Yesterday was the anniversary of the death, in 1957, of poor Laika, the first being to orbit earth. She was a little stray dog with a good nature, and only wanted to be loved. She lived for around four hours in space before an overheating module killed her, although the Soviets didn’t admit this until 2002. In 1998, mission scientist Oleg Gazenko said, “The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it. We shouldn’t have done it…We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog.” (Nick Abadzis wrote a great graphic novel about her.)
RIP Laika.
And onto other news…
Massachusetts residents: On election day please vote YES ON 3, the ballot measure that would outlaw cruel chicken battery cages, pig gestation crates, and calf veal crates for farmed animals in the state or those raised for food that’s sold in the state. In its endorsement, Boston Globe notes that it would increase retail prices by between 1 and 5 cents per egg. In other words: a vast amount of suffering relieved for mere pennies. (Also: Good NECN coverage.)
Some lousy human being shot Pedals the Walking Bear.
The future of zoos and other “animal attractions”? Google Tokyo’s cool, interactive virtual fish pond.
NYT reviewer worries that his cat is getting some ideas from the new PBS series, The Story of Cats . “When she looks at me now, Hermione seems to be working out the details of how to drag my rib cage upstairs to the bathtub.”
Note to Cole: Jill Stein is NOT vegan.
Please share your fauna-related news views and news in the comments.
raven
GO CUBBIES!!! Chicago is a zoo and the parade is an hour late!!!!
henqiguai
Are you referring to the tag “Vegan Jill Stein”? I thought that was a snarky reference to Tundra Barbie (entertainingly, I spaced on “Sarah Palin”).
Hillary Rettig
@raven: I’ll bet it’s amazing!
Hillary Rettig
@henqiguai: talking about “Vegan Sarah Palin” used as a nickname for Jill Stein
Xenos
As a former Mass resident who lives with tyrannical EU free-range egg regulations, I agree with HR here on ballot measure 3. Yes, eggs are more expensive, but it is worth it. When cruel practices are reduced, food safety is improved. Eggs are not supposed to be salmonella bombs – they just are in the US since the Reagan administration defanged the FDA regulations on the poultry business.
It is also widely accepted here that free range eggs are more nutritious. It has something to do with sunlight resulting in the chicken producing more vitamin D. Since there can be a lot a woo in European food politics, I would take that with a grain of salt.
srv
He didn’t even get his Astronaut wings:
No home is safe with Samsung:
raven
@Hillary Rettig: The “on the street reporters” and their interviews are on par with the dumb Rockin New Year’s Eve from Times Square!
Hillary Rettig
@Xenos: Thanks for supporting 3!
God, so much bad stuff originated with Reagan. No matter where you look.
Amir Khalid
So what does Vegetarian Jill Stein eat that a vegan wouldn’t?
Hillary Rettig
@srv: terribly sad re Albert – thanks for sharing that
and re Samsung – holy cow. something terrible going on there. Do you think this has anything to do with the chaebol system?
Hillary Rettig
@Amir Khalid: link doesn’t say, but the usual culprits are eggs and dairy.
Terry chay
@Amir Khalid: probably vaccines. she’ll eat anything if you vote for her. i heard quantitative easing makes all protein taste like vegan chicken.
in other news. Christie!
Chris
I always thought she died because they hadn’t bothered to think of a way to bring her back to Earth intact yet. Which always struck me as a dick move. Apparently not. You learn something every day.
Poor Laika.
Gator90
Go alligators! Prey on the razorbacks! (That’s fauna-related, right?)
raven
@Amir Khalid: How bout them Cubbies Amir?
jk
Terry chay
@Hillary Rettig: of course it’s got SOMETHING to do with the chaebol system. The handling of any product recall has got to be related to the corporate culture of a company.
I just caution against going too far to generalize. That sort of thing starts to sound like racism. After all, all major Korean companies are chaebol, and that system is modeled after Japanese ones which are adapted from the German system.
http://terrychay.com/article/a-korean-an-android-and-malcolm-gladwell-walk-into-a-bar.shtml
Calouste
@Hillary Rettig: Comparing Stein to Palin gives Stein way too much credit. At least Palin managed to get elected to some offices of consequence.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
What are Cubbies?
/Channeling my inner Gary Johnson.
