Be ready to cry with joy
If you can watch this video with a dry eye - I’m not sure you’re really an Animal Nerd.
I feel I do have to say - notice they had to give Christian up.
I am very against exotic animals as pets. Most people are not equipped to provide for an exotic for their entire life. Large animals such as lions, tigers, bears (oh my) as well as snakes and other reptiles that grow to be exceptionally large (anacondas, burmese pythons, alligators, caimans) almost always outgrow their owners ability to keep them.
When it comes to owning an animal and giving them the care they need, love does not conquer all. And it is so very clear the strong and abiding love these people and this lion shared. They made a responsible decision, that I know must have been very hard for them. I applaud them for it.
Blessedbe
Summer Fey Foovay
Filed under animals in the news, editorial rant, heartwarming, unusual pets, wildlife | Comment (0)off topic, but very important to me - and possibly to you!
Today I am asking you to please help me, and other artists who share their work with you on the Internet.
There is a bill making it’s way through Congress. Bill #2913, the so-called “Orphan Works” bill. This bill would allow any company to use artwork without compensating the artist if they have made a “due diligence” effort (which is not defined in the bill) to locate the artist.
What this means is this. Your child colors one of my coloring pages. She does such a lovely job, you scan it and put it up on your blog. A couple of people see it and like it so much they copy the image and put it on their webpage or blog without crediting the source. A company exec sees it. He likes it, too. But no one gave credit, so he doesn’t know whose art it is. Oh well. The company puts it on a million t-shirts. No one, not me, not you, hot your child, gets a dime for the art.
I also do clip art. I ask for credit, but not everyone remembers and I’m not going to go around knocking heads over it. So someone likes, say, my drawings of boxer dogs. She puts one on her MySpace page. Again, a company exec sees it. He might even write her and ask who the artist was, but she doesn’t remember. Out go a million boxer dog stickers with my art. I don’t get a dime.
Your artistic 12 year old son draws a neat dragon. He scans it and shares it on his Deviant Art page, but as advised by his wise parents, he doesn’t have any personal identifiable info on his account. Again, a company exec sees it. He can’t identify or contact the artist (your well protected son). Oh well. A few thousand posters are sold with the dragon your son drew. No one gets paid for the art.
What can you or I do if that happens? Not much. Try to hire a lawyer who can fight against a big corps law firm, when there are a million loopholes left in the law. Not much chance we’d win.
I am trying to make a living, however humble, with my art. I provide coloring pages and clip art free to individuals, families, non-profit organizations, and often even other small business people like myself. Even the smallest royalty would be a great windfall of income to me. Or if you want one of my boxer dogs on a sticker, you can buy it through my own little Zazzle store where at least I do get a small royalty.
Never mind me, the bottom line is artists deserve to be paid for the use of their work - just like you deserve to be paid for the hours you put in at your job, whatever it may be. We do not deserve to be punished for sharing our work freely by allowing big corps to make a profit without paying us a dime for our contribution to it. How big is that contribution? Do you buy a t-shirt with a boxer dog on it because you like the picture of the boxer dog, or because you wanted any old t-shirt that size?
So, please, help me, help other artists. Take one minute from your day today and sign this petition. Take maybe an hour (it took me 30 minutes this morning) to write your congress members (You can find out who they are, and how to contact them here) and ask them to vote against this bill. Most of them have no idea what it is really about, or what the implications are for artists. You can read more about the bill here and a more detailed report with further links here. Or a really scary (for me as an artist) detailed article on what this bill will allow is here
Thank you so much for your time, and for your help. I’ll be spending a couple of hours on this today, sharing these links at all my blogs and social sites, and then I can get down to drawing some new coloring pages for you.
Summer Fey Foovay
Filed under editorial rant | Comment (0)Now THIS is COOL
Get this, these scientists have found “bugs” that eat “waste” - stuff we couldn’t eat or feed to cattle even on a good day - and better yet, they poop oil! Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. This is rather astounding if you ask me!
So, what’s next? Bug farmers who will create our Oil 2.0 (as they call it) by tending giant vats of garbage and bugs that are slowly turning into a vat of oil? Doesn’t this just beat the #$%@ out of tearing bits of dead things out of the skin of Mother Earth to fuel our cars? (Not to mention that we are going to run out of the remains eventually - and the buggies can just keep producing oil as long as we want them to)
What can I say - this article tickled me to death today.
Summer Fey Foovay
Filed under animals in the news, bugs, editorial rant, heartwarming, invertebrates | Comment (0)Giant Pythons Invade!
Sounds like yet another awrful B horror movie doesn’t it? In this case - it really is an invasion - and it isn’t the first one!
The beautiful Florida Everglades seems to be the beachhead of choice for the invasion of exotic species. They don’t come in on spaceships, or mutate from radioactive waste though. Humans are the culprit here.
Humans have a tendency to buy a pet they think will be “really cool” without thoroughly examining the consequences. Like the eventual size and ferocity of the animal in question.
Spectacled Caimans are a Crocodilian species native to South America. If you are my age or older, you may remember those ads in the back of every comic book selling “baby alligators” as pets. Yeah, I wanted one, too. Those “baby alligators” were actually Spectacled Caimans, not American Alligators. But, like American Alligators, they really aren’t the best pet in the world.
Like most reptiles, they are never really “tame” in the way your dog or cat is tame. They may come to accept you and not bite you everytime you approach them, but they are essentially wild animals. If you have the knowledge, patience, and wisdom to accept that and to work at accomidating them in your lifestyle things are just fine.
