Like some weird planetary conjunction, The Guardian publishes in one issue a selection of apparently unrelated stories which have the common theme of something to do with animals that catches the attention of the Grumpy Vegan.
For example, on Tuesday, May 20, it reported on the giant meat-eating mice on the tiny Gough Island which is sort of midway-ish between the bottom bits of South Africa and South America. The interesting bit in From stowaway to supersize predator: the mice eating rare seabirds alive is
For tens of thousands of years, the birds of Gough Island lived unmolested, without predators on a remote outcrop in the south Atlantic.
Today, the British-owned island, described as the home of the most important seabird colony in the world, still hosts 22 breeding species and is a world heritage site.
But as a terrible consequence of the first whalers making landfall there 150 years ago, Gough has become the stage for one of nature’s great horror shows. Mice stowed away on the whaling boats jumped ship and have since multiplied to 700,000 or more on an island of about 25 square miles.
So, we’ve got the whalers to thank for the fact that they’re cruel enterprise is now going to also result in the slaughter of mice.
The next story, Extinct animal’s DNA reactivated, reports on some enterprising scientists who have
In a breakthrough Jurassic Park-like experiment, scientists have resurrected genes from the Tasmanian tiger – a meat-eating marsupial that became extinct more than 70 years ago – by injecting them into mouse embryos.
But guess what?
The Tasmanian tiger, the largest of the carnivorous marsupials, was wiped out in the wild by intensive hunting in the early 1900s.
So, we’ve got the hunters to thank for the fact that their barbarism caused an animal to become extinct, well, maybe not, if the boffins have their way. But I don’t want them to succeed if it only means that there will be more Tasmanian tigers for hunters to kill.
The last story in this trilogy is “Bull enters house by back door — and leave by front.” (Sorry. Can’t find link on the Graun’s website.) Anyway, apparently, a German family were stunned when a bull burst through the back, charged around the living room and left when the owners opened the front door. File under “One of life’s funny stories involving animals.” Except that it concludes
A huntsman later shot the animal.
Why?
