Canis lupus hominis

Posted in wildlife | Tagged gorilla, kitten, Koko | 26 Comments

26 Responses

1. on December 4, 2009 at 3:11 am Pai

   Koko is really amazing. When I was a kid, I watched a show about her on PBS, and it really affected me. It was a real epiphany to me as a child to realize how intelligent apes and other animals were.

   
   
   • on December 4, 2009 at 3:23 am retrieverman

     I watched about her on Reading Rainbow.

     Learned so much from LeVar.

     
     
   • on December 4, 2009 at 3:24 am retrieverman

     You now know how young I am.

     
     
     • on December 4, 2009 at 5:15 am Pai

       I also used to watch that show! My parents only let me watch PBS until I was like 10. One of the best things they ever did, as it got me watching Nova, Nature, Wild America, and all those shows at a young age.

       Reading Rainbow was only just canceled this year… PBS decided it wasn’t ‘educational enough’. I think today’s definition of ‘educational’ is a little screwed up, in that case.

       
       
       • on December 4, 2009 at 6:02 am retrieverman

         They canceled Reading Rainbow? That’s awful!

         I watched it one day last year, and it was the episode about monarch butterflies.

         And I realized that almost everything I knew about monarchs came from that little segment.

         Gosh, that’s just sad.

         Wild America, I used to watch almost religiously. When I found out that Stouffer faked a lot of stuff and was cruel to animals, I was upset. I didn’t want to believe it.

         Actually, PBS shaped also my political views, and not because I watch Bill Moyers every Friday night. When he retires, I’m going to have to find something else to do on Friday nights.

         
         
         • on December 4, 2009 at 6:41 am Pai

           I only just recently learned about the fakery on Wild America too… that’s really sad.

           
           
       • on December 4, 2009 at 3:30 pm Viatecio

         I stopped watching Reading Rainbow when they changed the title sequence. Too bad it got canceled though…so many kids don’t understand the joys of reading and their parents don’t have the motivation to nurture anything of the sort. Glad to know I’m not the only PBS-junkie around. Although I have to say that a lot of their newer kids’ programs are definitely not even close to the caliber of the stuff I watched as a whippersnapper.

         As for Koko, I knew about her but never really did any research or saw any TV programs about her–never too late to start! I just LOVE that kitten’s name though. I said it out loud just now and the dog perked her ears and all but said “PLAY?!”

         
         
         • on December 4, 2009 at 3:38 pm retrieverman

           What’s remarkable is she named the cats herself.

           Nature isn’t even remotely as good as it used to be.

           When George Page stopped doing them, they just stopped being good. (George Page died a year or so ago, and they showed his favorite episode–about dogs.) He wrote a book on animal intelligence, which is pretty good: http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Animal-Mind-George-Page/dp/038549291X

           
           
2. on December 4, 2009 at 7:07 am H. Houlahan

   Having grown up on Wild Kingdom in the 70’s, (Friday nights just before Wonderful World of Disney) the phrase “whether actual or created” was probably my first introduction to a bullshitter’s weasel words.

   They were big on fights between predators who, if left alone, would normally walk away clean from any chance encounter with one another. But what kid doesn’t want to see a bobcat and a badger duke it out?

   But I still loved the show, was cynical enough to notice and be amused that “Jim” got bottom billing, but always had to go wrassle the gator (You go to hell Kemosabe), and remember that Mutual of Omaha was the sponsor.

   Now that’s some advertising dollars well-spent. (They are people you can count on when the going’s tough …)

   
   
   • on December 4, 2009 at 2:14 pm retrieverman

     I used to wake up at 5 in the morning on Saturdays to watch reruns of Wild Kingdom when I was growing up.

     
     
   • on December 4, 2009 at 2:22 pm retrieverman

     What was weird, though, was the rerun didn’t come on until 6 or 6:30, and the TV station I watched it on didn’t have programming until that time. So I would get up and stare at the multicolored stripes. It had me that excited.

     It would then be followed by a Bullwinkle rerun, so technically, I grew up watching Rocky and Bullwinkle, even though it was well in syndication by the time I was born.