Most people, however, buy them just to “be cool” and the next thing you know they have a three foot long Caiman who is quite dangerous to them and next to impossible for their owners to properly care for and house. Faced with what seems like an insurmountable problem, these are exactly the same sort of owners who will release this animal into the wild.
Depending on just where the owners do this - it is only the beginning of a new problem. If it is north of Florida, most likely the little Caiman will die in the first blast of winter. They are simply not adapted to survive winters in our temperate climate. However, if the Caiman is released in Florida - guess what? There are now live, breeding populations of the Spectacled Caiman confirmed in Florida.
It is now illegal to sell these “baby alligators” in the U.S. - but that’s a bit like closing the barn door after the horse is gone.
And now - Burmese Pythons are experiencing exactly the same thing.
Burmese Pythons actually make a good pet - if you like snakes and are prepared to make the effort to house and care for an animal that is likely to reach over 10 foot in length and live 20 years or more with good care. I like snakes myself, and have had several as pets, including a Burmese Python. But like the Spectacled Caiman, they are often purchased by someone because they think it is “cool” to have a snake, especially one with the potential to become so large. It is when they fulfill that potential that the problems begin.
Housing, feeding, and caring for a Burmese Python is really not that hard. I used to say I loved my snakes because they are the ultimate “low-maintanence pet”. Eat once a week, clean up once a week - don’t need to be walked, groomed, or even played with unless you just want to. All that is true, but snakes and other reptiles do have some special needs that must be addressed. And in the case of a large snake - the big stumbling block for most people is housing the animal.
Snakes can live happily in an aquarium with an appropriate lid, heating source, and water source. Various species have different requirements, but that’s the basics. The problem comes in when the snake reaches sizes of ten foot and more, and the average 10-gallon aquarium is no longer suitable housing. There is no standard suitable housing for such a large reptile that you can just walk in and purchase at the pet store. Most responsible snake owners will either build something customized to their own pet and living situation, or have a custom cage built. Those who were just in it for the “cool” factor get bored and release the snake “into the wild”.
And we get the same scenario as with the Caimans - either death in the first cold snap, or a surviving and sometimes even breeding population.
Now, the irresponsible sorts are shrugging and saying “so what”. The problem is that any time you introduce a new animal into an ecological system, you upset the system. Florida, with it’s forgiving and welcoming Everglades has a special problem with invasive exotics.
The Spectacled Caiman, a very similar species to the American Alligator, competes with the native Crocodilian on every level. The Burmese Python actually EATS young Alligators. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the effects of exotics taking up residence in the Everglades.
The moral of my story is please, think long and hard before you choose an exotic pet. Remember that just as with any pet, you must consider housing and caring for this animal for the entirety of their lifespan. This is true, of course, for any pet - even cats and dogs. But if you become unable to care for your dog, there are far more alternatives than if you become unable to care for your ten foot Burmese python.
Most of all, please do not release any non-native animal “into the wild”. Most likely, you are not doing the animal any favors - and you could be contributing to the destruction of our native ecology.
Blessedbe
Summer Fey Foovay
Filed under animals in the news, editorial rant, unusual pets, wildlife | Comment (1)It is a sad day
It is a sad day when my first entry in this blog to celebrate animals in the news, has to be about the death of the filly, Eight Belles, after her dramatic injury while running the Kentucky Derby.
Most of my entries I want to be hopeful, loving, beautiful stories about animals and the people who love them. However, this issue simply has to be addressed.
I expect there will be quite an uproar from the millions of people who only watch one horse event a year, and have never sat a horse in their life, or gone to a live horse race locally. PETA is already calling for an end to thoroughbred racing.
I feel about thoroughbred racing, and all horse racing, much the same as the way I feel about greyhound racing. There are good people and bad people involved in any endeavor - including any endeavor that involves animals. People who love their animals and can’t imagine their lives doing anything other than being with animals 24-7, and inevitably people involved with animals because they think it’s a way to make a quick easy buck (excuse me while I laugh long and hard here) and who could care less that animals are sentient beings with feelings, thoughts, and needs.
However, when it comes to horse racing in the United States, I have one huge complaint. We race our horses too hard, too young. A three year old horse is NOT fully grown and mature. Asking a three year old, let alone a two year old, and in some Quarter Horses races YEARLINGS to run and run hard - not to mention the months of conditioning previous to the race - is tantamount to asking your two year old child to train for the Olympics. You would never do that to your child - yet because of the economic realities of the highest paid and highest prestige races in the U.S. being for two and three year old horses - horse racing trainers regularily ask young horses for peak performance.
And the horses break down. The great heart of the Thoroughbred horse is that they will literally run themselves to death to win a race. The very nobility and strength of spirit that we so admire and love is what causes them to run themselves to death for us.
In other countries of the world, the highest paid and most prestigious horse racing events are for five and six year old and even older horses. We know that horses are mature and at their peak at the ages of seven to nine years, and can remain useful for many years after that. No other equestrian event expects horses at such a young age to be peak performers. And no other equestrian event - not even three day eventing - experiences the breakdowns - both spectacularily public and the many that happen every day in a quieter way that Thoroughbred racing in the United States causes.
We don’t need to stop racing horses. Humans have raced horses as long as we’ve been associate with them. Horses love to race - watch any herd as they dash around the pasture. There is always one or two who simply must be at the head of any herd.
What we need to do is stop racing babies.
Nuff said.
Summer Fey Foovay
If you are a horse lover, you will find horse articles and a human-edited directory of the best horse websites on the WWW at my website, JustHorseCrazy.com
Filed under animal rights, animals in the news, editorial rant, horses | Comment (0)
