Kiwi Cats: An Endangered Species?

Some people in New Zealand, and no doubt in other places, would like to exterminate the domestic pussycat because of its environmental impact, specifically on native wildlife. But the double standards applied here condemn the people advocating them way more than the objects of their condemnation.

Humans somehow have this ingrained idea that they can best manage the natural environment that Mother Nature created and evolved over billions of years before mankind was ever thought up in anyone’s philosophy. The end result of human management has been an unmitigated and ever ongoing environmental disaster. The latest in a long, long, long line of ‘humans know best’ has been a proposal to eliminate the domestic pussycat.

In early January 2013, the idea was floated in New Zealand that the domestic moggy, the dear old and much loved companion animal the pussycat, be phased out. All cats should be de-sexed and no further cats be obtained upon the natural death of existing moggies. Therefore, within 15 to 20 years, New Zealand would be pussycat free, and native wildlife, especially flightless birds, would be eternally grateful, because pussy cats like to eat little native flightless birds and other native wildlife too. Needless to say, the claws are out and fur is flying over the issue.

From the various online debates and commentaries I’ve seen, there seem to be three equally divided points of view. Point One: kill them all – the cats that is – or more humanely let them go extinct through natural attrition by neutering them all. Point Two, sharp and to the point, all jaws, paws and claws out and firing, touch my cats and you die. Companion animals are good for human well being, and besides cats catch mice and rats and other undesirable vermin*. Point Three is probably the most relevant – it’s a variation on the pot calling the kettle black; the all too frequent human double standard.

If you take the argument to its logical conclusion, perhaps one should exterminate spiders because they kill native flies; exterminate birds that eat pretty native butterflies; kill the lions that eat native zebras; or for that matter eliminate anything that kills and feeds off of anything else native. Sorry, the fundamental principle in nature, tooth and claw, is the relationship between prey and predator; eat or be eaten. Cats are just one of millions of species that kill to eat. It’s hardwired into their brains. If they kill and eat a native flightless bird, it’s not their fault. Puppy dogs hunt and kill too, but I don’t hear any equivalent about killing them off humanely or otherwise despite the fact that some dogs, pet dogs, have maimed and killed humans; the same cannot be said about the domestic moggy. And no doubt some native species hunt and kill for food other native species. Where do you draw the line in this quest to save native species? And just who self-anointed human beings to be judge, jury and executioner?

Prey animals, flightless birds or otherwise, have presumably over millions of years evolved natural abilities to avoid most predators most of the time; otherwise they wouldn’t be around for us to talk about them. That’s the natural way of things – a natural evolutionary arms race. Prey evolves ways and means to avoid predators; predators evolve better ways and means of catching prey. Failure results in extinction, and that too is nature’s way. Most species that have ever existed are now extinct.

While we don’t wish to see native wildlife hunted down and killed, the hardcore truth of the matter is that this is nature’s way, and if you have a problem with that, take it up with God – it’s His master plan. If you don’t accept a deity, blame Mother Nature. In any event, that’s the way it is and you can’t do anything to change that fundamental fact of life. Cats kill; dogs kill; spiders kill; lions kill; birds kill; sharks kill; and guess what – humans kill too. That’s part of the pot and kettle side of things. But humans don’t kill animals just for the need to put food on the table. Humans kill for the pure pleasure of killing things, just for fun, from hunting as a so-called ‘sport’, often with a semi-automatic rifle, and often in enclosed wildlife parks for that purpose where the animals can’t escape, to squashing ants who are outside in their own natural environment and bothering no one.

As for that other common reason given to cull the moggie – the neighbour’s cat uses my garden as a litter box. If that’s the most pressing problem this person has, well I’d like to be that person! Seriously, you get free fertilizer that’s 100% biodegradable and while the cat is around, it’s helping to keep your property free of mice and rats. I’ve been on the receiving end of both gifts and that doesn’t bother me at all. In any event, as a problem, personal or environmental, cat poo in the garden pales compared to doggie poo on the sidewalk.

There are several of the newer suburbs in Canberra (Australia) bordering on native grasslands and in these suburbs cat owners are legally required to confine their cats to their own property, say by using outdoor cat runs or keeping them indoors. I have no problem with that. The cat owners are happy (or should be); the cats should be happy too; and naïve wildlife can relax and worry about other things – like humans and humans who will probably build an ever newer suburb as the population expands, on that very native grassland. 

