Archive for September 2009

« FOXSYLVANIA home page
Newer Entries »

The Chicken Empathy Museum!

September 15, 2009

chicken– –PETA was talking about taking over a former prison in Virginia and turning it into a Chicken Empathy Museum. – – I swear that I am not making this up!  Visitors to the museum would be served faux chicken drumsticks and other vegetarian items, and among other things, could wear weighted backpacks to simulate how chickens feel when their upper body growth is unnaturally stimulated.

Presumably, Colonel Sanders and the Burger King would not be welcome at the Chicken Empathy Museum unless featured in a rogue’s gallery…Foghorn Leghorn’s day may have come!- –Be-bawk!

Categories: animal rights, animals, strange happenings
Tags:

Comments: 5 Comments

Jack Nicholson’s “Wolf”

September 14, 2009

wolf-“Inside every man there are two people–one good, one beast.”

Did ‘Ya Catch This One Department: Jack Nicholson has done horror flicks, including Little Shop of Horrors and The Shining (“– -Here’s Johnny!“). Nicholson is such an awesome actor that even his stranger and less memorable performances are worth watching, and Wolf is no exception.  In the vintage 1994 flick, Nicholson plays a publishing executive whose life begins to change after he’s bitten by a wolf.  First his mood changes, then his sense of hearing and smell go into overdrive; then there’s the problem of Nicholson’s character leaping around in the neighborhood at night killing deer and other animals with his teeth (…don’t you hate it when that happens?).

While we’ve seen better special effects and aspects of the performances seem curiously detached, the psychological aspects of Nicholson’s transformation make this movie a kick, with his character finding himself more energized and more competitive than ever, plus possessed of amazingly heightened senses; ” ’tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.” While rejected by Nicholson’s usual fans for its horror content as well as by some horror fans, Wolf is thoughtful horror that has more brains than blood…this Wolf, while flawed,  is no dog!

Categories: animals, anthropomorphic, cool things, furry, movies
Tags: , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Pop Tarts…

September 13, 2009

Pam Anderson— Pamela Anderson has made a series of anti-fur, anti-leather spots for PETA. Only trouble is, they are a bit too…err, hot to be posted in New York City airports, or for that matter, aired on television.  In some, she is wearing less than in the posted image (not that there’s anything wrong with leafy vegetables)!

The rejection of these images comes as a bit of a surprise to Ms. Anderson, who as you can see, has little to hide.  True to her campaign, Ms. Anderson isn’t wearing any fur, either…nope, definitely no fur being worn here, furolks…our staff has gone over these pictures carefully, ahem!

…I just love tributes to vegetarianism, don’t you?–Well, Pam’s heart is in the right place…and so, I might add, is everything else…

Categories: animal rights, furry causes, television, things humans do
Tags: ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Disney and Marvel?

September 12, 2009

Wolverine— Well, Disney has bought Marvel Entertainment for about four billion bucks…a fair piece of change by anyone’s standards.  The move will make Disney house owner of Marvel’s dazzling array of characters, and probably improve Disney’s appeal to males…

…one hopes that Disney will not neuter Marvel’s characters, and that we’ll never hear Wolverine sing, “When you wish upon a star.” –Will we see the Hulk School Musical?–Will Wolverine and Sabertooth have a song fight?–One suspects that Logan would not be pleased by this merger…

Categories: cartoons, comics, furry causes
Tags:

Comments: 3 Comments

Monster Freshwater Fish!

September 11, 2009

catfish

— “Just when you thought that it was safe to swim in freshwater lakes and rivers..”

So warns another MonsterQuest episode, but I, for one, do not live in fear of monster catfish…they just don’t have, for me, the shock and awe factor.  It’s not that really big catfish don’t exist…a nine-footer was found, for example, in the Mekong Delta.  Catfish which can supposedly swallow small children whole are also said to exist in the Amazon River, where natives claim to routinely catch 50 pound catfish, with others said to be much bigger, say to around 600 pounds…that ought to feed a lot of people at Cracker Barrel or other places where catfish are served!

The episode also introduced us to “fish noodlers,” who catch catfish with their bare hands; you grab ’em by the lower lip, and it’s said to be like grabbing a wet noodle!  Remind me never to apply for such work…

Other big fish exist, like pikes, one of which is thought to have attacked a man in a lake in Minnesota.  Lake trout continue to grow throughout their life , and one of these was thought to have been as large as a 14-foot boat in a 1987 Arctic circle encounter.    Then there are alligator gar, which can weigh in at over 350 pounds.  An early 1900’s story exists of one of these slaying an alligator, and a 7-1/2 foot specimen was caught in 1910,

While no monster freshwater fish were caught by MonsterQuest on video, they are thought to be out there, but hard to find…haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

Categories: animals, rare animal, unexplained, unidentified
Tags: , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

New Species in New Guinea

September 7, 2009

extinct vulcano— It’s getting increasingly hard to find anywhere in the world where the foot of man has not trod, and erected a Starbucks…but even in today’s world, explorers are still able to find a few undiscovered places and new species along with it!

