Raising Ducks

I was sent 2 more duck eggs with the incubator I ordered for the mallard egg left on my lawn. I did not want more eggs but they are coming anyway. What the heck will I do with 3 ducklings?! I only have an apartment and I am sure waterfowl are not allowed. I don't even know what kind of ducks are going to hatch out of these new eggs. This is a funny but worrisome situation.

I was informed today of a proposal for a duck farm in Pennsylvania. People do not want it there for fear of water contamination and manure getting distributed around the area. I read a few newspaper articles about this. On April 25, they said they it was approved but then on April 26 they said it had not been appoved yet, so who knows-I don't live around there. Help these folks keep the duck farm out of there. The ducks will only be sent to slaughter anyway. 36,000 ducks!!!

Supersize It Please

I often wonder why veggie burgers are only sold in packs of 4. The patties are also very small, not even the size of a regular burger. They need to make economy packs and "supersize" veggie burgers. I may not eat meat, but that does not mean that I peck at food like a bird or that I am a walking skeleton that don't need much eat. Maybe they do this in large cities. I don't know. If they don't, they sure need to.

Buffalo Calves

Buffalo calves should be out in Yellowstone now. In about another week or so, I am going to make a trip to check things out.

Photo: NPS archives

Bottle Recycling

I told a friend of mine that I would post his project information to help spread the word. He is trying to get a bottle recycling bill put on the ballot in 2008. He needs people to spread the word and money to back it up. Professionals say he needs 6 digit figures minimum to get it off the ground- yes, he was shocked by this huge amount but he is gonna try.(I am not a myspace member so I am not familiar with how all that stuff works but my friend's site seems well put together.) Recycling is always a good idea. Apparently the large bottling companies do not agree with this, at least in this area.

http://www.myspace.com/mtbottlebill

Curiosity

Should the U.S. designate more Western land as wilderness?
	Yes
	No
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Since it is a hot issue, I wonder what people think about the wilderness designation proposal. I'm sure the battle will go on for a long time. I am all for it.

A Nice Spring Day

It is a beautiful rainy day today. I love the rain. It is peaceful. Water brings life. Lots of controversy starting to brew over a proposed wilderness designation out here in the West. Also, it is a great day for not hunting! It's also a nice day to finish my homework-I have 800+ pages of information on bear management history that I have to cram into a 10-page paper. It seems impossible at this point.

Go to this site and watch the Sun Bear video. It is neat how the mom picks up the cub and carries it like a human at one point. When people see a "Bigfoot" they are probably seeing a bear walking upright in the woods.
www.sandiegozoo.org/videos/indexbaby.html

Death Sports

I wonder why people think hunting is a fun, reasonable sport and past-time. I have heard many answers on this subject from hunters but they all seem like excuse to me. It is nothing more than a death sport. Animals feel pain, they feel scared, they have all kinds of feeling. They just cannot express them like us because God made them different. There are many, many, many examples of animals having feelings and thinking (The Farley Mowat book is a great story for this, Jane Goodall and the gorillas, too). They have families and " go to work" and school, too. They talk to each other just fine. People are afraid of animals they do not understand and animals they cannot completely control. It is sad. This killing for fun business has got to stop! Do something useful with your time-help out at an old folks home, help needy children, send letters to our troops, pick up some trash along the creek or something, anything but killing animals for "fun".

Antelope Massacre Beyond Sickening

Photo: Fish, Wildlife,& Parks

This is taken from a local newspaper: (words in italics are not my words)
Montana Outdoors: Poacher takes heavy, senseless toll
15 antelope shot northwest of Forsyth
By MARK HENCKEL, Montana Outdoors
Someone went on an illegal shooting spree on Highway 12 between Forsyth and Ingomar last week. In his or her wake, they left 15 dead and dying antelope.

The incident likely took place on April 8, Easter Sunday, according to Jack Austin, warden sergeant for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks at Miles City. He'd like to find the poacher.

"There's a chance it could have happened either late Saturday or early Monday, but we feel it was probably on Easter Sunday," Austin said. "The call came in that there was a bunch of dead antelope. When game warden Todd Anderson got there, a couple of them were still struggling so he had to euthanize them."

All of the dead antelope were on the east side of the highway and the trail of death was scattered along a long stretch of road.

"It covered a fair distance. It was 20 miles worth or more," he said. "It was one here. Four or five miles another. One place had three lying dead. Another had two.

There are some winter-killed antelope out there, but these were not winter-killed," he said. "All of these died by gunshot. The shooter was very accurate. They spined most of them."

The final death toll included four bucks and 11 does. All of the does were pregnant with twins and would have delivered them in May.

