plan was a well reasoned rant against scientists who go out of their way to try to prove that animals possess human skills, such as this newly reported study on mathematical abilities in monkeys.

But thanks to a story sent our way by our good friend Sir Pilkington-Smythe at Weirdimals, instead, we're going to wrap up with an animal behaving humanly in a manner that we (well, most of us, anyway) can feel superior to.

In California, a goat broke into a closed "gentleman's club". Caught on surveillance video, the goat, perhaps disappointed by the absence of ladies in a state of undress, demonstrated that he was not only lustful and disrespectful of other's property, but also vain: he spent half an hour staring into a mirror.

As a member of a more sophisticated species, I know you have better things to do than click on that link and watch the video for yourself.


Goat no doubt looking for trouble by Misterqueue.

Animals behaving humanly, part 3

After our last post we hope that you'll no longer be fooled by animals that pretend to be artists, no matter how widely their fame is spread by credulous journalists and clever zoo fundraising staff.

But perhaps even more troubling are animals who claim to have advanced degrees, as attested by this list at Wikipedia - and of course, those are only the degree recipients who've been successfully outed as cats and dogs. There may be more.

One of these is a pug named Chester Ludlow (pictured above) who was awarded an MBA from an online school called Rochville University.

But like the orangutan photographer, he's not getting away with this so easily. As explained to him in this video by a puggle who is apparently employed by the Diploma Mill Police at GetEducated.com, a degree that you buy for $499 from an unaccredited institution isn't going to fool anyone:



Whatever else you might think about its value, it's good to know that an MBA degree - at least, a legitimate one - is still one of the last remaining things separating us from the animals.

Animals behaving humanly, part 2

Perhaps the most presumptuous behavior possible is an animal thinking it can actually replace us in our jobs.

It's bad enough if it's a fairly low paid profession, like the monkeys that wait tables in Japan, or the dog we met in an earler post who worked in a gas station.

Some animals have tried to usurp the place of much more skilled professionals, though. Fortunately, we'll see today and next time, some of them have gotten their comeuppance.

You've probably seen the stories about elephants and other animals painting pictures which are sold for fundraisers for zoos. The latest artistic star in the news is an orangutan at the Vienna Zoo, who's been taking photos, and in an even more up-to-date touch, posting them on a Facebook page. (And yes, with over 81,000 fans, she's more popular than you are.)

The truth is that the ape's motivations have nothing to do with artistic self-expression: the camera is rigged to dispense raisins when she clicks the shutter.

"Of course the apes don't care about the pictures, they are just an accidental side product," a zoo spokesman has been widely quoted as saying, but in case you're not convinced, the esteemed National Geographic took it upon themselves to get to the bottom of the story of this pretentious primate. In an interview, the deputy director of the zoo, Harald Schwammer, said:

The company Samsung came up with the suggestion. It was their idea to advertise their camera! For me as zoologist and curator, it is an enrichment project with some opportunities for behavioral studies. To be clear, the orang does not know that it is making pictures with the camera!

All of the orangs in the group manipulate the instrument and turn a switch. After this switch is turned, a raisin falls out. By turning the switch, the photo is taken. Therefore, the orangutan does not know that this is a camera and that they are making pictures, they are only trying to get a reward from the machine.

It is just like the elephant paintings that are going around the world with false information: elephants are not able to paint a tree or flowers; they are trained for this. There is no creative touch, no artistic approach!

We've seen before on this blog that orangs have a knack for using objects to make trouble,and Schwammer reminds us to be careful what we give an orang to play with:

There was nothing surprising concerning the orangutans' behavior. We knew that they use and manipulate every object they touch. If you give them a machine-gun, they will soon find out how to shoot it.

Photo of one of her suspicious-looking orang comrades - purely accidentally, of course - by Nonja.

Animals behaving humanly, part 1

Modern scientists - who clearly don't know whose side they're on - have shattered many cherished illusions about what separates us from the animals. For instance, we've had to give up the idea that we're the only species that uses tools, and you never know when research may add details that are an additional blow to our self-esteem - such as the fact that chimps use cooking utensils to prepare their meals.

It's getting worse all the time. Your dentist can accuse you of having worse habits than a monkey now that we know that macaques floss their teeth. And some of you animal-loving do-gooder types might be out of business if a lost dog can turn himself into the lost and found, like a dachshund did in Germany.

But if there's an award for the most nerve exhibited by an animal seizing human privileges for itself lately, it has to go to the British cat who took the ferry to Spain.

