These well camouflaged little ones are hard to see, and not too concerned, either. They all stared at me and then resumed their ignoring.
A dear deer ear.
When it’s time for rest, rest. We humans could learn from that attitude!
While out for an evening ramble, this deer pair followed me for a bit on the sidewalk before veering off to enjoy something yummy in a parking lot. These photos aren’t great as they were taken at night with my cell, but they give the idea.
I hate it when my foot itches!
I love these. I don’t care what they are; I just love ‘em.
Almost two weeks ago I published a piece indicating my concerns about the marmot colony in one of our nearby parks. You can take a look at it here. The gist is that I became quite unsettled about the degree to which the marmots were being fed, to the point that I was approached by one of them who begged for food.
That was very unusual behaviour. Up until a few weeks ago, the marmots had always scurried away when humans had come too close, but suddenly, people had started giving them a lot of food: bags of carrots, cucumbers, lettuce and other treats including nuts and berries.
Granted, these were healthy foods for the marmots, but the amount of it was causing ancillary problems: they were gaining weight, were losing their ability to forage for themselves and worst of all, were losing their fear of humans.
People were hand feeding them and the marmots were sitting on their laps, running over their shoulders and necks and the small ones were even climbing into their pockets. Now, marmots are very cute but they’re also wild animals; they carry ticks, fleas and sometimes, rabies.
Most people I know wouldn’t want to deal with the possibility of rocky mountain spotted fever, lime disease, bubonic plague, tapeworms or rabies, but marmots can potentially transmit all of these – or the pests – fleas and ticks – that also carry these diseases and live on the marmots.
Nope, humans being illogical humans, we believe that if it’s cute, it’s harmless. Or that it’s okay to feed wild animals because, well, we’re doing them a favour. Right?
So I decided that a visit to the city was warranted, and I learned that lots of other people have the same concerns as me, and that the city had decided that a warning sign was required.
And here it is (actually, there are two of them, one at each end of the marmot colony). Does it help to go to city hall? Yes, in this case it certainly did! I’m happy to report that these sweet little animals are back to feeding themselves, minimising our interaction with them and ensuring that they won’t be moved from their home or – worst of all – euthanised – because a child has been bitten or an adult has developed lime disease.
I wish the marmots long life and health and to us, many more years of marmot viewing pleasure – from a distance, that is.
I haven’t recently been seeing many of our local marmot colony members. I think it’s just too hot for them and so they’re staying in their burrows where it’s much cooler.
On an early morning walk a couple of days ago – it’s too hot for me, too – I did see a few of them out and about. Someone had left them some fresh cherries which is a healthy food for marmots, so they were busy transporting them inside.
One decided that napping was much preferable to moving the produce, though!
It’s always a treat to see these sweet little animals. They seem so happy with one another and are certainly very chatty and affectionate.
A few evenings ago as we were returning home from a nearby restaurant, we saw a couple of night strollers.
After stopping at the bank, they continued across the road to a park.
Completely unconcerned about our presence, they were like any other couple out for an evening constitutional, except that they tended to ignore the traffic signals.
These aren’t the best photos because I took them with my cell, but the deer still look adorable. I love that they feel comfortable enough to come wandering through, without fear or worry.
The woodland caribou is known in Europe as reindeer, so it’s appropriate that they inhabit the Northwest Territories, or “Santa country.”
They actually don’t live northwards enough to call the true North Pole their neighbourhood though, because as their name indicates, they prefer wooded areas.
Shy and somewhat introverted, they are sociable only in small numbers and inhabit the same small area for their entire lives; they don’t migrate.
Unfortunately, their numbers are also dropping. Efforts are being made to help them recover, and the Northwest Territories’ woodland caribou are starting to do better.
In the Net! - Pictures and Stories of Life 