     I also remember watching the premiere episode of Wild Kingdom, which came on around noon on Saturday. Sometime in the late 80’s, they stopped making this show. I do remember learning a lot from a later special series from Wild Kingdom about China and Chinese wildlife. Jim had become the host by then.

     
     
   • on December 4, 2009 at 2:35 pm retrieverman

     Another thing I liked was that I grew up during Glasnost and Perestroika, and Soviet and Eastern European nature programs were released in English.

     I remember that one old film called what I thought was obviously a moose an elk. It confused me.

     In the early 90’s, there was also a series on PBS’s Nature called Realms of Russian Bear, which I really liked.

     Gosh, I wish they still made nature documentaries like these. I saw two that were excellent. About four years ago, there was a PBS program about an English nature photographer who staked out pumas in patagonia and actually got real nature footage. It took years to film. And there was another about Wolves and Caribou that was excellent.

     I didn’t get as into the Planet Earth series as I thought I would. Blue Planet was pretty good, but my favorite Sir David Attenborough series was The Private Life of Plants. I remember it premiered in the US in October and was shown all day on TBS, I think. October is the perfect time to think of trees and plants.

     
     
3. on December 5, 2009 at 1:12 am Peggy Richter

   regarding wild America and faked scenes in Animal documentaries, it has a long history:

   http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/cruelcamera/fakery.html

   Mostly the intent was to stage something that “happens” but which was difficult to catch on film since wild animals rarely will do something “to order”. Unfortunately, as with the Disney “lemmings” episode, sometimes something was staged that really didn’t occur at ALL in real life or which happened so rarely as to be atypical. When presented on film as “Truth”, it frequently created an image for most Americans which had little or no relationship to reality. When Science takes a back seat to political correctness or someone’s agenda, it makes it very difficult for the layman to seperate the reality from the “just so” story. One of the reasons the suppression of opposing views on global warming is so bad is that it now brings into question ALL the data, pro or con. The same applies to animal documentry — when you fake some of it, it brings all the data into question.
   Vr, Peggy Richter

   
   
   • on December 5, 2009 at 1:35 am retrieverman

     I have seen that footage about the lemmings.

     Now, for films you can say this is the case.

     Not so on climate change.

     This is very similar to the swiftboating nonsense that was done to Senator Kerry.

     “Climategate” is a mountain out of a molehill. It’s more like Piltdown Man.

     Piltdown Man didn’t destroy the evidence that man and great apes have a common ancestor. And the contrived, Fox News controversy called Climategate is very similar in regard to global warming.

     If we don’t do something about this issue, we are going to rue the day that we didn’t. Even if some data is sexed up.

     Yes, they retooled things, but I don’t think the whole thing is wrong.

     Farley Mowat told absolute falsehoods about wolves. However, his general thesis about their role in the ecosystem is true.

     If the only evidence we had for manmade climate change came from this research, yes, I’d agree with it.

     The problem is that we have tons and tons of other science that confirms it.

     And in science, if we have that level of evidence, we have to accept it as true.

     This problem has been made worse by the fact that there are people who deny this as a reality. With all due respect, the so-called scientists who come up with critiques of it are either cranks, who will never get anything published ever, or paid for by the fossil fuel companies.

     
     
     • on December 5, 2009 at 2:22 am flattie-n-Labbie

       Aside from the “truth” about global warming, which I do not pretend to have at the moment–

       Science questions.

       Always.

       Science that disallows questions about itself is no longer science–it is something else.

       (Doesn’t anyone else remember that about 30 years ago the world was going to freeze over??? Are ALL my childhood memories tainted or irrelevant???)

       
       
       • on December 5, 2009 at 1:59 pm retrieverman

         But the with totality of all the evidence, questioning this is like questioning gravity or evolution. Most real scientists hate it when corporate interests try to influence their research, which is what 9/10 of the deniers are. They aren’t doing it from a scientifice perspective. It is ideological. The biggest denier was Margaret Thatcher’s science adviser.

         The reason why the New Ice Age hypothesis was rejected is that that the technology that is used to figure climate models is now much better.

         To get something published that totally denies climate change in a peer reviewed journal is like trying to get an anti-evolution piece published in a biology journal.

         What went on in East Anglia was wrong. I’m not saying that it was.

         However, it’s much more like the Piltdown man hoax. It affected the science that applied only to that particular specimen.

