THE WEST
Size mattered not a whit during a backyard encounter in the town of Kirkland, in northwest Washington, that pitted a yapping teacup poodle against a 200-pound black bear, reports The Week magazine. The tiny dog acted so ferocious that the bear climbed a tree, leaped into an adjoining yard and hightailed it back to the woods.
And in Everett, Wash., ferocious animals confront the police department every time a uniformed officer tries to leave headquarters and walk to a cruiser. Out of the sky swirls a flock of birds of the sort known collectively, and in this case rather aptly, as a murder of crows which dive-bomb police officers, attacking like velociraptors, as one beleaguered cop told the Everett Herald. It didnt help matters when one officer used his siren in an attempt to scare off the crows; the birds retaliated by littering his cruiser with droppings, reports newsfeed.com. Readers who commented offered conflicting advice. One urged the police to just blow the corvids away with a 12-gauge shotgun; another advised a more conciliatory approach. Leave a daily food offering, talonshawks suggested: Try to work with them, not against them, as you wont win against them.
In Pullman, Wash., however, all is amity between at least one wild creature and humans. Thanks to doctors at Washington State Universitys veterinary hospital, a 12-year-old African tortoise is walking again on three legs and a caster-style wheel. The 23-pound tortoise had to have one of its front legs amputated and would have been one lopsided creature without some kind of prosthesis. So doctors fitted out the tortoise with the smoothly turning wheel, using epoxy to attach it, reports the Billings Gazette. Gamera, the tortoise, can now plod his way with ease over grass, is particularly good at moving toward food, and has gained three pounds since the wheel was attached.
ARIZONA
As if back-to-back giant dust storms werent bad enough for Phoenix residents during early July, they then had to put up with what some people decried as a Muslim word haboob to describe the mile-high sandstorms pushed by 60 mile-per-hour-winds. Haboob? English, please! complained one resident on the Weather Channels Facebook page. Another commenter was suspicious: The current preference for Arabic in meteorology is curious. Yet calling a sandstorm a haboob is nothing new, says Salon.com: The Arizona Department of Transportations website has an entire section on haboobs a section that dates back to at least late 2005. Whatever anybody labels them, the roiling clouds of dirt halted air traffic for a while, knocked out electricity, turned day into dusk, and left lots of people coughing, reports The New York Times. The haboobs were caused by drought and severe thunderstorms that agitated the air. By the way, those summer rainstorms may also have a Middle Eastern connection. Locals usually call them monsoons, a word that some dictionaries link to the Arabic mausim, meaning weather.
CALIFORNIA
Poodle-dog bush what a cute name for a plant! It grows at about 5,000 feet, sports purple flowers and looks a lot like lupine. But beware: This plant has a poisonous bite. If you pick it, walk through it or expose any part of your body to it, poodle-dog raises blisters similar to those caused by poison oak, and the rash can smart for weeks. The bush springs up periodically, usually after wildfire, and has now colonized much of the 250 square miles within the Angeles National Forest burned by the Station Fire in 2009, reports the Los Angeles Times. A woman whose husband walked shirtless through a field of poodle-dog says it took a lot of cortisone cream to relieve his resulting misery. Dont go strolling through these flowers, she warns, or Youll be one sorry puppy.
WASHINGTON, AGAIN
Heres another warning, this one for anyone planning to hike through Olympic National Park: Do not pee close to or on any trail frequented by mountain goats. The white, long-haired animals adore the salt in urine, and they tend to get possessive when humans make use of their trails: Urine deposits on the trail entice goats to use trail areas, and turn trails into long, linear salt licks, reports the Peninsula Daily News. In the wake of the goring death of a Port Angeles hiker last fall, Park Superintendent Karen Gustin in early July urged all visitors and park staff to keep at least 50 yards away from mountain goats, regardless of their behavior. The goat that killed Bob Boardman, 63, on a trail near Klahhane Ridge, had followed the man for close to a mile, walking five or six feet beside or behind him, according to the parks investigation. Park staff plan to do some aversive conditioning to keep the animals out of campsites and off trails, setting off sirens and air horns and pelting the goats with rubber projectiles and bean bags.
Betsy Marston is the editor of Writers on the Range, an op ed service of High Country News (hcn.org). Tips and photos of Western weirdness are always appreciated and often shared (betsym@hcn.org).
