Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Consistently wrong since 2002

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Faunasphere / Faunasphere: Mad Turkeys Edition

Faunasphere: Mad Turkeys Edition

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Dear Juicers, Thanks to everyone who called their representative asking him/her to vote against odious Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act (HR 2406). We lost on a partisan vote, with the GOP, as usual, being on the side of wrong. Unfortunately, the wolves, polar bears, elephants, etc., will pay the price.

Some (mostly) better news below. As usual, your thoughts and fauna-related news are welcome in the comments. Hillary

    1. The presidential candidates’ views on animal issues. tl;dr: Republicans suck as usual and Bernie is the only candidate with a page devoted to animal welfare.Sorry that’s not an official campaign web page.
    2. Bill Clinton credits his vegan diet with keeping him alive , and notes, “they nailed the meat substitute stuff.”
    3. Who's a cute widdle bebeh Giant Tortoise? You are!
      Who’s a cute widdle bebeh Giant Tortoise? You are!

      “Honoring His creatures” by shooting them: the twisted, faux-Medieval fantasy world of Scalia’s hunt club.

    4.  

      “Wildlife Services”: Yet another government agency that commits atrocities on behalf of ranchers.

    5. Breeders of “teacup” companion animals (and other exaggerated phenotypes) are the worst.
    6. The “A” word, long used to shut down scientific investigations of animal intelligence and emotionality, is losing its sting. “’Decades of knee-jerk avoidance of all things anthropomorphic…’ruined the field,’ says one animal behaviorist.”
    7. The evolving legal status of nonhumans: no longer mere “things” but not quite yet “persons.”
    8. A reporter takes a virtual reality tour of a slaughterhouse. “I couldn’t get words out to ask the questions I had prepared. My throat felt thick, stopping my voice, as tears welled.”
    9. Keep planting that milkweed! Monarchs rebound in Mexico. And speaking of which…
    10. GORGEOUS caterpillar-to-butterfly action. (Bonus: a ‘pillar that looks like Trump’s hair.)
    11. Another conservation triumph: Bebeh Giant Tortoises return to the Galapagos.
    12. A beautiful meditation on cats, Japanese art, and the cat-collecting game Neko Atsume.

This week’s journey through the Faunasphere concludes, as some journeys must, in New Jersey, where wild turkeys recently terrorized a letter carrier to the point where his boss had to call 911. Actual call excerpt: “It’s crazy. They were actually attacking, biting, chase the trucks – everything.” Eyewitness News dutifully reports that: “Word in the neighborhood is that the mail carrier was a substitute — and wasn’t familiar with the birds.” And that “mail service was briefly held up to three homes on the street.”

If I were those homeowners I would definitely be paying those birds protection money.

Reader Interactions

88Comments

  1. 1.

    Hillary Rettig

    Posting two in one week b/c of prior browser problems. A lot of animal-related news to keep up with!

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Bernie is the only candidate with a page devoted to animal welfare.

    That’s not the official Bernie site. You might want to clarify before people get their hackles up.

  6. 6.

    satby

    Really getting of the kindle in a minute but just had to say we have wild turkeys around here and they are pretty mean. Canadian geese are too. There’s something unnerving about a bird that stands it’s ground and acts threatening. You know you’re bigger, but you’ve also seen the Hitchcock movie.

  13. 13.

    Hillary Rettig

    @Baud: You’ve already closed the sale!!! Actually I’m hoping you run as a threesome with both Clinton and Sanders.

  16. 16.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    Happy day to you, too. I have to work today and tomorrow but will make a trip south for a fiber show. Hopefully work won’t be too nuts.

  20. 20.

    som sai

    Bernie Sanders is a member of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, the caucus with the most members in congress. Bernie Sanders supports the hunting and shooting of wildlife as do most people with the barest understanding of the natural world.

    The last time the Sportsmen’s Act came before the senate every single Democrat except one voted for it. It’s a sad commentary on polarization that so many vote only the party, thankfully 12 Democrats didn’t on this act. We will see how it does in the senate.

  21. 21.

    MomSense

    Anyone read Melissa Harris Perry’s email to her staff about the horrible way MSNBC is treating her? Her show was the only one I was still watching.

  22. 22.

