The Animal Question

Gives 'Pet Sounds' a whole new meaning

Wired Science has a great article on a species-specific music test, a collaboration between a composer and a scientist. They found that the monkeys they tested the music on aren't that interested in most human music, but when the musician created music that shared pitch, tone, and quality with the monkeys' own communications, they responded:

Monkey music, on the other hand, had a significant and predictable effect on behavior. After listening to the fear-based track, the animals became anxious and upset, as indicated by increased activity and nervous behaviors like urination and scent marking. After hearing the calm music, the monkeys became more relaxed and social.

via www.wired.com

This makes sense to me, but I also wonder about the potential for cross-species communication through music. I played both the 'happy' and the 'fearful' monkey music and much preferred the soothing quality of the former to the dissonant angst of the latter. My husband plays guitar, and we often observe our cat responding to the music he plays. She is calm and expresses pleasure in particular songs and will seek him out when he's playing in the backyard, as if she enjoys the serenade. The Wired article includes a link to a company producing music specifically for cats. I enjoyed all three cat compositions myself! 

Thanks to Mike Levine for sharing this article.

Cougar caught in Discovery Park

via www.magnoliavoice.com

The cougar that caused a shut-down of Discovery Park was caught at 2 am this morning, and a neighborhood blog broke the story first.

Cougar sighting shuts down a Seattle park

via seattletimes.nwsource.com

Click on the link to read this story in today's Seattle Times. After several cougar sightings in Discovery Park (just a stone's throw from where I live), officials have shut down the park and have set up a trap (with elk liver and fish) to catch the animal.

Stories of wildlife interacting with human civilization are fascinating. I'll call it a contact zone in the tradition of Mary Louise Pratt. As we tread into their territory more and more, they're more likely to traipse into ours, targeting our cats and dogs as prey, diving into our Dumpsters for easy food. Last year, a bear swam across Puget Sound and wandered around the suburban neighborhoods of Seattle.

Unless human population levels taper off, we'll only see more of this. We're pushing the animals out.

China law could promote 'tiger tonics'

The Times quoted Xu Hongfa, of Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network linked to the WWF, as saying: “I think these words could be used as a cover by tiger farmers to make tiger bone wine and they would try to argue that it doesn’t just refer to skins.”

Environmentalists warned yesterday that the move could boost trade in illegal potions and create a market for poachers preying on the rare animals as far away as India.

via blog.taragana.com

Environmentalists worry that tigers could be further threatened with extinction because China has approved the sale of products extracted from the animals. While tiger pelts are an important aspect of some Tibetan ceremonies, critics worry that the new approval includes language allowing tiger tonics, such as wine made from ground bones.

More milk vs. soy milk

Yesterday I wrote about my sudden preference for cow's milk over soy milk. I tossed off a quick apology to WestSoy, but I should have said WhiteWave Foods instead, as they make the Silk brand of soy milk I've drunk for years and years. I love Silk; despite what I said yesterday, it's a tie for flavor with cow's milk. I think I was just being wowed by the newness of cow's milk flavor when I said it is better.

Last night I dreamed that my cat Smoke, who died almost two years ago by the way, was suckling at the teet of a pig. This sight really grossed me out, for two reasons: 1) my cat was weaned a long time ago, so suckling as an adult (she was not a kitten in the dream) seemed wrong and 2) she's a cat, not a piglet, so the cross-species breast-feeding struck me as wrong as well.

Cat cuisine, and I'm not talking about Meow Mix

Of course the most interesting recent development on the animal-rights front lines came recently in the form of a nearly 80-year-old former helpmate to Mao Tse-tung, who staged a protest against the Guandong practice of eating cats. According to the L.A. Times, Lu Di formed China's Small Animal Protection Association, through which she attempts to halt a dietary practice she calls "a crime that humiliates all Chinese people."

The prospect of eating cat is distasteful to those in the U.S., even to the most intrepid of stomachs. Even the Weird Meat crew -- which has consumed everything from ant extract to yak flesh -- has yet to opt for feline, although placenta has made the cut, and with dog meat on the list, cat can't be too far behind.