Hillary Rettig
@Chris: well, that too…there was no plan for getting her back, so I guess she would have starved or died of thirst.
also, the whole project was a vanity thing for Khrushchev, who wanted something fast to follow up / top Sputnik.
Hillary Rettig
@Gator90: :-) good one
Hillary Rettig
have to sign out of the thread now but will check in later! hope everyone in and outside Chicago is having a great day.
chopper
she’s not sarah palin either. fuckin’ metaphors, how do they work?
Frankensteinbeck
Unfortunately, any bear that makes its home in an area with a human population as high as a suburb has to be put down. Once they associate humans with food, they lose their fear of man and a human death is inevitable. Relocating is not an option. Not only is it tremendously expensive and dangerous, the bear is smart enough to go find more humans to feed it. It’s sad, but there’s no real alternative. Unfortunately, ‘It’s him or me’ is pretty much the core of how Nature works, and we can only defy that so far.
sigaba
@Chris: It’s true they had no plan or equipment for recovering her. The mission plan was to euthanize her with poisoned food at the end of the week-long mission.
Her death after four hours due to technical malfunctions inaugurated a regrettable Soviet tradition. Call it Laika’s Revenge.
On the other hand all the other dog missions had successful recoveries. Khrushchev even gave one of the puppies of a space dog (Strelka I think) to Caroline Kennedy.
ERA: If you live in LA the Museum of Jurassic Technology maintains a permanent exhibit of paintings of all the Russian space dogs.
? Martin
California is a huge agriculture state. The hugest, in fact. We passed a variety of laws similar to those in Mass and while they were initially blamed for the rising prices of eggs in 2015, farmers said, no, it’s because of the drought and having to pay so much more for water and for feed (which needs water).
Don’t fear the economic impact of these laws. It also allows for smaller farms to compete with large industrial ones and that’s good for jobs and local economies.
JGabriel
Hillary Rettig @ Top:
Speaking of Russian dogs:
Even the Russians think Trump is too unstable to be a Presidential nominee, much less a President – which is to say, even the Kremlin think we’re better than this … or used to.
And I pause here to note that Trump has brought us to the point where Even Fox News has been replaced by Even the Kremlin…
Thoroughly Pizzled
Soyuz 1 was also an obvious deathtrap of a mission, but it was Vladimir Komarov who was killed. Sometimes the Soviet space program can be very sad.
Matt McIrvin
Already voted yes on 3. Thought you’d appreciate it.
Matt McIrvin
@Thoroughly Pizzled: According to legend, he died cursing out the engineers.
I heard that Yuri Gagarin offered to take his place, knowing it was probably a suicide mission.
Scott S.
The “Laika” graphic novel by Nick Abadzis is a fantastic book and highly recommended — great characters, great story, great everything, and a certain amount of completely understandable and necessary tearjerking for the dog. It’s not quite full nonfiction — Abadzis invents a backstory for Laika and mashes several human characters together for the sake of the narrative, but it’s a beautiful story, and y’all should go read it.
henqiguai
@Hillary Rettig(#4):
Oops, recalled it backwards. Thanks. This is what happens trying to sneak peeks at
nonsensenon-work related material when working from home and on short sleep.Kropadope
I got a fight in with my best friend last night about the election. Apparently “everyone” thinks I’m an idiot. When pressed for details about who “everyone,” he listed a bunch of Republicans from my facebook feed and my sister who thinks the world is flat.
He blames the Democrats for the world being so fucked up and violent right now, a debatable assertion itself. He said the media is biased and rigging the election for Hillary and Democrats have been in control of both houses of Congress the entire time Obama’s been president and I’m crazy for thinking otherwise. When I very easily got evidence that said otherwise, he switched over to “that’s not relevant, why does that matter?” He also can’t stand how I think Hillary is perfect and won’t accept a word of criticism of her.
That last bit was the statement that made me realize I had to share this exchange on Balloon Juice.
Woodrowfan
can we please have a Walter update, or pics of Lily/Rosie/Thurston now!!!!!
Hillary Rettig
@Terry chay: fair enough – thanks!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kropadope:
The right wing media bubble has turned conservatives into a bunch of brain dead zombies. It’s a cult now, since reason, facts and evidence have no meaning to them.
raven
SIX MILLION PEOPLE AT THE PARADE!!