    Pogonip

    I was threatened by a Canada goose once. Remarkably unnerving considering it’s only a bird. Possibly those folks who insist you should be armed whenever you stick your nose out the door live in areas with lots of Canada geese. I finally got mine to back off by growling (really) while slowly moving off at an angle (it is a good thing this happened before cellphones because I’m sure the entire Internet would have been laughing at me) and also throwing a handy rock at it. I don’t know if the goose had a nest nearby or was just having a bad feather day.

  23. 23.

    Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim

    Would i be all right to slaughter those specific turkeys? After all, interrupting the mail is a crime.

  24. 24.

    Corner Stone

    @MomSense: It’s hard to tell what actually happened there. On one hand MSNBC has to carry breaking election news this season because it’s ratings gold. But dang, they have really went kind of overboard telling us 6 hours of the same content on Sat and Sun.
    I had been wondering where her show was and why she wasn’t somewhere in the mix. I would much rather watch her show than R BS recaps every damn weekend. That said, what leverage does she have in this situation? MSNBC has clearly been sabotaging their lineup for the better part of the last two years or so.

  26. 26.

    benw

    @Hillary Rettig: BAUD/CLINTON/SANDERS 2016

    “Change you can believe in while keeping things the same in the Balloon Juice comments!”

    or

    “It’ll take 3 of us to live up to the last guy!”

  27. 27.

    Hillary Rettig

    @MomSense: yes. it’s hard for me to tell what’s going on, as a non TV expert. But if she’s their main black voice they ought to be doing what they can to support her, both out of ethics and pragmatism.

  29. 29.

    MomSense

    @Corner Stone:
    Why not have her show cover the elections? She’s a helluva lot more qualified than the rest and she has a perspective that is not going to be addressed by Joe, Mika, Chris, Chris, and Rachel. Also seems especially aggressive and insulting to pay for her to stay at the hotels with the others but slight her at air time. And not replying to her emails and calls for weeks? WTF

  30. 30.

    MomSense

    @Hillary Rettig:

    Since 2009 it has seemed to me that MSNBC was engaged in sniping at the president and democrats from the (fake) left. The “disappointed” meme started on Morning Joe. Until a few years ago, it was owned by GE and now GE and Comcast. Those companies have their own interests. Back in the early days Donahue was fired after his anti-Iraq war broadcasts and replaced with Scarborough Country. I believe Ashkeigh Banfield went public about how they controlled what she was supposed to say about the war. She ended up leaving and I don’t remember the rest. Anyway, the liberal media is always a myth.

  31. 31.

    Hillary Rettig

    @MomSense: the idea that these companies are contorting themselves in an effort to pretend to give equal to liberal values makes a lot of sense.

    let’s never forget that it was the Reagan Admin’s dismantling of the Equal Time broadcasting rules that opened up the floodgates for all the rotten right wing media that oppresses us all.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    @MomSense:

    The NYT article the other day said that MSNBC was overtly moving from liberal punditry to hard news. Which would be fine if hard news actually meant hard news and not center right punditry. But alas …

  34. 34.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Having been attacked by a male Canada goose who was nesting by my front door, I fully concur. I may have been taller, but I lack the drive to go for the throat.

  35. 35.

    The Pale Scot

    Turkey Thugging, theyz just representin’ Jersey yo

    Ya’ll just buggin ’cause your turkeys are punks.

    “Thug Turkey”? there’s a nugget in there somewhere
    •

    There’s clip of Bernie pointing out to a reporter that she/he’s being a bit of a schmuck

    Pressed to say just how many or make any prediction, Sanders threw up his hands. His press conference, which he billed as a conversation about poverty in the state and among children, had come too far off course. “Here we are talking about children in South Carolina in the wealthiest country in the world who have nothing and you’re asking me to predict to you how many votes I am going to get?” Sanders said bristly. “I don’t know. Nor do you. I will tell you the answer to that on Wednesday, how’s that.”

  36. 36.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    I love how they frame it as liberal or hard news. The fact is that reality has a liberal bias as Colbert so effectively put it. If news outlets just shared the facts about any topic, it would be considered liberal bias. They give far too much time to discredited opinion about economics, climate change, labor, education, health care, and so on. That they frame it as balance is maddening. It’s reminds me so much of the way tobacco was covered before the tobacco settlement.

  37. 37.

