Will the wild creatures please go away
Okay, this has gone far enough. I love all the little critters of the world, those who know me understand that. I love the big ones, too, but prefer them when seen from far away or while they are behind bars.
So, feeling as I do, it didn't upset me a bit when the coyotes came back to this area. Nor was I concerned when the rattlesnakes and copperheads decided global warming made this a fine place to live. The big rattlesnake hunt of 1940 had killed 106 of them and that was the last seen of them in these parts. Until recently.
The foxes never did leave, being wily little fellows who knew how to hide out. I'm not sure how they felt when cougars were spotted in the neighborhood but I wasn't too thrilled about it.
Then came the bears. Just why they found Northeast Ohio more to their liking than the mountains of Pennsylvania is anybody's guess. Reminded me of the time when we lived in upstate New York and bears roamed the hills around our house. Not content with that, one of them decided to meander down Main Street in Oneonta at the height of the Christmas shopping season.
This in turn brought memories of the day an elephant strolled through downtown Peru, Indiana. He had escaped from the winter headquarters of a circus. Now you would think that finding an elephant would not be too difficult but apparently that is not true because he had been free for a week or more.
But I digress. The latest event in the animal kingdom's determination to reclaim the land where they one lived without human interference came this week when a panther was spotted nearby. That's right, a panther. Even the most ardent admirers of big cats have never claimed that panthers enjoy the company of humans or purr contentedly when given a pat on the head.
Now we've lost our insects but gained cougars, bears and panthers. Hardly a fair trade off in my book.
So what's left? Only the wolves. So far none have been found in the Akron area although I have seen a couple of large, furry dogs from a distance. Who knows?
So, feeling as I do, it didn't upset me a bit when the coyotes came back to this area. Nor was I concerned when the rattlesnakes and copperheads decided global warming made this a fine place to live. The big rattlesnake hunt of 1940 had killed 106 of them and that was the last seen of them in these parts. Until recently.
The foxes never did leave, being wily little fellows who knew how to hide out. I'm not sure how they felt when cougars were spotted in the neighborhood but I wasn't too thrilled about it.
Then came the bears. Just why they found Northeast Ohio more to their liking than the mountains of Pennsylvania is anybody's guess. Reminded me of the time when we lived in upstate New York and bears roamed the hills around our house. Not content with that, one of them decided to meander down Main Street in Oneonta at the height of the Christmas shopping season.
This in turn brought memories of the day an elephant strolled through downtown Peru, Indiana. He had escaped from the winter headquarters of a circus. Now you would think that finding an elephant would not be too difficult but apparently that is not true because he had been free for a week or more.
But I digress. The latest event in the animal kingdom's determination to reclaim the land where they one lived without human interference came this week when a panther was spotted nearby. That's right, a panther. Even the most ardent admirers of big cats have never claimed that panthers enjoy the company of humans or purr contentedly when given a pat on the head.
Now we've lost our insects but gained cougars, bears and panthers. Hardly a fair trade off in my book.
So what's left? Only the wolves. So far none have been found in the Akron area although I have seen a couple of large, furry dogs from a distance. Who knows?
posted by Dick Stodghill | 11/15/2008 10:58:00 AM
2 Comments:
Isn't a cougar and a panther the same thing? Around here we call cougars "painters", I presume a colloquialism for "panther". I may be wrong.
We had a wallaby escape from a petting zoo, and it was found last week, savaged by the wolves. How exciting, to have wolves only a few miles from my back yard. Well, exciting if you don't own a small dog....grin!
OTOH, there is another meaning for cougar...the local colleges seem to be the hunting ground for adult cougars in beehive hairdoos and short skirts looking for excitement in their lives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-OpQ3bmdhE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMcGEskrPyc
I should have made it clearer. In this area a cougar is tan or tawny colored while a panther is coal black and much larger.
Post a Comment
<< Home