Confining your cat to your own property helps keep the cat safe too from other humans and traffic. You wouldn’t want your companion animal to end up as road kill.

Legally required or otherwise, human owners are morally responsible for the actions or their companion animals, and it is up to the owners of pets to ensure that other valued animals and people are not in harms way through the actions of animals under their control. That moral requirement exists because you cannot expect cats (hardwired to act in certain ways) to conform to human standards in the same way that you can teach a child.

Australia has declared war on the Cane Toad, the Common Indian Myna Bird, the Rabbit, Carp, the European Wasp, etc. in order to save native species and native habitats on which they depend. Yet every day hundreds of native Australian animals are killed by the motor car, deliberately shot, poisoned, trapped, etc. The Australian Capital Territory government routinely culls thousands of native Kangaroos because there are, allegedly, too many of them, allegedly, destroying native grasslands. Humans reek of the double standard!

Now IMHO, if ever there was a species that needed culling because of their environmental impact, including the extermination, intentional or otherwise, of native wildlife, its dear old Homo sapiens.  The pot has indeed called the kettle black. For some unfathomable reason, it’s A-OK for humans to condemn any and all non-human species for doing what comes naturally, yet when do humans point the finger at humans?  Those who advocate such extreme measures or controls on cats would never ever dream of applying that same logic to themselves and their fellow human companions. De-sex the moggies? That’s all fine and well and I agree on the grounds of animal welfare, but on the other foot, I’ve seen more than one news story or item about these mega-families where a couple revel in having literally offspring cheaper by the two dozen, all products from their own privates and private interactions.  Talk about your environmental impact! Even four of more kids is too many.

Kids or no kids, any one human being in any advanced first world country (New Zealand, Australia, Canada, USA, Europe, Japan, etc.) has a vastly greater detrimental environmental impact per day than any cat has had over the cat’s entire lifetime.

And don’t talk back to me about how cats torture small animals – that absolutely pales in significance with comparison to the daily tortures humans infest on animals, examples way, way too numerous to mention, though in very recent times we’ve seen some very graphic livestock cases of barbaric cruelty in Indonesia, Pakistan and even Israel. And what would the world come to without children pulling the wings off of flies, or as one disgusting co-worker of mine did, throwing live grubs onto a red hot barbeque just for ‘fun’.

When it comes to cats vs. humans, well, you don’t see cats driving 4WD gas-guzzlers on the freeway, one cat per car. You don’t see cats requiring vacations and holiday days off. You don’t see cats shopping down at the mall. You don’t see cats peddling drugs. Cats don’t litter. You don’t see cats going hunting with semi-automatic rifles shooting anything that moves; everything in sight. You don’t see cats maxing out their credit cards and going bankrupt. I’ve yet to see cats invent, build and test an atomic bomb. Cats have way too much sense to believe in deities, they don’t even deify their human ‘masters’.

Cats ask for nothing more than the basic necessities of life, and all their waste products are 100% biodegradable and recycled. Can humans make the same claim?

There is already at least one place that bans pussy cats to protect native wildlife – Lord Howe Island, off the coast of New South Wales, Australia. I imagine there are some similar small islands set aside as wildlife refuges that ban cats and dogs and other predators. I have no problem with that. Of course keeping them out from the get-go is not quite the same issue as eliminating or exterminating them once established, and when it comes to New Zealand, you can hardly claim the entire country as a native wildlife refuge, and cats are already well established there playing the role of companion animal and making lots of people happy.

Ultimately the New Zealand scenario is not going to happen – there are too many cat and companion animal lovers who vote. Then there’s the cat industry from veterinarians to the producers and manufacturers of cat food, kitty litter and litter boxes, cat collars, food bowls, etc. All of this and more means cats are a major employer as it were, given the number of moggies in residence not only in New Zealand but around the world. Human self-interest will ensure that cats will be with us for generations to come. 

*In fact that’s why the cat was accepted into human company in the first place. Back in the days of primarily rural settlements, agricultural-based communities and farms, cats kept in check the mice and rats and daresay the birds that would otherwise feed on the grains, etc. the farmers were trying to grow. There was no question back then what side the cat sided on with respect to human tolerance.