The cat's apparent attempt to take a sunny vacation was thwarted when the crew discovered him before he could disembark, but he certainly didn't suffer:

For the return journey he was fed a special menu of salmon, chicken and milk and had an ensuite cabin with sea view, which usually costs up to £266.

Crew members paid hourly visits to his room during the 36 hour sailing to give him a stroke and to ensure he remained comfortable.

They gave him his own pillow and donated one of their warm jackets. And the ship's captain, Alastair McFadyen, even found time to visit the stowaway.

Far from complaining about the non-paying passenger, a spokesman for the shipping company said:

"Staff kept a close eye on him, gave him cuddles and kept him comfortable - they were sad to see him go."

Photo of another spoiled-looking passenger by Flickr user hidden side.

King of the Lazy, Warmongering, Babykilling Beasts

A fantasy commonly repeated by the bunnyhugging peacenik type is that humans are the only animal to wage war.

In this month's Smithsonian magazine, this myth takes another hit in an article by Abigail Tucker about the work of lion researcher George Packer.

Scientists used to believe that prides—groups of a few to more than a dozen related females typically guarded by two or more males—were organized for hunting. Other aspects of the communal lifestyle—the animals’ affinity for napping in giant piles and even nursing each others’ young—were idealized as poignant examples of animal-kingdom altruism.

But Packer and his collaborators have found that a pride isn’t formed primarily for catching dinner or sharing parenting chores or cuddling. The lions’ natural world—their behavior, their complex communities, their evolution—is shaped by one brutal, overarching force, what Packer calls “the dreadful enemy.”

Other lions.

One typical lion battle strategy is particularly charming. A coalition of males who don't have a pride will try to take one over by driving off or killing the resident males. Then, if they're successful, they kill all the pride's cubs in order to breed with the females. Sure, what's a little infanticide when you've got such a noble reputation to hide behind?

Packer has found that the communal nurseries exist not because lions have socialist utopian childrearing ideals, but because lionnesses that raise their cubs together can better defend them from these takeover attempts.

Lions have other flaws as well, one being that they are extremely lazy. Packer's very first research conclusion was that they were "really boring."

The laziest of all the cats, they were usually collapsed in a stupor, as if they had just run a marathon, when in reality they hadn’t moved a muscle in 12 hours.

And if you haven't already had enough of your illusions smashed about these supposedly brave beasts, you might want to know what else they're afraid of aside from each other:

Earlier I had asked what kind of anti-lion gear the researchers carried. “An umbrella,” Jansson said. Apparently, lions don’t like umbrellas, particularly if they’re painted with large pairs of eyes.

Lion too lazy to even hold its head up, by MisterQueue.

Lessons for the New Year

To start the new year off right, a collection of stories demonstrating how to - and how not to - treat animals that are behaving badly.

YES:
- Man bites snake in India:

A gardener who was bitten by a snake gave as good as he got, or better. He bit the snake back, and kept chewing until he felt rather ill, vomited, and fainted, but came out on top in the end:

"I was angry when the snake bit me on my finger. I bit it back because that was my way of taking revenge," Ramesh told doctors after regaining consciousness.

His condition is stable. The snake is dead.

- A goat in Germany was jailed for disrupting traffic, and insulted as well:

The only remarks on the arrest papers were "smells very bad."

The goat is being fed bread and water and as is clear from the photo above, his accomodations are suitably spartan.

Traffic enforcement on animal violators seems to be taken more seriously in some places than others. We've seen a dog get away with crashing a car into a store in Australia and everybody making excuses for a crocodile in Turkey.

Let's resolve in the new year not to take those two cases as precedent and work harder to lock up goats and handcuff bulls and big birds who disrupt travel.

NO:
-On the other end of the spectrum from the police department's goat diet of bread and water, we have a report of a zoo hiring a children's chef to make a special Christmas meal for a fussy baby lemur:

Zoo keepers have tried to tempt the animal with a variety of treats, but so far the youngster has turned his nose up at almost everything on offer.

So Mrs Karmel was drafted in to ensure he eats his Christmas dinner.

"He's quite fussy, like most kids are," she said. "He doesn't like vegetables but he likes fruit. The trouble with him is that he is fickle - one day he likes something and the next day he won't eat it."

-Even worse, on the other end of spectrum from the snake-biting gardener, the past year saw victims of shark attacks, including a man who had his arm bitten off by a shark, lobbying for shark conservation.

Enough said. You know what to do.