    The Pale Scot

    I’ve found I can pass thru flocks of geese by just saying “quack-quack…quack-quack”

    Confuses the hell out of them.

    And occasionally a baby duck will start following me going quack-quack…quack-quack, which enrages the mum.

  39. 39.

    JGabriel

    Hilzoy @ Top:

    This week’s journey through the Faunasphere concludes, as some journeys must, in New Jersey, where wild turkeys recently terrorized a letter carrier to the point where his boss had to call 911. Actual call excerpt: “It’s crazy. They were actually attacking, biting, chase the trucks – everything. …”

    … As god is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

  40. 40.

    MomSense

    @The Pale Scot:

    When my middle son was three we were watching some baby ducks swimming close to shore wih their mom. He was such a hyper little kid but he actually sat still and watched them for a long time. Finally they came out of the water and the mother duck walked right up to my son. The ducklings climbed all over him and some of them curled up on his knees, lap, and around him and took a little nap in the sun. It was so cute. He was definitely in his happy place. He’s my animal whispering, shelter volunteering kid. He’s been volunteering at animal shelters since he was five. It’s really sweet especially the way he can communicate with the really anti-social animals. He was a bit of a tantrum monster and still has to manage his short temper (which he does pretty well thankfully) so there must be some mutual recognition.
    Geese and wild turkeys on the other hand…we all used to get chased by the geese at our neighbor’s farm.

  41. 41.

    Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim

    @Hillary Rettig: So a turkey gets to be an unequal moral agent, but I ought to behave as if it is an equal moral subject? That doesn’t quite sound right to me, but honest people can disagree amicably.

  42. 42.

    Pogonip

    Under the Baud/Clinton/Sanders/Jane administration, scary-bird chasers will be available to assist everyone on U.S. soil in time of need!

    Baud et al. Because There Are Mean Birds Out There. And Because Thurston Won’t Stop Barking Until They’re Elected. All Four Of Them.

  45. 45.

    Pogonip

    @Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: That’s where the whole animal “rights” argument falls apart. You, having
    as you do the knowledge of good and evil, have a moral duty to treat animals well, but you can’t hold the critter responsible for what it ain’t got. Therefore the people in the Middle Ages who put animals on trial were mistaken. (I always found this odd since their time was much more morally sophisticated than ours, and yet they made this glaring mistake.). The situation is somewhat analogous to when a toddler bites you.

  47. 47.

    Peter

    This just in: what goes on in a slaughterhouse isn’t very pleasant to look at! In other news, water is wet.

  48. 48.

    Shell

    Dont mess with catbirds either. No bigger than a robin, they’re notoriously aggressive when they’re protecting their nest or territory. Had a pair of them drive me off my patio one spring day.

  49. 49.

    D58826

    Ot but the 2nd amendment round up of the week, First there was Kalamazoo, then Kansas, then the mass murder in the state of Washington and now the three dead in Fort Wayne Ind. Oh you didn’t hear about the last one . well seems like the victims were three young Muslim men from Africa’s eastern Sahal region. So I guess they don’t count as real victims. Cops aren’t speculating on a motive but not ruling out religion or race at this point.

  50. 50.

    realbtl

    I guess I must have DFH pacifist turkeys because the 10-30/day that wander through my 5 acres have never caused any problems- except for digging up the flowers under the bird feeder, my fault. They have even worked out an understanding with my 2 Weimaraners; the dogs pretend to chase the turkeys and the turkeys pretend to flee in terror, usually for about 10 yards then they watch each other like “OK, what now?”

  52. 52.

    Gravenstone

    @Another Holocene Human: I’ve absolutely despised geese since I was about 6 or 7. Was visiting my grandparent’s farm and they had a few of the little fuckers. The whole flock decided to come after me and my little sister when we wandered too close to them. Fast forward to today, and we have 5-6 breeding pairs that nest on our site at work (attracted to the open pond we have for the fire suppression system). All too often, we don’t get permission back from the DNR to destroy their nests (since somehow the winged vermin are still protected) before they actually hatch. So we end up with 20-30 geese roaming around, shitting on everything throughout the summer. Hate the fucking bastards. And their meat isn’t even all that good.

  53. 53.

    Mike J

    @Peter:

    This just in: what goes on in a slaughterhouse isn’t very pleasant to look at!