My Top Biological Anomalies: A List

You may live comfortably in your everyday un-anomalous world, but rest assured, that un-anomalous world is in itself an anomaly in a quite anomalous universe, all brought to you by Mother Nature.

CRYPTOZOOLOGY: How can reports of a Bigfoot or a Loch Ness Monster continue for decades, even centuries without physical verification? It’s as if these creatures were but phantoms. It’s easy to visualize such creatures, but far harder to explain how a rather largish lake monster can elude absolute and final detection, required to convince even the most skeptical of skeptics, in a confined lake seemingly indefinitely. Or, if a species is highly territorial, that’s the same as being geographically confined. All these observers can’t be totally mistaken. There is an absolute consistency in the observations, be it whatever’s in Loch Ness or Bigfoot or other unknown creatures. Observations have, in many cases, as noted above, been reported over many centuries, as for example Bigfoot by Native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans.

However, the central fly in the ointment (an anomaly) is that you cannot ever have just one of these unknown creatures. Creatures, like all biological organisms will die. Therefore, to be sighted over lengthy time frames, these creatures need to breed. To maintain a population’s survival over long time periods requires an entire breeding population, not just two individuals. That in turn ups the ante that sightings, evidence and proof positive should be far greater than they are, especially when these unknown animals are confined to a relatively small space, like a Loch Ness. But there is a slight problem with a small but breeding population of critters – inbreeding. It’s the genetic dangers of inbreeding that’s ultimately behind taboos against incest.

DRAGONS: The anomaly here is that if dragons and dragon-lore was the product of just one culture at say one particular point in time, the concept could be easily dismissed. But when they appear in every culture, from ancient times even up through the 1700’s when they were still part of natural history, then one needs to pay closer attention. That’s all the more so since dragons were taken very seriously indeed. In China they were the emissaries between the gods and the emperor, and woe beholds any of lesser rank that wore a dragon image on their person. Dragons and dragon-lore form a major part of what passes for science-fantasy today. There’s probably no child over the age of five who can’t wax lyrical and tell you all about dragon-lore. The best guess scenario is that while dragons may be considered mythical today; they certainly were not, not too awfully that many generations ago. If that’s the case, if dragons were really real once upon a time, then the anomaly is – no fossils. 

The hidden assumption is of course that they were biological. What if instead they were technological? That in turn of course must of necessity translate into extraterrestrial technology, probably a vehicle and/or weapon of sorts (breathing out fire, anyone?). That might be reinforced by the dragon’s kissing cousin, the Garuda, the divine birdman of Indian myth, which served as the mount, the personal aerial ‘chariot’ of the Hindu god Vishnu. 

CROP CIRCLES: There’s no disputing, no matter how much the pseudoscience skeptic you are, that crop circles do exist. There are numerous pissed-off farmers whose fields have been vandalized; multi-thousands of after-the-fact eyewitness accounts and an equal number of films and photographs, as well as on-site and laboratory analysis of the phenomena. Observation here is at the 100% certainty level. Finding logical and rational theoretical explanations are however way more challenging than a ‘take two aspirin and call me in the morning’ type of remedy or diagnosis. In fact, no matter what theory is advanced, natural, human or alien, there are massive flaws to be had with each.

No natural phenomena can create a myriad of massive geometrically complex perfect constructions using agricultural crops as the medium. The challenge for a human, or even a team of humans, to create the same in total darkness in just a few hours (this is a summertime event – long days; short nights), without mistakes, without leaving their traces (footprints, tire tracks, litter, etc) without ever getting caught, tried and convicted for trespass and vandalism, is beyond the theoretical pale for even the most ardent of sceptics and sceptical explanations, though human hoaxes are the fallback position, albeit without real evidence. As for ET, why they would travel vast distances to, at least in part, dabble in agricultural graffiti, defies our understanding. If crop circles are an attempt by aliens to communicate with humans, well, there’s been a failure to communicate. Theory here is at the near 100% uncertainty level. There’s a long road to hoe yet to reconcile observation and theory.

CATTLE MUTILATIONS: There’s no disputing the bona-fides of this gruesome reality. It has been observed – after-the-fact – photographed, documented, and investigated by all manner of officialdom, as well as unofficial private investigators. And though oft referred to as ‘cattle’ mutilations, all manner of wildlife and other domestic livestock have been targeted too, the first reported case being a horse. Like the crop circle phenomena, there are three possible explanations: natural, human or alien.