One such place is Papua, New Guinea where scientists in a remote mountainous region (pictured) have discovered more than 50 new animal species that include spiders, tree frogs, and a striped gecko that appear to have never been described in scientific literature before.  One of the spiders is shiny and pale green, and there’s a bug-eyed bright green tree frog.  Frogs are often regarded as a great bioindicator of environmental health, with declines in frogs pointing to an affected or changing environment.

My favorite discovery, however, was described as being a giant but friendly vegetarian rat, who may turn out to be the largest in the world.   A tree-dwelling marsupial was found that looks like a bear, and also discovered  was a frog with fangs (should be perfect for the upcoming Halloween)!    kanga_new_guinea

Categories: animals, cool things, environmental, rare animal, science
Tags: ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Cougars in Seattle!

September 5, 2009

mercury cougar— No, not the Mercury Cougar…we’re talkin’ cougars as in mountain lions, pumas, panthers, and catamounts.  The big cats more commonly attack pets and livestock than people, but a 5-year-old boy was mauled in the Northeast corner of Washington state last Wednesday, and in the past year other attacks have been reported in a few Western states, including Washington and Wyoming. In June of 2008, a cougar killed a 55-year-old man in New Mexico.

Associated Press reports that Seattle’s largest park, Discovery Park, is currently off limits as state wildlife agents try to trap a cougar in or near Discovery Park.  The last time that a cougar was seen in Discovery Park was 1981.  It was dubbed “D.B. Cougar” after the elusive hijacker, D.B. Cooper!

This past Friday morning, a man in that area said that he saw a cougar (no, not the Mercury!) in his driveway as he went to pick up his newspaper. So we’ve got foxes in Detroit, leopards in upstate New York, and cougars in Seattle…It’s a start, right?cougar

Categories: animal occurrences, animals, environmental, furry, unexplained
Tags: ,

Comments: 4 Comments

Mega Jaws, “The Black Demon…”

September 4, 2009

megalodon— Hmm…you go looking for a megalodon, and find…a whale shark!  Somehow, the thrill is gone…

MonsterQuest went in search of a surviving megalodon shark in the Sea of Cortez in a recent offering, seeking also to better date a megalodon tooth specimen found by the HMS Challenger and estimated in 1959 to be about 10,000 years old.–Surprise!  The tooth was judged not to be datable by modern scientific methods…bummer!

Now since sharks lack bones, most of what we know about extinct species comes from their teeth, with paleontologists estimating ten feet of shark for every inch of tooth.  By such calculation, megalodon measured up to 50 feet long, weighed up to 50 tons, and was two to three times larger than today’s great white shark.  This bad boy lived during the Miocene and Pliocene Eras, 25 to 5 million years ago.–What did they eat?–anything they wanted to, but probably seals at the small end of the scale to giant squid, other sharks, and whales…truly an apex predator!

MonsterQuest felt that most of the sightings is the area were misidentifications of whale sharks, who are just filter feeders.  Some feel that MonsterQuest would have had better luck locating a megalodon in the Marianas Trench area…


Categories: animals, extinct species, rare animal, television
Tags: ,

Comments: 6 Comments

Chupacabra Redux!

September 3, 2009

Chupacabra Redux — What’s black, wrinkly, Texan, and bald all over?–Chupacabra, according to some!  A Texas taxidermist near Rosenberg has had the creature in his possession for a couple of months, finding it dead in a barn and keeping it in a freezer until last weekend (remind me not to eat there)!  The creature was likely poisoned by bait placed in the barn to catch an unidentified animal.

Found near Blanco, Texas, the creature weighs about 35 pounds, and has somewhat long fangs, like those of a coyote.  The legs like the teeth are abnormally long.  The face is fox- or coyote-like, and the emaciated body is likely that of a young adult coyote or dog with severe mange, making it hairless.  The face is judged too long and pointy to be a dog, although some dogs are fox-like in their appearance.  Most likely, it’s a freak of nature (like some of my best friends).

Plans are to preserve the animal and then donate it to a local museum, “so it can be enjoyed by others.”–What could be more appropriate?!


Categories: animal oddities, animals, anomalies, cool things, cryptozoology, furry, rare animal, unexplained, unidentified
Tags: ,

Comments: 4 Comments

Newer Entries »