This Week, On "When Animals Attack!"
I love D.C. for a lot of reasons — it’s surprisingly green, the street grid makes sense, and every soul sitting at every bar in the city can throw down on the latest political events of the day — but it’s not usually known as a bucolic city. People don’t come here on their honeymoons. (I just googled “Washington D.C. honeymoons” and got got a lot of articles like “22 Fabulous Romantic Getaways from Washington DC.”) When you think of a paradise, Washington, D.C. isn’t what you’re thinking of.
Still, normally, we’re not actually besieged by frenzied animals looking to tear us or each other limb from limb.
For whatever reason <ahem>, for the past few weeks, D.C. has been so besieged.
To start, there was the Captiol Hill fox.
At first, everyone was so excited to see an adorable fox out and about in daylight. And so close to the Capitol too!
Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, the fox started chasing after the juicy calves of local joggers.
The fox was captured:
And, sadly, she turned out to be rabid:
She and her kits were put down, and the people she bit started their rabies shots regimen.
Next, a wild turkey began attacking the citizens of this fair city. (Thanks to friend & reader Diana for writing in with this one.)
This being the nation’s capital, a multiagency task force of more than half a dozen agencies has assembled a dragnet across city, state and federal lands to cage the wily bird.
I would just like to point out that this turkey may actually be Charlie Chaplin in a turkey suit.
The bird last fall had a habit of following workers in the dogwood collection. “It was this comedic detective-like situation where he was following and then pretended he was not following,” Ms. Greeley said. One day, “near Thanksgiving, the gentleman turned and warned him that if he wasn’t careful, he was going to have him for dinner.”
The bird apparently high-tailed it out of the arboretum. “We haven’t seen him since November,” Ms. Greeley said.
Wild turkeys are apparently making a national comeback, and though they’re usually docile, some may become aggressive protecting their territory. It’s natural behavior, but most folks aren’t thrilled to find that the bird they usually only think about while carving the breast meat now is about to hamstring them instead.
The National Park Service hopes to capture Old Tom and relocate him.
And finally, and very unfortunately, a wild fox broke into the Smithsonian Zoo’s flamingo habitat and killed 25 flamingos and a Northern pintail duck. Friend & writer Thomas Pluck points out that foxes aren't evolutionary equipped to deal with dozens of prey in enclosed areas — thus the excess. There’s something, though, about this fox’s choice of the flamingo exhibit in particular.
I can just imagine her, staking out the different enclosures. I like to think that she was perfectly aware that these birds were off-limits and wanted something a little high-impact, wanted to flaunt it a little, was considering collecting the feathers and making a boa afterwards.
But that’s very predator-centric, of course. There’s also the flamingo side of the story.
After days of watching this strange visitor, there’s her final nighttime return, the horror of losing half the flock, her teeth and feathers everywhere.
At any rate, that’s what it’s like, here in DC at the moment.
Some things I’m reading: a fantastic examination of death and vultures at the Bitter Southerner, and a classic New Yorker article, “The End of Nature,” by William McKibben in 1989.
I’d love to hear all about what you’re reading, and if animals are attacking you or anyone around you, please do let us know.
I've been reading "To Serve Humans (A Cookbook)" by A. Fox
Sadly it's spreading. The Detroit Zoo reports a missing Wallaby joey and suspects a raptor as the perpetrator. Most disturbing, the zoo has just posted on Facebook the joey had just left its mother's pouch two days before the abduction. Have owls learned to read Facebook?
https://gizmodo.com/detroit-zoo-missing-wallaby-owl-hawk-1848910712