If natural, why has this phenomenon only become an issue since the 1960’s? Predator-prey relationships, scavengers, etc. have existed and been observed ever since humans have inhabited the continents. There should be no anomaly here if animal mutilations are just the normal continuation of Mother Nature in tooth and claw. But there is an anomaly. If predators or scavengers, why are there no footprints, and especially if predators, why no signs of a struggle? How can predators account for precision removal of just certain body parts with razor sharp incisions? Since there’s no blood associated with the mutilated carcasses, did predators drink up their entire victim’s blood like an animal version of Dracula?

If humans or cultists are responsible, why hasn’t anyone claimed responsibility? Why hasn’t anyone been caught, tried, convicted, fined and/or imprisoned for trespass, animal cruelty, destruction of private property, etc.? Why no signs of human activity like tire tracks and footprints and litter (say a cigarette butt or beer can or two). Again, why no signs of a struggle?

Some have suggested this is the work of government, or government departments, taking samples to monitor for various bovine nasties, like diseases, or other types of contamination that could endanger human health if these livestock were consumed.  Really! There are vastly easier ways of legally gathering up tissue samples than sneaking around in the dead of night and killing/mutilating animals for a few body parts.

So of course it has to be extraterrestrials! How can aliens mutilate cattle (and other livestock and wildlife), decade after decade, without ever being seen? Why would aliens be interested in wildlife and livestock in the first damned place, or at least some of their highly selected body parts?  

The Mythology of the Possum

For those of you who have companion animals, or even those of you who have just watched animals at a distance, you may have wondered how those animals view and perhaps even think about life, the universe and everything. That is, each animal, if they have any intelligence at all, must have some sort of personal worldview mythology; a perspective or point of view (POV) probably, even usually, but not always forever beyond our understanding since we can try to walk a mile in their paws by using our intelligence as a guide.

Most of the lesser complex animals, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, and reptiles probably have a worldview along the lines of ‘it just is’ and accept whatever comes along – go with the flow. But once you consider the relatively higher and more complex animals, like birds and mammals, then brain complexity becomes such that to a greater or lesser degree, intelligence and the ability to think and figure things out has to be taken into consideration.

Humans maybe top of the pops when it comes to smarts and figuring things out, but that doesn’t mean that every non-human life form has the IQ of a microbe. I strongly suspect that birds and mammals develop a personal worldview mythology that explains to their satisfaction all that they see and experience daily.

Further, for all such animals that develop a direct or indirect relationship with humans they must additionally evolve a personal mythology that’s understandable within their larger worldview that puts us in their Big Picture. That mythology, their POV is going to be grossly incorrect of course, but they don’t know that. They, in all honesty can not comprehend the sum total of those experiences they share directly with human activity and so to some degree or other they develop a mythological worldview that somehow explains what humans do within their own context. However, sometimes humans feature only indirectly and so their POV doesn’t actually involve humans in any shape, manner or form.

So the purpose of this little essay is to illustrate those animals (i.e. – birds and mammals) that interact directly or indirectly with humans (in a good, indifferent, bad or god-awful way) have a somewhat human-centred mythology even if they aren’t aware of it. Taking one specific animal as an example, consider the following tale of the possum.

I have a possum that visits my back courtyard overnight. I know that because I often see its poo; actually I once saw it silhouetted against the backdrop of a lighted window of a house opposite mine. Presumably the possum hasn’t spotted me; it being a creature of the night and I being a creature of the day. Now presumably the possum hunts around at night, foraging for food. It’s been an usually long and bitterly cold Australian winter here in the nation’s capital, Canberra, so, in empathy for a fellow life-form who has a far tougher life than I, I took to leaving out for it in the early evening an apple. In the morning following, it was gone – the apple that is. Now I, as an intelligent human, know all the facts of the matter. I buy an apple; I leave out the apple; the possum finds the apple and eats it. However, I can’t help but wonder, from the perspective of the possum, what does it make of this nightly gift of an apple, an apple that appears where there is no apple tree for miles around?  

