Archive for the ‘animals’ category

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The Mario Tanooki Suit Controversy…

November 22, 2011

 – – It’s best not to look to the long-running Super Mario Bros. video game series for biological authenticity, or you may stomp on a turtle’s head and anticipate seeing a coin materialize out of its behind.  I confess to having played Mario Bros. in my day, and I also confess to liking the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and agreeing with many of their positions.  There are times, though, when PETA can become a bit, err, overdone.

The point of being over the top may have been reached in PETA’s opposition to the Tanooki suit as worn by the character of heroic plumber Mario in Super Mario 3D Land.  Now an actual tanuki is an animal native to Japan that looks like a raccoon but is more closely related to a dog, and by wearing a “Tanooki” suit, PETA feels that Mario is sending the message that it’s OK to wear fur.  While at points in the video game Mario dons a raccoon-ish looking “Tanooki” suit that enables him to float in the air and swat bad guys with his tail, he is never shown slaughtering an animal to get the suit; rather, Mario acquires the suit magically from hovering squares in the air. 

In protest irregardless, PETA has created its own game called “Super Tanooki Skin 2D” in which a skinless Tanooki chases a sinister-looking Mario who is in a fur suit dripping with blood and adorned with a raccoon-like head.

Nintendo’s response to PETA’s claims has been that Mario often takes the appearance of certain animals and objects in his games, with such things having included a frog, a penguin, a balloon, and even a metallic version of himself.  The whimsical transformations are intended  to give Mario different abilities and to make the games fun to play, with no statement intended beyond the games themselves…

Categories: absurdities, animals, furry, strange
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Comments: 2 Comments

McDonald’s Supplier Animal Abuse?

November 19, 2011

 – – Regardless of how you look at it, chickens do not live enviable lives.  They should not, however, be forced to live their entire lives in cages so small that they can barely turn around, or be swung around by their feet by their caretakers.  The animal rights group Mercy for Animals recently released video illustrating such conditions that was filmed over three months by an undercover investigator posing as an employee for Sparboe Farms, the fifth largest egg producer in the country and a major egg supplier for McDonald’s.   The FDA has also said that it discovered serious violations of a federal rule designed to prevent salmonella at five egg production facilities of Sparboe.

McDonald’s has dumped the supplier, who has said that the actions illustrated in the video are in direct violation of their animal care code of conduct and dismissed the workers involved.  McDonald’s is further studying the merits of traditional versus cage-free hen housing systems, which are already used by the company in Europe…

 

 

Categories: animal abuse, animal rights, animals, deplorable practices
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Don’t Ask Santa For One…

November 17, 2011

 – – You might not want a hippopotamus for Christmas, regardless of what the irritating novelty song tells you.  Consider the case of South African farmer Marius Els who adopted at five months of age a male hippo rescued as a calf during a flood, and added him to his collection of 20 different exotic animals including giraffe and rhino that he kept on his farm.  Naming the hippo Humphrey, the former army major built a bond with the animal, considered him harmless, and was videotaped riding him.  Els was repeatedly warned that the hippo was still a wild animal and had to be treated with caution; incidents occurred where the hippo was blamed for killing calves and also broke out of his enclosure, chasing golfers at a nearby club.

The mutilated body of Marius Els was recently found in a river running through his property after the man was bitten several times by the hippo and then dragged underwater.  Hippos, you see, are highly territorial, and are considered one of the world’s most dangerous animals, commonly attacking humans with no apparent provocation, and usually using their enormous canine teeth to gouge their victims. 

The hippopotamus can weigh up to three tons, and travel at speeds of up to 30 mph…

Categories: animal occurrences, animals, furry, furry stories
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Another Ogopogo Sighting?

November 11, 2011

 – – There are large, blurry, out-of-focus monsters out there stalking the landscape!  One is Ogopogo, Canada’s version of the Loch Ness Monster, sightings of which have been reported since at least the 19th century by thousands.- -Well, a man visiting British Columbia’s Lake Okanagan has recently filmed a 30-second video which shows…gasp!…two long ripples in the water in a seemingly deserted area of the lake!  The man making the video notes that what was shown in the footage was not a wave but was of a darker color, and that it did not move parallel with the waves.

Now Ogopogo is most commonly described as a 40- to 50-foot-long sea serpent, sometimes seen with humps, which is believed to have its origins in legends of native Canadian Indian folklore.  The name “ogopogo” originates from a 1924 English music hall song called, “The Ogo-Pogo:  The Funny Fox Trot,” an apparent disparaging reference to my dancing ability. Despite a number of high-tech searches of  Lake Okanagan by submarines and other underwater gadgets, no evidence of Ogopogo has ever been found.   Lake Okanagan does, however, have tens of thousands of  submerged logs floating just under its surface, and most sightings are attributed to misidentified logs or common animals such as otters.  So color me skeptical, but the notion of a residential monster is extremely cool…

Categories: animals, aquatic, cryptozoology, unexplained, unidentified
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Mainstream Misfit Toy?

