Like this? Pretty.
Posted on 04/05/2009 3:56:15 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW HAVEN, Vt. – The black salamander with yellow spots sat on the roadside in the dark, ready to make a go of it.
But it was not on its own. It got help from an escort — one of 45 people who volunteered on a recent night to carry salamanders, frogs and newts across the road during their annual migration to mate.
...
From rural Vermont to urban centers like Philadelphia, human escorts, called bucket brigades in some places, help amphibians make it to their mating areas without getting squashed by cars. It's part education, part conservation, and part science.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Hey - I’m just making the evolutionist argument. We’re just another species that modifies the environment, like beavers building dams. If the salamanders can’t get past the new beaver’s dam without taking losses, then the fittest wins out.
We’d all be better off if we had followed your post.
Remember the sign, “Slow Men Working” ?
We’d have fewer gummint types.
Just sayin’
“Hey - I’m just making the evolutionist argument. We’re just another species that modifies the environment, like beavers building dams. If the salamanders can’t get past the new beaver’s dam without taking losses, then the fittest wins out.”
Here’s one on my my island where the beavers won. It happened just the other day.
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/whidbey/swr/news/42415467.html
All animals have intelligence.
People, though, “judge” their intellect based purely on the human paradigm.
Animals can transcend their own limitations and linguistic barriers and learn *our* language yet we can not decipher theirs beyond a rudimentary “wanna go outside bark” type of communication.
The terrapins do not surprise me at all.
I have a colony of ants in my lane that have “connected” with me which is really surprising considering the war humans usually wage upon them.
Every summer, I take out treats for them, usually in the form of finely crushed peanut butter Ritz Bitz.
Whatever they’re doing with their busy little ant lives comes to an immediate halt and they *all* start marching back to the anthills in anticipation of a delicious snack.
They do not display the usual “human avoidance” behavior; indeed, they crowd around me in happy expectation.
Once I’ve doled out the crumbs to their various mounds, I will sit for a while and watch them carry their bounty back underground.
I especially enjoy the adults bringing the tiny babies up from the underground chambers in order to teach them how to gather food.
I got into this rather accidentally via a book which stated that ants build their mounds over electro-magnetic “lines of force” underground.
When the mounds are clearly marked with pale tan crumbs, they form a nearly perfect sine wave in my driveway.
I hope that I never lose my “child like wonder” at all the tiny miracles the good Lord has placed *everywhere* on this plant.
[and everything is a miracle, if people only took the time to bother to look around...or below them]
Still, Winston Churchill would approve. He said that a country could be judged in its treatment of animals, and once had a butler carry a ladybug from his office to outdoors.
I'm a big fan of Churchill. ;)
Thank so much for posting. I really enjoyed all of the information that you shared. This thread was certainly made for you. Thanks again.
Gosh, Mila, thanks....:)
The funny thing is that, almost to the minute, as I was being pinged to this thread, I was outside helping the Redback salamander I mentioned.
How’s that for “perfect symmetry”?...:))
Like this? Pretty.
I can see that, I like the little ladybugs, too. They do no harm that I know of.
Maybe we don’t even have salamanders in my part of Tx. I’m probably thinking gopher. Gophers probably aeriate the soil as well, but thier burrows can be hazardous, and I think they eat the plants roots.
We see people in this thread commenting with amusement about numerous turtles being smashed on the road. Box turtles are territorial; they will roam endlessly if removed from their "homes." That's intelligence of a sort, as is the ability of salamanders to know where there is a vernal pool and how to get there in the dark, then return home. Yet we see people referring to salamanders as "garden vermin!" Salamanders aren't vermin; they are completely harmless, beneficial creatures, as a turtles (even snappers are shy and will avoid people if they can). I'm afraid that some conservatives are so hostile to the environmental movement, which has been infiltrated and subverted by the Left, that they overreact and think that love of nature is inherently bad. Nothing could be further from the truth.
As for arthropods, I am amazed at the way a spider will often turn towards you when disturbed, then stop as if "thinking" and waiting to see what you will do. With all our technology, we cannot create a robot with the capabilities of a spider or salamander. These creatures deserve our respect.
The Victorian vivisectionists coined the term “A Clockwork, Orange” from the Cockney phrase “as queer as a clockwork orange”.
They believed the screams of pain elicited from the animals they were butchering alive were no more than “mindless, automatic responses”, much as a hinge would creak upon opening a door or a stick would emit a crack when broken.
[we had a lot of “droogs” visit this thread]
Occasionally I’m ashamed to be associated with *some* FReepers.
Small wonder ‘conservatives’ are considered to be heartless.
Were I a casual, uncommitted observer of this thread, I’d wonder about them, myself.
The simple two word, monosyllabic phrase “Smash them!” tells me -everything- I’ll ever need to know about a person.
[and to also avoid them like the plague]
My book recommendations are “The Secret House” and “The Secret Garden” by David Bodanis.
An entire alien universe lies just beyond our sight.
A snippet from the inimitable William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro’ all its regions.
A dog starv’d at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm’d for fight
Does the rising sun affright.
Every wolf’s and lion’s howl
Raises from hell a human soul.
The wild deer, wand’ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus’d breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.
The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won’t believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever’s fright.
He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov’d by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov’d
Shall never be by woman lov’d.
The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider’s enmity.
He who torments the chafer’s sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.
The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.
He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar’s dog and widow’s cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.
The gnat that sings his summer’s song
Poison gets from slander’s tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy’s foot.
The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist’s jealousy.
Thanks for your posts!
This thread put me in mind of the well-known quote of Anne Frank:
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
I’m not that up on gophers and their alleged danger to us, but I do find it utterly absurd that many people put out traps to skewer moles in their burrows. Most of these people probably don’t even know that moles are not rodents and are entirely beneficial. They spend their lives eating grubs which attack the roots of grass and other plants, and they aerate the soil. Some people seem to be full of hate and malice. I knew some ranchhands who went out one evening with shotguns and slaughtered every last one of the swallows who nested under the eaves of the barns. Then one of these idiots a few days later complained about the mosquitoes! Anyone who exhibits this kind of unprovoked cruelty toward animals really can’t be trusted around human beings either.
Ladybugs are actually very beneficial. They prey on harmful insects like aphids. Like salamanders, they are also “cute” and a delight to the human eye.
Okay, let me see if I got this straight, there you are alongside the road with a flashlight and see a salamander halfway across the road and a car comes roaring up the highway; fearing for the salamander’s life you dash out in the road, swoop it up and dart back to where you were just as the wind from the car unfurls your loosened jacket.
Now what, do you set the little beast back down and let him start over, or just give him a little flip to the other side?
You said:
“Not surprisingly, the Eastern Spotted Salamander, once so common as to be unremarkable, is now rarely seen.
When I do find newly morphed ones, I take them far up onto our mountain and put them near a shallow pond that contains no fish.”
Don’t you thimk you have these two sentences in the wrong order?
That's sick!
When an amphibian does have to be picked up, it is carried to the other side and put down, not "flipped" to the other side, or put back on the pavement. That would make no sense at all.
While we were out there, some yahoos sped up and spun their tires, as if eager to kill something, and some creep stole the "salamander crossing" sign placed by the side of the road. As I've posted above, some people are just plain nasty, and seem to relish killing innocent life and showing off their callousness to the world. I wouldn't trust such people around my house, esp. if I had pets or children around.
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