Some assumptions are in order. I assume the possum has some intelligence, an IQ, an ability to think and wonder and ponder. When something out of the ordinary occurs, it makes an impression. Translated, the sun comes up and the sun sets – nothing out of the ordinary. I doubt if the possum much ponders this fact of life. The tree it lives in exists day in and day out – nothing much to think about there. It’s warm in the summer; cold in the winter; some days it rains; most days it doesn’t rain. But that daily apple hasn’t been part and parcel of its worldview mythology – until now.

So, something new, beneficial but unexpected comes into play. Does the possum put it down to good luck, good fortune, clean living, being in the right place at the right time, or does it think deeper than that?

Now an apple appears for the first time on the ground it forages over – unusual but strange things happen. An apple appears on that same spot of ground every evening – the same spot without benefit of an apple tree. That’s not in keeping with the ordinary expectations and experiences of our possum. Because this is not something natural and ordinary within the possum’s worldview, then this has to be something extraordinary; this is something magical; this is something paranormal; this is something supernatural. Perhaps there is a supernatural Possum Deity that looks after possums in times of need, like in the wintertime when food in general and apples in particular are few and far between.

And so our possum perhaps develops this idea of something bigger than the natural world it’s used to. The possum perhaps develops a possum mythology of a Possum Deity that looks after all possums, like itself. It has to be ‘all possums’ since I’ll assume our possum has no comprehension of good possums vs. bad possums with only the former getting rewarded with an unaccounted for apple (possum manna from heaven).

But perhaps it’s seen me from the seclusion of its tree put down the apple, in which case maybe I’m the Great Possum Deity. If it sees other humans are they deities too, even if not possum deities?

Since this regularly occurring apple appears in roughly the same geographical spot night after night, might our hungry possum attribute something extraordinary to this patch of (my) backyard, (its) courtyard turf? Might that patch of ground in fact, in our possum’s worldview mythology, become our possum’s Sacred Site?  

Now the possum’s perspective won’t be one based around language and it won’t be able to communicate its worldview mythology to other possums. Rather its perceptions will be based on its five senses, most prominently vision in all likelihood. It could imagine, visualise in its mind, some super-sized (Santa Claus type deity) possum delivering apples without having words for ‘apple’ or ‘possum’ or ‘deity’ or ‘gift giver’ or even ‘human’. It wouldn’t have words for ground or ‘Sacred Site’, rather a mental image that this patch of ground is extra-special. Such an image, as opposed to the words we would use, wouldn’t be out of the question. I’m sure our possum could visualize another possum (even without knowing the word ‘possum’) even if there was no other actual possum in visual range or otherwise present in the vicinity.

Okay, you know and I know there’s no Possum Deity, nothing mysterious or supernatural is going on, there is no Sacred Site. I know what’s going on – some farmer, hundreds of miles away sells their crop of apples to some company who hires a distributor who trucks them to Canberra and they end up in that company’s local supermarkets. You know that, and I know that, but we can’t expect the possum to know that. If this possum communicates with fellow possums (not that it can), it is not going to relate a story of a compassionate human buying an apple a day and leaving it out to be devoured by possums, far less have knowledge of that far away farmer, company, distributor, truck, supermarket, and all the infrastructure that implies, etc.

It would be fascinating to converse with that possum and find out exactly what its current worldview mythology is, even though that’s beyond our means. But, I’d bet that whatever it is, it’s wrong! Still, let’s walk a mile in its paws and try to view things like it would. That much we can do. I’ve tried to do so, but the odds are I’m wrong oo. There’s no real meeting of the minds here. Even if I came face-to-face with the possum, I couldn’t converse with it; I couldn’t convince it that its POV was wrong.

However, just like each possum has their own unique worldview mythology, so too does each and every human have a unique perspective on life, the universe and everything. The difference is that in most cases we can communicate that perspective to others of our species.

The point now is if our companion mammals have a flawed POV of their worldview mythology, one that we know is wrong, but they don’t, one that may or may not incorporate humans; do we humans have in turn a flawed POV when it comes to our worldview mythologies? The parallels between mammals (like our possum) and humans and those collective worldview mythologies we all have might suggest that we too have some flawed perceptions about life, the universe and everything that need further and continued exploration and elaboration. In that broader context, perhaps we can also have empathy with possums inasmuch as we too might have flawed worldview mythologies in the eyes of entities superior to us.