         This actually reminds me of what happened to John Kerry in 2004. It’s a swift-boating of climate issues.

         
         
         • on December 5, 2009 at 3:39 pm flattie-n-Labbie

           Okay, I wasn’t going to do this, but I can’t seem to help it.

           My problem with all of the current “climate debate” actually has very little to do with global warming and more to do with the rhetoric on both sides which is plunging us into a dark ages.

           First–science is not about concensus, it is about hypothesis and the scientific method. When scientists claim truth through concensus, they deserve to be questioned. When scientists “tweak” data, and when scientists behave in a manner which subverts the integrity of hypothesis and the scientific method, they deserve to be questioned.

           Second–the problem with calling scientists who question the current climate theories “deniers” is that it turns the current science into “belief.”

           Science is not belief.

           Until I see more grownups in the debate, I think it’s a very poor foundation for economic policy the burden of which will be borne by the working class in first-world countries and the desperately poor in third-world countries.

           
           
           • on December 5, 2009 at 3:50 pm retrieverman

             My views on it are not based upon belief, but it is based upon evidence. And when the evidence is overwhelming, well, I mean I’m not postmodernist. It is possible to be wrong.

             I’d rather it not be true at all, considering where I live and what the main source of generation of electricity is.

             However, I can tell you that if even some of the catastrophes that are predicted through climate change come true, it will cost us– and the working people all over the world– a lot more.

             We do have good substitutions. Natural gas can be an important bridge that allows us to develop better alternative energies, which will create more jobs and make the economy work again.

             Brazil is a developing country, and it has started down this path. Its economy has grown in recent years in the private sector. Sweden, China (China may become the world leader in the New Green economy, do we want that?), Germany, Denmark– all of these countries are going down this road and are coming up with real solutions and real growth.

             I don’t support cap and trade. I support more private-public partnerships with all sectors within the energy field and the scientific community to generate these technology. I even think we could get the Pentagon involved with this, just as what happened with the invention of the internet. The Pentagon invented the internet, not Al Gore.

             
             
           • on December 5, 2009 at 3:57 pm retrieverman

             I actually find that there is more censorship against climate change science than the other way around. This is what the last administration did: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/21/censoring_science_inside_the_political_attack

             The evidence that really got me was when the Ellesmere Ice sheet broke off. That Ice Sheet actually survived the last round of warming, meaning that the current warming is far more extreme than when the Norse settled Greenland. That ice sheet was estimated to be 4,500 years old.

             I’d like for none of this to be true.

             But it is.

             We in the East may have experienced a bad winter and a cool summer last year, but the West got cooked.

             The climate does change on its own. I don’t deny this.

             I just think that 1. people are trying to deny this for reasons other than scientific reasons and 2. not doing anything is actually going to hold us back in the long run.

             
             
   • on December 5, 2009 at 1:44 am retrieverman

     New Scientist on this issue: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18238-why-theres-no-sign-of-a-climate-conspiracy-in-hacked-emails.html

     
     
4. on December 5, 2009 at 3:58 pm Peggy Richter

   It’s not a case of if there is/isn’t climate change. By denying publishing of honest data that contravened some of their conclusions and worse, by DESTROYING the data they used to come to many of their conclusions, the UK scientists did more to damage their position than any of their opponents. No one can make an honest projection based on the data because the data no longer exists. It’s like cold fusion — a claim must be reproducible. And while many (not all) of the skeptics may be tied to the “fossil fuel” industrialists, many of the proponents (not all) are tied to companies making money off “dealing with global change” such as solar power and “green cars”. Al Gore has a LOT of money based on investments in these kinds of companies. He has something to gain from his position. And “climate change” has been happening for a long time — obviously we aren’t still living in the “ice age”. The planet has been warming ever since. The sixty-four dollar question is “have humans accelerated this” AND “if so, by how much”. By denying any contrary arguments and by destroying the data, the UK folk made this much much harder to verify. A comparison (with less social impact) is the ongoing argument about “are birds descended from dinosaurs” – the consensus is yes, but that hasn’t meant those who disagree can’t get published in journals like PNAS or PLOS-one.
   For myself, I believe the climate probably is warming – certainly the planet has never been in “stasis” regarding climate and is not likely to be so now. The problem I see is the promotion of solutions which make money for some but really AREN’T good solutions (if it costs more TOTAL to build a Prius than a diesel truck, then this should be acknowledged. Playing games with stats is not going to really help. “buying a tree” to pay for jetting around, as the Gov of Calif does is fraud, especially when the “tree” happens to die a year after. Putting in solar panels at Owens dry lake isn’t for ecology, it’s so Los Angeles can avoid being required to put in WATER they stole back in the 1930s based on the Supreme Court decision on the case). And frankly, the fastest way to reduce human impact on the planet is for everyone to have no more than ONE offspring for the next two or three generations. Fewer humans means less human impact even if we do nothing else. I believe in taking care of the environment and better “cleaner’ technology. But I don’t believe in hype. Unfortunately more than one “green” advocate has indulged in it.
   Vr, Peggy Richter