Hillary Rettig
@Matt McIrvin: I do!
Woodrowfan
@Kropadope: wow, what a friend. yeech/. (him, not you)
Hillary Rettig
@JGabriel: I bow to your excellent segue…
Matt McIrvin
@Thoroughly Pizzled: …and though the Soyuz did kill another crew a few years later, since then it’s had an excellent safety record, certainly far better than the Shuttle.
Kropadope
@Woodrowfan: He’s actually a really good friend to me most of the time, but he gets wicked worked up about politics. I suppose it’s really easy to blame everything on the Democrats when Obama is president and you believe that Congress is always from the same party as the president.
I’m kinda disappointed, though, that he was the only one of my friends I managed to convince to register to vote.
ETA: He’s also really big on the whole projection thing. When I provided facts to show the media isn’t biased for Hillary or for Democrats generally, his takeaway from that was that I think everyone else is an idiot. He said I was an idiot, I didn’t say so about anyone.
Gator90
@Kropadope:I had to share this exchange on Balloon Juice
Yes, you did. I appreciate your recognition of your duty in that regard. :-)
Botsplainer
@Calouste:
Damn, that’s cold.
patroclus
It’s just me and 7 million of my closest friends at the Cubs parade on a beautiful sunny day here in Chi-town, where 8 years ago today, Barack Obama had his rally at the very same place in Grant Park!! #Fly the W!! The Cubbies are World Champs! Highest TV ratings in 25 years!
Chris
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Either that or they’ve always been brain-dead zombies and Fox just realized there was a market there. (Probably both, really: the whole thing’s a feedback loop).
gex
Why do people put juicy quotes in a post without a link? I can’t/won’t share a quote from an article without the link to the article. So it stays here, where it is more or less preaching to the choir. Too bad too, some of them are really good and might just have an effect on someone in my FB circles.
Kropadope
@Calouste:
It’s not Stein’s fault that Republicans have no standards for office-holders other than “reflexively against Democrats.”
Chris
@Kropadope:
Projection of own issues onto the other guy, total lack of respect for the other guy while demanding respect for self, goalpost moving as soon as one of his points turns out to be wrong, reframing an argument with another person as an act of personal victimization against him so that he doesn’t have to argue anymore… Yep, you’ve got a conservative all right.
beth
@patroclus: My daughter’s there and has been sending me photos all day – it looks like a gorgeous day in Chicago. Enjoy all the festivities!
Kropadope
@Chris: He also says I’m a Democrat, while I’m a registered independent, but gets mad at me for calling him a Republican, while he identifies as a Libertarian but registered Republican.
JGabriel
@Hillary Rettig: Danke.
Gindy51
@gex: Copy and paste the quote and search for it on google. That’s what I do.
Betty Cracker
Here’s some fauna news — looks like someone needs to start a Twitter feed for “Florida Squirrel” to complement “Florida Man” and “Florida Woman” — Squirrel Injures Several People In Angry Rampage At Florida Senior Center. An excerpt:
They’re not sure what happened to it — looks like it made its escape.
In sad, personal squirrel-related news, I ran one over in my car two days ago, and I’m still sad about it. There was nothing I could do; it darted out in front of me while I was driving 60 MPH, and I didn’t have time to react.
My husband yells at me for swerving to avoid squirrels, claiming I’m putting myself and passengers in danger, which is utter bullshit. I remind him that I haven’t had a ticket since 1984 and have never had an accident, not even a fender-bender (knock wood!), whereas he could qualify as a crash test dummy given the number of accidents he’s had over the years. That usually shuts him up.
Anyhoo. Poor squirrel. :(
Gindy51
@Kropadope: Sounds like your pal isn’t all that smart. Glad I flushed people like that out of my life years ago.
Roger Moore
@Terry chay:
I suspect it has more to do with Samsung specifically than the system in general. Other chaebol like LG and Hyundai don’t seem to have the same kinds of problems. One of the problems with the chaebol is that they’re still largely family owned, so the personality of the head of the family can have an outsized impact on the overall company culture.
Cermet
Well, Berine proves that he is a democrat both in actions, money, time and effort. That issue is firmly laid to rest.
