A winner has been crowned in the inaugural Fat Marmot contest. The champ, Dawn, won in both the mass-gain and popular-vote competitions. Dawn is 6 years old, and weighed in at 13.2 lbs. The Guardian US quoted University of Ottawa professor of evolutionary ecology Julien Martin as saying “That’s one of the heaviest animals we’ve ever measured,” and “Six kilos is really humongous for that species.”
More than 23,000 votes were cast in the contect modeled on Alaska’s popular Fat Bear Week. Fattening up is an essential survival strategy for the stout-bodied, hibernating members of the squirrel family.
Louisiana is preparing for its first “recreational” alligator hunt in more than 50 years. The state will offer up to 5,000 trappers a chance to catch one of the reptiles.
Decades of unregulated hunting for food and fashion devastated populations of the swamp creatures. Hunting was banned for ten years in 1962, with tightly regulated commercial hunts allowed starting in 1972. Their numbers are estimated to have risen from less than 100,000 to over 3 million.
A Maine coon cat named Erebus Anomaly was certified this month by Guiness World Records for breaking the record for most toes on a feline. The Wisconsinite, who overcame a kittenhood bout of pneumonia, broke the previous record of 28 toes by a single digit.
Erebus has eight toes on one paw, and seven on the others. His father had six toes on each paw. Most cats have only four toes on each paw and a fifth “dew claw.” Polydactyl cats are relatively common, especially among Maine coon.
The BBC published an interesting item about two Monrovia residents that have welcomed a family of bears to their swimming pool. At first the new homeowners were alarmed by the unexpected visits from their ursine neighbors, but opted for co-existence rather than “a big wall and barbed wire.”
The residents say that bears are “misunderstood,” and the reporting adds that “Black bear attacks are incredibly rare, with just one fatal attack in California’s history,” but later touches on the sad tale of Blondie, a mother bear that was euthanized in March of this year after she “swiped” at a Monrovian dog-walker. The couple in the story started a petition to try to spare Blone, who was also a frequent visitor to their yard.
The human hosts say the bears love the pool and floating toys, although the inflatable items don’t last long. “They’re the most adorable [creatures] you’ve ever seen. They’re so cuddly but also intimidating, with their long claws.” The animals are still not welcome to the couple’s barbeques.
Wildlife authorities underline the importance of securing garbage cans and never leaving pet food outdoors,
People Magazine reports that efforts by Utah researchers to introduce beavers into dry landscapes have been successful, in at least one case, in widening a stream and creating a habitat for Yellowstone cutthroat trout.
The idea of introducing Beavers into our local ecosystem was debated at some length by the Izaak Walton League in the late 1940s. They group thought they would also have to introduce aspen trees as a food source.
Mountain Mike told the Town Crier this week that Ernie Maxwell once told him that he had bought a pair of the industrious rodents and took them by mule to the high country. Mike added that they probably made a nice dinner for the mountain lions.
This idea was widespread once upon a time. A 1989 story in the L.A. Times called the successful introduction of beavers in the San Gorgonio Wilderness and “ecological blunder” that had “biologists in a quandry.” The beavers found a grove of aspens and ate them.
There seems to be no evidence that beavers were ever native to the San Jacinto Mountains.