Biblical Cryptozoology: Part Two

Cryptozoology is an endeavour to establish the reality of animal species (often mega-fauna) that are currently unverified or totally unknown. New species (usually insects and micro-fauna) are being discovered everyday. Alas a lot will never be verified because we humans unknowingly have driven them to extinction. Mythologies around the world are full of unknown mega-fauna, which truth be known, if they have or had existence it is or was extraterrestrial in nature. Here I briefly look at the most popular of all mythological texts, the Bible, to see what might be of zoological interest. 

You won’t find references in the Bible to the Yeti, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, the Cyclopes, or other similar beasties that interest wildlife biologists in the hunt for unverified, but possible examples of terrestrial wildlife. However, that doesn’t mean that the Bible doesn’t contain descriptions of a whole host of unknown creatures – the province of modern cryptozoology. Taking in turn the realm of the air, the land and the sea, what do we find?

Note: All references below refer to the King James Version of the Bible.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

LAND:

*The Behemoth is referenced once only in Job (Job 40:15) and is the Biblical kissing cousin of the Leviathan (see below). Behemoth is a primordial land monster inhabiting marshlands and rivers who likes to chomp on grass, like an ox. It’s presumed by modern scholars to be the hippopotamus, but proof-positive is lacking given the once-only reference.

*Hairy men: There’s no reference to current hairy ape-men like the Yeti in the Bible. Yet there is this interesting passage from Genesis 27:11 – “And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man”. Make of that what you will.

*Lambs with Horns: In Revelation you get two references to ‘lambs having horns’. The first (Revelation 5:6) tells of a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. However, it’s further stated that these represent the seven spirits of God (whatever that really means though I’m sure mystics and scholars have it all under control), so it doesn’t really represent something zoological. Then there’s that third beast from the earth that “had two horns like a lamb” but obviously wasn’t since it “spake as a dragon” (Revelation 13:11). So what exactly was it?

*Giants: Genesis, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua all testify to the existence of giants. From “giants in the earth” otherwise known as the Nephilim; “the land of giants” (more Nephilim); “remnant of giants”; to the “valley of the giants”, there were giants aplenty. I gather it was the presence of giants (the Nephilim) that so terrified the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness that they refused to continue their trek to the Promised Land. Instead, they preferred to do an about-face and return to Egypt! That cowardice pissed off the Almighty and he thus caused them to be condemned to wander about the wilderness for another forty years. So what terrified God’s Chosen People?

By the way there’s nothing overly unique about Biblical giants. Greek mythology is chock-a-block full of giants, good, bad but usually ugly, as they are in many other cultures. Their popularity remains through the ages, and though not a staple of our society, stories or descriptions about those elusive hairy man-apes relate beasties that are anything but dwarfs.

*Serpents: We all know about the serpent (a.k.a. Satan) in the Garden of Eden, but wait, there’s more shape-shifting in store. There’s that parlour trick preformed by Moses and Aaron before the Egyptian pharaoh to impress said ruler enough to “let my people go”. That parlour trick was turning a rod or staff into a serpent and back again. In Numbers God sends a fiery serpent to bite His Chosen People – exactly where they were bitten isn’t related, but the bite must have been poisonous for many died! However, Moses did some hocus-pocus and some who were bitten lived to tell the tale. Isaiah then talks about a “fiery flying serpent” also a “piercing serpent” and a “crooked serpent” – presumably all one and the same serpent. Jeremiah talks about that biting serpent the Lord likes to utilize. Revelation goes full circle and equates the serpent with the dragon which is equated with Satan. Whether there’s anything here anomalous from a zoological point of view is in the eye of the zoologist.

*Satyr: You wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Isaiah 13:21 & Isaiah 34:14 lend credence to the satyr that half-goat, half-human hybrid one normally associates with ancient Greece.

*Unicorns: While I’m sceptical about horned lambs, unicorns are a well established part of mega-fauna mythology from many times and places. The unicorn gets its due in the Bible as a real creature. Check out Isaiah 34:7 for example. 

SEA:

*The whale or big fish that swallowed Jonah and kept Jonah alive inside his innards would have to be a unique species to science.

*The Leviathan is some sort of primordial fire-breathing sea monster of the Old Testament (Isaiah, Job, and Psalms), the kissing cousin of the Behemoth (see above).

*Sea monsters are given the thumbs-up in Lamentations 4:3.