Emerald
I happily pay $6.00 per dozen for eggs from hens who roam in pastures. I’m sure it’s a limited amount of pasture, but it’s outside in the sunshine and they get to walk on grass.
It means something to me that the hens get to live reasonably normal lives as chickens.
Now if we can stop them from massacring the male chicks we’ll be getting somewhere.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
I can’t help but wonder if the squirrel looked unusually big and had green-tinged skin.
Kropadope
@Gindy51: He and I should just stick to Xbox, Game of Thrones, and horror movies.
Shell
Ive had so any do the exact same thing that I’ve wondered if squirrels become suicidal by a certain age.
(Tho luckily they all manage to slip between the wheels.)
The Other Chuck
@jk: Funny thing, I hadn’t even suspected Guliani had a hand in the FBI shenanigans before, but now methinks the lady doth protest too much…
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Hugs. I did the same thing to a chipmunk a few weeks back, only on a bicycle and for pretty much the same reasons. Was going to pass behind him, until he changed his mind at the last second and darted back the way he came… and hit my rear wheel. Definitely did not live long after that.
I felt pretty much the same as you do for a few days, but I’m just glad I’ve never done that to a dog or a cat.
getsmartin
Hence the inspiration for the name of the Finnish surf band “Laika and the Cosmonauts” (I saw ’em back in their heyday)…
The Other Chuck
@Emerald: What would you propose they do with all the extra roosters then? They don’t exactly make good neighbors. Long as there’s that big a demand for eggs, that’s what’s going to happen.
WaterGirl
@Kropadope:
Very funny. Thanks for that! I assumed you were not speaking literally, but by the time I got to the end of your comment, I started to wonder.
WaterGirl
@raven: Holy shit, seriously! That’s awesome. I cannot fathom what 6 million people looks like.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
Or to find its way back. Meatball, the famous Glendale bear, managed to find his way back even after having been relocated something like 100 miles away. Of course he was a celebrity by that time, so he wound up being kept in captivity rather than euthanized, but it’s not practical to do that for all problem animals.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I’m sorry, Betty. I hit a squirrel nearly a decade ago, and the memory of that little body being thrown into the air still haunts me when I think of it. I was a happier person before that day when death throes was no longer a theoretical concept to me.
hovercraft
Trump Supporter: “I’ll never vote again” if Clinton wins.
A screen grab from CNN, via GOS
GOTV, it’s almost over. Thank god.
Betty Cracker
@The Other Chuck: I read somewhere the other day they’ve come up with a way to determine chick sex before it hatches, which will supposedly eliminate that practice. Can’t remember where I saw it.
raven
Attention! … Attention, please! … Have your pencil … and scorecards ready … and I’ll give you… the correct lineup … for today’s ball game.
Timurid
And on the cnn.com front page… “DAT HORSE RACE THO”
WereBear
@Hillary Rettig: I read an account by one of the scientists who felt Laika should have one day at home with his son before being sent up on the one way journey.
He talked about how happy she was for that one evening.
So much love out there, literally going begging.
bluehill
@jk: Rudy sounding kind of like Jack Nicholson in a Few Good Men. As with Col. Jessep, Rudy thinks that the ends justify the means even though the “ends” are dubious and the means undermine the founding principles he wants to protect.
raven
“Welcome to Cubstock”!!!
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
I’m sorry for you and the squirrel you ran over.
As to Florida Squirrel, what the hell is wrong with your state? Is it the water?
Calouste
@bluehill: Rudy is an authoritarian. Using the state apparatus to support the Party is an end in itself.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: OK, you made LOL with those last two sentences. Sorry about your friend.
Gator90
@hovercraft:what the hell is wrong with your state? Is it the water?
Florida actually contains a substantial number of people and animals that behave more or less normally most of the time. (Admittedly the proportion of “normals” is lower than in most if not all other states.) Maybe the normal people drink bottled water from out of state. Not sure about the animals.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: The squirrel I hit was flattened immediately, which is a mercy, I suppose.
@WereBear: God, that’s the saddest fucking thing. I can’t bear to think of it. Off to play with my dogs…
Hillary Rettig
@Betty Cracker: I’m going to guess that someone(s) was feeding the squirrel and it got bold. My parents used to feed squirrels at their apartment until one day one of them ripped a hole in the kitchen screen to get at the nuts.