"A couple of the bucks were doozies. They were extremely heavy horned clear to the end. They were trophies," Austin said. "They still had a couple of inches to grow, but they had plenty of time to do that before fall. They would have been trophies to some hunter."

The bottom line is that it's a horrible waste of a wildlife resource for nothing more than pulling the trigger on an animal.

So this is fun? I know these animals have been poached, but come on! It is also sickening to know that people (sport hunters I am sure) are sad because they lost some fine trophies. Note the "waste of wildlife resource" sentence towards the end. Seems like wildlife are just a "resource" for dead animal wall decor to hunters anyway. Notice there was no mention of loss of meat for survival, just nice trophies. "Resource" for survival is one thing but "resource" for sport hunting is crap. It is a nightmare to wildlife and to my own soul's well-being. This article and picture almost make me throw up.

Wolves Again

This Thursday, April 19 is the last public meeting for the wolf de-listing hearings. It will be held in Cody, Wyoming. I believe they are going to be de-listed anyway but feel free to make the trip and speak up!

The Green Power Solution?!

Since I said I think I have many untraditional environmental views I thought I should give an example. "Green power" is not the answer to our energy problems or pollution. Wind power will only ruin the landscape plus windmills need metals and plastics for the parts (yeah sure, mining and plastics are environmentally friendly!) and big diesel trucks to haul all the parts around. New roads may need to be built to put the mills in prime locations. Polluting factories need to manufacture all the parts. Windmills are junking up coastal areas. I just don't get how windmills all over will help the situation. Ethanol or biodiesel either. These require crops which require more land to grow. In my opinion these green solutions to our energy problems will just add to our increasing demand for power. Instead of a few main ways to generate power we will have double that so where is the incentive to change? When one runs out, we have a backup. As Americans we need to change our attitudes about energy use. The "green power solutions" are totally absurd to me. Reducing consumption is the key, not making more energy sources available for our insatiable energy appetites!

Photo:www.harlowtonchamber.com

To Meat or Not To Meat

I decided when I was a little kid that I did not like to eat meat because it came from animals. However, this is my preference and I do not hold a grudge against those that do eat it. I do hold a grudge against those that sport hunt. I see many shows and hear A LOT of talk from hunters about "how big the rack was" or that "some animal made a nice mount" or "how fun it was to blast that animal away", but I never hear stories about appreciating the meat provided. I feel there is little reason in today's world where a person truly NEEDS to hunt. Exceptions would be like real mountainmen or somebody starving and, of course, for Native use since that way of life was abruptly altered. I have no problem with Native hunting because they respect and honor the animals and are greatful for what animals provide. The whole system was far more balanced with that type of hunting.

Now here is a rant & rave session (because I was attacked for being an "environmentalist" today and I am feeling lousy about the whole thing. Personally, I think I have many views that mainstream environmentals do not agree with anyway-I think for myself!)
Look at the animal scene today. Pretty depressing. Animals have been force onto small ranges that humans do not want to inhabit YET. Grizzlies used to roam most of the West, the Great Plains and even down to Texas. Where are they today? Stuck around Yellowstone and northwestern Montana and Idaho in mostly alpine settings. That's just one example. "Population conservation" is just another word for "game preserve". Keep just enough animals around so scientists and hunters and urban sprawl home-owners stay somewhat pacified. We wouldn't want too many animals around because our hunting success MAY BE diminished when a predator NEEDS to eat. Get over it, I say, learn to hunt like a real hunter if that's that your sport.

Sport hunting is a biased joke with a lot of money backing it. They do have a monoply on animals. What about our right not to hunt and our right to enjoy living animals wherever they roam?

My Cat Is Sick

My cat Tidy will be 19 years old in June. She has extensive bladder cancer, a kidney stone forming, and a bladder stone forming. I have had her as a pet her whole life and half of mine. I know the she sounds very sickly from hearing all of this, but she gets around fine, eats well, drinks a lot, and is not as bad off as I would expect at this time. She is on some medication and a better diet. If anyone has helpful tidbits on how to make her life more comfortable until she tells me it's time to go, I would appreciate it.