    Operating rooms, too. The appeal to ickyness doesn’t really make sense. The same argument other types of moralists make about homosexuality.

  54. 54.

    daverave

    An appropriate thread for a Buddy update… He’s back home after his Thursday afternoon surgery. Before we picked him up, the vet warned us that the incision was much larger than anticipated and might be a bit shocking. Holy cat! He looks like he got completely in half. This was due to them simultaneously removing some growth from a lymph node in the general vicinity. We should get biopsy results mid next week. Fingers crossed.

    The surgeon vet also agreed with our amateur assessment that the radiologist’s report on the bone growth (cancer? infection?) in his paw was confusing. She did not quite see what was in the report after looking at the x-rays. So they were sent out again for a new report.

    Buddy has been drugged up and sleeping for the most part since coming home but is eating well and started grooming on those body parts that are not covered with the onesie. He’s even walking better when heading to his food bowl and cat box. We made a catio that he enjoyed yesterday while under the influence but this morning decided no bars would keep him in and was probing for weaknesses to get out. We are a bit worried that he may do something stupid and hurt himself while trying to escape. We’ve decided to take that as a good sign however… although we may reconfigure the catio boundaries. He’s on the way back!

  55. 55.

    RSA

    Bill Clinton credits his vegan diet with keeping him alive , and notes, “they nailed the meat substitute stuff.”

    Also,

    “The vegan diet is what I like the best,” he said. “I have more energy. I never clog.

    Thanks, Bill. Just what I wanted to know.

  57. 57.

    Mike J

    While still hopeful that Mr. Rubio might prevail, Mr. McConnell has begun preparing senators for the prospect of a Trump nomination, assuring them that, if it threatened to harm them in the general election, they could run negative ads about Mr. Trump to create space between him and Republican senators seeking re-election. Mr. McConnell has raised the possibility of treating Mr. Trump’s loss as a given and describing a Republican Senate to voters as a necessary check on a President Hillary Clinton, according to senators at the lunches.

  58. 58.

    Corner Stone

    @NotMax: Hey there. I previously mentioned I’d be in HI during March, and thanks for the response. Now that I have a better idea of where I’ll be I wanted to know if there were any can’t miss eating spots on Kauai or the big island? I’ll also be in Oahu probably near Waikiki but for a brief time. I have a rental car on Kauai so can make a trek just about anywhere. Oh, and you once mentioned a place to get great HI style shirts?
    Thanks for any info you feel like typing up (or not).

  60. 60.

    Corner Stone

    @Mike J: I think this clears up what McConnell was doing by shitcanning any SCOTUS nominee so quickly. In case anyone was not sure, the only thing Mitch gives a damn about is being majority leader.

  61. 61.

    beltane

    @Mike J: Given the Republican establishment’s track record this year, we may end up with a President Trump and a veto-proof Democratic majority in Congress.

  62. 62.

    JMG

    Just a quick campaign update. In my suburban Boston town, which votes Democratic better than 2-1 in most elections and in which Sanders has to win to win a state he has to win, the score at my 3 registered Dem household stands as follows. From Clinton campaign, a nice letter from a Mr. W. J. Clinton of New York NY and a live phone call from a local campaigner. From Sanders: Crickets, the goose, nada. Grass roots organizing?

  64. 64.

    realbtl

    @Corner Stone: The ultimate HI guidebooks are from Wizard Publications Inc, their “Revealed” series will take you to great restaurants (and everything else) that you would never find as a tourist. My Big Island recs are Killer Tacos (get the pig longboard) and the Lotus Cafe.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    @Corner Stone

    No specifics about either Kauai or the Big Island, as have never set foot on either. Others here who have visited those are better suited to providing recommendations. That said, have heard good things over the years about eating at Merriman’s in Kamuela on Hawai’i.

    Honestly don’t recall mentioning a source for Hawaiian shirts, but there is no dearth of places in the islands for those. The few in my wardrobe are made by Reyn Spooner (high quality line of Hawaiian style shirts), all picked up over the years from the clearance rack at Sears. Can’t speak for the other islands, but both the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores here have thousands (no exaggeration) of Hawaiian shirts on their racks, too.