Hillary Rettig
@WereBear: :-(
The graphic novel is very good.
Anoniminous
@hovercraft:
It is a function of people over land area which is known in the literature as “Morons-per-Acre” (MpA.) Here in New Mexico we have a low MpA overall due to our large land area and low population, Florida has a high MpA due to moderate land area and high population.
bemused
@Kropadope:
It’s hilarious he get mad when called a Republican. So sensitive. That touches a nerve. He’s in denial but probably knows on some level that he’s lying to himself.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
Bears and other animals that wander into the California suburbs are allowed to return to the wild unless they attack a human or a pet. No significant problems.
That bears “fear” humans is more anecdotal than reality based.
Amir Khalid
@Gator90:
I’m sure that in Florida the same proportion of people and wildlife behave normally as anywhere else. I think it’s just that when Floridians, whether two-legged or four-legged, go off the rails, they do it with more, shall we say, panache than other Americans.
hovercraft
@Anoniminous:
I reject your theory, I live in the highest density pre–Acre state in the country, New Jersey, and we are also mostly reclaimed swampland, and yet our moron per acre ration is no where near Florida. Christie didn’t prove he was evil till after he was elected, (many of us tried to stop him but our morons voted for him because we had no proof), Batboy was already a proven evil doer before he was ever elected. No there must be another explanation. Other than Christie our most bizarre famous citizen, (other than all of our corrupt politicians), is Tan Lady. Not really, but she was the most bizarre.
Brachiator
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
A friend and I were talking about just this and similar issues this morning.
When I was a callow youth, I used to think that religion turned some people into hypocrites who were frightened of sex. Now I understand that people who are already fearful about sexuality use religion as a shield.
Similarly, right wing media doesn’t turn conservatives into anything. Rather, conservatives who desperately want to hide behind their “values” look for anything, including right wing news, which validates their beliefs.
Chris
@hovercraft:
Yet another reason to hope for her victory.
hovercraft
@Chris:
Shh. Don’t say it too loud.
Chris
@bluehill:
Ends justify the means really should be the FBI’s motto. (De jure as well as de facto, I mean).
At least the French intelligence service is honest about it: “everywhere that necessity makes the law” (partout ou nécessité fait loi).
Gator90
@hovercraft: our moron per acre ration is no where near Florida
Having lived in New Jersey for a short time and Florida for a long time, I can confirm that your assertion is absolutely true.
Geeno
Laika looks like such a sweetie in that picture.
She deserved better.
Chris
@Hillary Rettig:
We had the opposite problem once, a squirrel that got into the shop I was working at and wouldn’t leave. We had to leave nuts outside to make him eventually vacate the premises.
(Why yes, that was in Florida too, why do you ask?)
Chris
@hovercraft:
You had the R next to his name, didn’t you?
Gator90
@Amir Khalid: panache
I like your phrasing. It makes Floridian stupidity and bizarreness sound almost cool. Almost.
Geeno
@Chris: When I went to Kent State, the local black squirrels were famous for getting really chummy and following you into dorms or buildings trying to beg just a small piece of that candy bar you were munching between classes.
Shell
@Chris: Maybe theres a particular squirrel mutation going on in Florida. Could the Zika virus be responsible? We need more conspiracy theories!
hovercraft
Per the WPost
They left it hanging out there for a day and a half to be sure it marinated, and then they issue a retraction.
Roger Moore
@Anoniminous:
They must have a higher morons per capita than some other states, because you don’t get the same kind of craziness in other places with higher population densities, like Rhode Island.
Chris
@Shell:
It would certainly be irresponsible not to speculate.
hovercraft
@Chris:
You have to factor in western and southern Jersey, and the fact that he was running against Corzine, right on the heels of the financial crash, there were extenuating circumstances, and then the media fell in love with him, and so our useless democrats ran someone no one had ever heard of, gave her no money, and then to top it all off, most of them endorsed him, so Barbara Buono never stood a chance.