Moral Environmentalism, God & A Lost Post

I just now found a comment left to me about moral reasons for caring about the environment but I have no idea how to respond to it or get a hold of the person. I think I accidentally got rid of his/her blog address. I stink at this stuff but one day I will figure out the technology. In response, I am also a follower of Jesus. God gave us this world and everything in it. I feel we are obligated to take care of it properly. In my opinion, we are not doing that. God put us here and we have the choice whether to destroy ourselves or not. So, my whole reason for my blog is based on my morals, not "proper" environmental ethics (which are subjective anyway). I have a decent science background, but I study science because I like to understand the way all these God-given wonders work. I am an environmental student, but the field is too politicized and it's getting us nowhere. I am "old", too. The young mainstream environmentalists are automatically pulled into the politics of it all and do not have enough behind them to understand the larger picture. Of course, my statements are a generalization of what I perceive. Morals don't grow from laws and regulations and without morals it goes downhill fast. It is a truly amazing world our God gave us! God even gave my this blog as an outlet to my current frustration with the way things are going. I appreciate hearing from you-I am glad to know that there are others for whom Jesus and the environment compliment each other (didn't really know how to word that).

P.S. I figured the post stuff out!
Picture: www.campusterrassa.upc.es/.../images/jesus.jpg

Quack Quack

A duck laid an egg on my lawn the other day. I went in the house to take some groceries in. I came out about an hour later to go somewhere and saw an egg laying right out in the open with some feathers by it. No other signs of the mom duck. I did not really know what to do with the egg. The duck has not come back to sit on it so I am sure the egg is a goner. Now I have a small egg incubator on its way for the next time. I believe the duck was a mallard just because mallards come around my yard quite often. One spent a summer eating bird seed that had dropped onto the ground from the feeders. It could be any kind of duck, though. Also, I was talking a walk around the pond the other day. I ran across 2 duck eggs. They were both very close to the water's egde and not even in nests. They were just laying on the short grass. I thought this was odd but I really don't know about ducks' laying habits. When I came back around the pond, the one egg was in the water and the other one I guess meet the same fate. I pulled the one egg out and set it back on the grass but then I spotted a toddler waddling over to pick it up. You know the rest of the story.

Well, I did some research on mallard ducks. They lay a bunch of eggs, about one a day, in a nest or wherever they go. When the duck is done laying, she starts sitting on them for incubation. If duck eggs are laid all over the place instead of in one nest, it could be a sign that a predator is in the area. This way the eggs will have a better chance of survival. So, the eggs can sit outside for many days and still be fine until incubation begins depending on how low the temperature gets. I will try to hatch the egg I found. I guess the mom stays near the ditch across the street.

(top photo: YNP archives, bottom photo: duck at my house)

Turkey Dinner Anyone?

The other day at work a kid said that turkey season is opening soon. I said I hope he wouldn't be killing any of them. He told me he didn't think I would say that if I knew that there were 300 of them living less than a mile from where we were. I said that was a dumb reason to kill them. I said there are now over 6,000,000,000 people on Earth and our population is not being checked plus we are destroying the planet for other species. The other kids (late teens & young twenties) all were getting upset with me. Their words were that the world is already screwed no matter what so they are just going to do whatever they feel like doing. Yep, the kids went on and on trying to make excuses for adding to our environmemntal problems and laughing. I find it sad that many people cannot look beyond ther own selfishness these days (young people especially). If less people were like that, we would actually have a fighting chance to work towards a better world. Our Earth really is in trouble.

(picture from www.texasbeyondhistory.net/.../
turkeys.html)

Easter Presents

Easter is upon us again. A lot of bunnies and chicks will be given as cute gifts. The majority of these poor animals are doomed. I wish people would think twice about giving a living, thinking, breathing, feeling animal as a gift. They require commiment for the rest of their lives not just for a little while until the people become bored with them.

Good-Bye To Nature

I am sitting here depressed thinking about the future of our national parks with this $3 billion deal the President made. Public comments are due April 2.They are a specific set of 3 questions you have to answer, so whatever will be happening is pretty much already decided in the big picture. First of all, we hardly have the money to fund his war so were is he getting billions more from? I imagine privately backed big oil has something to do with it. They just can't wait to develop every piece of land left. This deal is a proverbial "wolf in sheep's clothing" for sure. Privatize everything until somebody is rich and the rest of us are screwed! When I camp, I want to see the natural world, not a thousand more campers and RVs packed into an "urbanized" campground. I've been to Yellowstone 90+ times in my life and last year was the first time I ever set foot in any visitor center there. Why go in a building to learn about the stuff when you can go outside and form your own opinions? Heck, read some books before you take a trip to learn some history or geology or whatever your interests are. These places do not need any more commercial expansion. They need to be kept as natural as possible because a lot of these areas are the only remaining habitat for the only remaining animals. It will be a sad world when they are completely gone, except for the ones in cages. This President is dismantling our natural environment from behind the scenes. People focus on the war and gas prices and all the resignations and scandal. He is sitting back comfortably ripping apart all we have worked so hard to save, thinking nobody will notice. Well, I notice.