November 7, 2011

– – As most of you are probably aware, kids have an almost endless fascination with bodily functions, so I suppose it was almost inevitable that a game was developed that involved a plastic dog and, err, bodily function number two.- – I swear that I am not making this up!  Contestants feed the dog plasticene, work a pump, the plasticene is processed through the plastic dog, exits the appropriate end with flatulent sounds, and the player who winds up with the most doggie doo’s wins the game!- -Won’t that be a great preparation for adult life?- -Should be a real winner at church functions and below the old Xmas tree this year!

 

The concept for the game has been in existence for about 15 years, although rudimentary standards of taste and questions of corporate image kept it from being further developed and marketed in the U.S. until recently.   Europe, however, knew how to appreciate a toy dog with excremental functions, and the game has been a runaway hit there.  Now you too can buy Doggie Doo in this country, and the game featuring a poopy dachshund is poised to be an American hit, available at major retailers this year…

Categories: absurdities, animals, furry, strange, trends
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Comments: 4 Comments

Mentos UP2U Gum Commercial Tiger

November 2, 2011

 – – Since childhood, you’ve probably heard the rhyme, “eenie meenie minie moe, /catch a tiger by the toe,/ if he hollers, let him go,/ etc.- -Well, in this commercial we see that rhyme visualized when a mild-mannered office worker is using the eenie meenie method to determine which of the Mentos gum flavors to pick. 

 

Suddenly, a tiger pops up on cue with his toe caught in a trap!  The realistic tiger growls menacingly at the office nerd before asking engagingly, “Do I really need to holler?”  Both calm yet afraid, the guy shakes his head no, and likewise verbalizes in the negative…and what else could he say?!  In the background, another worker may be seen getting the h*** out.–Well done, Mentos!- –Don’t play “Hold That Tiger!”

Categories: animals, anthropomorphic, furry, furry commercials, television
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Comments: 2 Comments

Howloween at Last!

October 31, 2011

– – It’s Halloween,  Foxsylvanians, that most special day of the year to me, and I would be much amiss if I didn’t wish each and every one of my valued readers a frightful and delightful day!  Enjoy the day, and Get your roar on!

Categories: animals, current events, furry
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Not the Usual Suspects…

October 29, 2011

 – – “Grimm…what a lovely name!,“  once remarked Morticia Addams.  In this new NBC series, a Grimm is a hunter of mythological creatures which only the hunters and their kind can perceive under the guise of normality as such beings walk among us.  Echoing such past shows as The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel, Grimm has been described as “one part police procedural drama and one part supernatural slug fest,”  drawing story lines and characters from the sizable corpus of Grimm’s fairy tales, many of which are dark delights.

In the season premier, we meet a reformed Big Bad Wolf, who is not big, no longer bad, does Pilates, and attends church.  There are others of his werewolf kind, but they don’t hang out much; bad things happen, ‘ya see, when they get into packs.   Some werewolves continue to exist who still do bad things like kill and abduct, but even the one perp the story concerns is a mixed bag who wears nice sweaters, lives in a beautiful mountain house, makes pies, works for the government postal service(–what else?), and keeps a young girl captive in his basement. –But hey, as Clint Eastwood’s character emoted in Tightrope, “There’s a darkness inside us all.”


This isn’t The X-Files, but I enjoyed the opener, and hope for some Grimm times ahead.   Of furry interest is the reformed werewolf, who apparently in going to be a continuing character in the series, as is the toothy female pictured…

Categories: animals, anthropomorphic, creature features, fantasy, furry, television
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Comments: 3 Comments

Cyclops Shark!

October 25, 2011

  – – It looks like it’s made of rubber, but it’s real…an albino fetal Cyclops shark cut from the belly of a pregnant dusky shark in the Gulf of Mexico this past summer.  Shark researchers have examined the preserved creature and found that its single eye is made of functional optical tissue…it’s unlikely, however, that the malformed shark would have survived outside of the womb. 

Less than 50 examples of an abnormality like this have been recorded in sharks.   Cyclopia is a rare developmental abnormality in which only one eye develops,  and it has been seen in a variety of species…

Categories: animal oddities, animals, aquatic, cool things, strange
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Aftermath of an Animal Tragedy…

October 22, 2011

  – – Just days after a private owner of exotic pets in Ohio set dozens free this week and then committed suicide, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed an executive order pushing for a moratorium on exotic animal auctions and a crackdown on unlicensed auctions in the state. 

 

Animal activists have complained that Ohio has some of the nation’s laxest regulations on exotic pets.  A Dayton, Ohio based group that wants to end private ownership of wild animals says that it knows of at least 20 farms that are comparable to the one in Zanesville from which 56 exotic animals were released with authorities subsequently slaying 49 of them, including 18 rare Bengal tigers…one percent of the world’s Bengal tiger population.

Categories: animal occurrences, animals, furry, furry causes
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Comments: 2 Comments

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