   
   
   • on December 5, 2009 at 4:00 pm retrieverman

     That’s simply not true.

     These people aren’t dealing with honest data.

     They are literally making it up, and you shouldn’t publish it.

     I blame the journalists (and whatever the heck they do at Fox) for not understanding science and making a mountain out of a molehill.

     That new scientist piece is the best critique of this swift-boating I’ve seen. A friend of mine who is a physicist can’t believe that this is even a controversy. Scientists manipulate and fix data all the time. If they didn’t they would get very high error terms in their data and their ability to model the real world would simply be impossible.

     And because this coincides with Copenhagen, it could be disastrous for our planet and for the following generations. If America doesn’t get on board with this, we will be in Dark Ages soon. We will no longer be the leader at anything.

     I don’t believe this is hysteria.

     I believe this is a real threat to the survival of the planet.

     I think what the Fox News crowd has done is very irresponsible. Fox News is now like the Medieval Church. It says things and people believe it. It may not be true, but because it is believed, disastrous policies are continued.

     
     
5. on December 8, 2009 at 10:25 am Andy

   http://www.livescience.com/environment/091206-climategate-emails.html

   Check out the comments in that story.

   
   
6. on December 8, 2009 at 2:52 pm Lane Batot

   Ahhh, memories….”Wild Kingdom” was the ONLY nature show available(except for some Disney episodes) when I was growing up, and at least they DID say “whether actual or created”, unlike “Wild America”. We used to joke about what animals Marty Stouffer was going to “pit fight” this week, when watching the program(always seemed to involve fighting animals!), and scrutinized the sets for camaflouged fencing in the background! The WORST episode I remember was his award winning Wolf and Whitetail segment, with the deer running around in circles until the wolves finally nailed it–obviously in a fenced enclosure! Wild Kingdom did some good stuff for the time–all those guys are still heroes to me(I recently ordered some of the shows on DVD–boy, the memories that brought back!). Stan Brock is still going strong in his 70’s, and running a really admirable program for getting doctors to remote areas and poor people, called RAM–Remote Area Medical–check out their website! Stan’s book “Where All The Cowboys Were Indians” about his years working on a ranch in South America is SUPER! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! He is the real deal! And as for “Nature”–I agree they are not as good as when George Page was running the show–why in the heck, if they are going to show mostly reruns, don’t they pull out some of those oldies-but-goodies? Instead of the same handful over and over?!!

   
   
7. on December 8, 2009 at 3:00 pm Lane Batot

   ….And Flat-n-Lab, your memories are NOT failing you; I remember the Winter of ’76/’77(my senior year in high school), it was one of the “worst” winters on record in N. C., and there was snow every winter month–I got to stay out of school a LOT, which I loved! Roamed the woods tracking deer almost every day! Had to go forever that next summer to make it up, though…..Anyway, that year, the media was whining about how it was the beginning of a new Ice Age, and how all the Northern cities could eventually be crushed under glaciers! Purty funny now! I’m afraid the Global Warming is more serious, though, regardless of whomever is fudging statistics to favor their arguements. Something needs to be done if only to control the POLLUTION, regardless of tempuratures!

   
   
   • on December 8, 2009 at 3:03 pm retrieverman

     That winter it dropped to -20 degrees Fahrenheit and stayed below zero for a month in West Virginia (which is unheard of).

     
     

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