    One tip: make sure to carry a pen on board the plane, as you’ll have to fill out an agricultural form before landing and the airlines no longer seem to provide writing utensils.

    Do enjoy your trip, though.

  68. 68.

    Frankensteinbeck

    The “A” word, long used to shut down scientific investigations of animal intelligence and emotionality, is losing its sting. “’Decades of knee-jerk avoidance of all things anthropomorphic…’ruined the field,’ says one animal behaviorist.

    Speaking from my degree in a biological science (entomology) this article is deceptive, wildly slanted, and shows no understanding of what was known even twenty years ago. You don’t avoid anthropomorphism because animals don’t have emotions. Almost no biologists believe animals as advanced as mammals and birds don’t have emotions. None of the scientific discoveries listed would be any surprise to any practicing biologist I’ve ever known, or change their research attitudes in any way. Avoiding anthropomorphism is about avoiding projecting your biases onto the animals you research. If you assume their behaviors work along the same paths humans do, you make mistakes like thinking a dog can count, and not doing the research that discovers it’s actually reading its owner’s body language in a way that humans can’t to know when it has reached the right number.

    EDIT – Or assuming homosexuality is a human peculiarity, when non-heterosexual sexual relationships and non-binary genders are ridiculously common in the animal kingdom. Science assumed animals couldn’t be gay for more than a century because of too much anthropomorphism.

  70. 70.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @JMG:

    Apparently there’s nothing to learn from Obama – too Establishment, man.

    If I were a Sanders supporter, I’d sue him for political malpractice. I guess an old white guy who comes from a small white liberal state gets to enjoy a certain kind of blinkered … what’s the word…. privilege.

  71. 71.

    p.a.

    @RSA:

    “The vegan diet is what I like the best,” he said. “I have more energy. I never clog.

    Thanks, Bill. Just what I wanted to know.

    Maybe he was talking dancing??

  75. 75.

    Pogonip

    Heads up, insulin-pen users! According to Naked Capitalism readers, the price is tripling and quadrupling all over the country, but you can get a vial of the old-fashioned kind for $25 at (ironically) Walmart. If things haven’t quieted down by the time I run out I’ll have to have my doctor switch me over. Walmart also sells the syringes. My father had some vial insulin left over when he went off it, so he gave it to me, and for type 11/2 diabetes like I have it works fine. (Type 11/2 is what I have christened diabetes that does not do what the material in diabetes class says it should.)

  79. 79.

    Jay C

    @RSA:

    Actually, when I first read the linked piece, I was assuming the former President was referring to his arteries…
    Thanks, man!

  81. 81.

    J R in WV

    @Hillary Rettig:

    My Mom and Dad were on a driving trip and went through Delaware, where many old duPont estates are now museums with beautiful grounds. At one such they stopped to admire a big pond with a flock of large swans.

    One of the swans got out of the pond and was running up the sloped lawn towards their car. Mom said “Maybe you should roll your window up” just as Dad pushed the roll-up button. The swan smacked into the window hard, and left it covered in swan spittle. He was sort of dazed after hitting the window, too.

    They left the swan spit on there to show us when they got back home. Swans are really REALLY mean! He intended to hurt Dad as much as possible.

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    @daverave: Thank you for the Buddy update! I was asking about buddy in a thread earlier this week. Glad he seems to be on the road to recovery from surgery, hoping for the best on the unclear report. I prescribe snuggles for Billy! (and owner)

  84. 84.

    LauraPDX

    @Corner Stone: As a Kaua’i resident, I recommend you don’t miss Street Burger in Wailua. AMAZING burgers, made from locally grown beef. Other favorites are Duane’s Ono CharBurger in Anatolia, JavaKai in Kapaa for coffee, Island Taco on Waimea on the west side (Shrimp Station across the street has pretty tasty food as well), Merriman’s in Poipu (inside Kukuiula) for happy hour, Verde in Kapaa for Mexican done Hawaiian style. Best high-end meal is at the Beach House in Poipu (at least go and stand outside for the drop-dead gorgeous sunsets). Best breakfast hands down is at the Kountry Kitchen in Kapaa. Try the Fish Express in Lihue for an outstanding poke bowl, Hamura’s in Lihue for saimin, Mark’s Place or Pono Market for best plate lunch, and JoJo’s in Waimea for the best shave ice!

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