Chris
@hovercraft:
Most of your Democrats endorsed him? Dafuq?
bemused
@Brachiator:
Most Republicans have always been crude and shallow creatures. They just didn’t say hideous things out loud in public in the past but you know they did among themselves. Richard Burr saying Hillary should have a bullseye on her, John Sununu thinking he is a comic, did Bill say about Hillary, “I did not have sex with that women” and so much more. It’s like Trump untethered the ugly Republican id and now they can’t shut up.
This is who they have always been. Republican voters who are so appalled by Trump have been shutting their eyes and ears to the nastiness of the rest of their leaders or they are just very upset that it’s all out in the open now.
hovercraft
@Chris:
That’s the backstory of the whole Bridgegate saga. He was popular with the media, and the craven democrats were thinking he would run in 2016, they saw his re-election as a given, they all knew he was a vindictive SOB, so no one wanted to cross him. That is why he felt the need to retaliate the people who he did see as crossing him. Remember Bridgegate was him punishing democratic mayors for not endorsing him. Who behaves as though the opposition party has an obligation to support you? The goal was for him to win a blue state with north of 60% of the vote by basically running uncontested. With the congress opposing everything Obama did, he was going to the candidate with a proven track record of working across the aisle, and won in a landslide.
Brachiator
@bemused:
People can be crude and shallow. Some of them become Republicans.
Emerald
@The Other Chuck: Perhaps not grind them up??
Actually, I saw somewhere that new research might allow the eggs to be sexed early enough to just use them as supermarket eggs. Dunno if that’s actually possible, but anything is better than what they do now.
Shell
Add to the stew that there was a pretty weak Democrat opposing him, and DNC gave her little support.
bemused
@Brachiator:
Quite a large number of them become Republicans.
Frankensteinbeck
@Brachiator:
Note the ‘return to the wild’ part. This one wasn’t doing so. They can wander in and then leave just fine. It’s if they decide to become regulars that you have a problem, and specifically if they realize humans and human habitations are a source of food. Also, you can’t throw in ‘other animals.’ This is an issue specific to the largest predators who might attack humans. There aren’t a Hell of a lot of those in the US, and mountain lions are much more shy than bears.
Uh… no. Just… no. You’re treating this like an absolute, as if bears go ‘Oh no, humans, run away!’ and that’s the definition of fear. Bears actively avoid humans and human-frequented areas. They are not fanatic about it, and in one-on-one interactions generally aren’t scared enough to flee. In some ways, that’s the problem here. They’re balanced at a level of fear of humans that they can be trained out of without too much effort. In areas way up North where bears have almost no fear of humans, said humans have to change their lifestyle because bears are a danger. Yes, bears fear humans. Almost all wild animals do. ‘Habitually avoid’ counts.
Matt McIrvin
@hovercraft: I heard somewhere that police reports are more publicly available in Florida than in most states, so much of the Florida Man phenomenon is actually observation bias.
nonynony
@hovercraft:
Promises, promises.
MoxieM
Not only is Jill Stein not Vegan, she’s barely Human…no, seriously. She’s an awful human being. I say this with the knowledge of having been a neighbor for 25 years or so. She would walk that goddamned dog (intact Gt Dane), and when it lunged for other neighb dogs, she would holler at the kids accompanying said other dogs. Awful, Awful person. No one in town could stand her.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
IN California, some bears and other animals are known to be regulars. They come for food, to escape the heat (and frolic in fountains and swimming pools).
In California, bobcats and coyotes are sometimes a problem. And sometimes new suburbs extend to territory previously held by the animals.
RE: That bears “fear” humans is more anecdotal than reality based.
Bears and other animals are wary of humans, as they would be of another animal as large as they are.
This ain’t fear.
J R in WV
Free Range chickens produce vastly and obviously better eggs than do battery-raised chickens. We were amazed that our scrawny yard-birds – little banty game hens – produced eggs both better looking and better-tasting than grocery store eggs. Now we buy free range local eggs from local farmers.
The yolks in these eggs are brighter colored golden spheres, with more substance and thickness than the pale yellow and limp yolks of chicken house kept bird eggs. They cook better as ingredients, better for sauces, baking, frying, everything.
Plus, the hens get to have a more normal chicken life. With bugs and weeds to eat, and sunshine to produce Vitamin D. I know it isn’t scientific, but I’m convinced that the sunshine makes the egg yolks more golden and richer in goodness. And I know it’s good for the birds.