*A weird composite beast arises from the sea in Revelation 13:1-2: a hybrid of leopard, bear and lion (which are hardly marine animals) with seven heads and ten horns. That’s all sort of akin to Daniel 7:3-7. Here Daniel describes four different beasts arising from the sea. The first was like a lion with eagle’s wings. The second was like a bear (a pseudo-bear obviously). The third was a four-headed pseudo-leopard with four wings. The last was something radically different or diverse, something “dreadful and terrible” with iron teeth, nails of brass, and ten horns. Then another little horn pops up and starts speaking! That sounds something technological, like the ‘Wheel of Ezekiel’. As with Revelation 13:1-2, the first three beasts, despite arising from the sea, are hardly typical marine animals. Something’s screwy somewhere! 

An interesting question arises. I gather or at least I assume that none of the above beasties entered onto Noah’s Ark in mating pairs, two-by-two, especially the more terrestrial and aerial ones. So, how did they survive that flood to produce offspring that would raise hell further on down the track? 

CONCLUSION: There’s much here to interest those who like to read and study mythology, especially animal-related mythology, comparative mythology and symbolism. There’s not much here to excite the cryptozoologist, although those ‘giants’ might be of interest to physical anthropologists, and the Cherubim and Seraphim to those who like to play around with the reality of possible ancient astronauts.

Biblical Cryptozoology: Part One

Cryptozoology is an endeavour to establish the reality of animal species (often mega-fauna) that are currently unverified or totally unknown. New species (usually insects and micro-fauna) are being discovered everyday. Alas a lot will never be verified because we humans unknowingly have driven them to extinction. Mythologies around the world are full of unknown mega-fauna, which truth be known, if they have or had existence it is or was extraterrestrial in nature. Here I briefly look at the most popular of all mythological texts, the Bible, to see what might be of zoological interest. 

You won’t find references in the Bible to the Yeti, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, the Cyclopes, or other similar beasties that interest wildlife biologists in the hunt for unverified, but possible examples of terrestrial wildlife. However, that doesn’t mean that the Bible doesn’t contain descriptions of a whole host of unknown creatures – the province of modern cryptozoology. Taking in turn the realm of the air, the land and the sea, what do we find?

Note: All references below refer to the King James Version of the Bible.

AIR:

*Cherubim: Of all the weird and wonderful creatures that appear between Genesis and Revelation, Ezekiel takes first prize for the most weird and wonderful of all. Ezekiel, assuming here he hadn’t consumed too much fermented grape juice, witnessed a whirlwind, a great cloud, full of fire with much brightness and overall the colour of amber, when as he puts it all came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month. Okay, maybe it’s a volcanic eruption (or perhaps a descending spaceship)! Well, apparently it’s not volcanic in origin for it then comes to pass that there were four creatures associated with this phenomenon which Ezekiel ultimately identifies as a Cherub (Ezekiel 9:3) or Cherubim (Ezekiel 10:14).

Ezekiel also says that these four living creatures (or perhaps crew members) “had the likeness of a man” (i.e. they were humanoid but not human).  And each of these creatures had four faces and four wings. The four faces were akin to those of a man, an ox, an eagle and a lion. And these creatures glowed. On second thought, maybe Ezekiel had consumed a bit too much grape juice! However, to be fair to the man, if you’ve never had a close encounter before and no concept of ET, then you can only interpret and describe what you see in terms you are familiar with, like an eagle or lion or something that’s akin to a man but not a man. 

Anyway, Ezekiel also describes the glowing craft or vehicle associated with this quartet, which in ancient astronaut literature is noted as the ‘Wheel of Ezekiel’, a Biblical UFO encounter. Then he hears a voice, which in his confused state assumes must be a deity, in fact The Deity (well, that’s understandable – back then I probably would have assumed the same not being acquainted with ancient astronaut and UFO lore and the whole concept of life on other planets). In a similar way to his description of aliens in familiar terms (somewhat like a man), Ezekiel could explain in the only way possible the message he was given as a ‘message from God’. The messengers certainly weren’t his next door neighbours holding a conversation with him! 

It would appear that the creatures who posed as the Lord or who Ezekiel misinterpreted as the Lord departed around or about Ezekiel 3:2-14. Thus Ezekiel concluded his ‘first contact’, a close encounter of the third kind.

However, there was a second coming, a repeat performance around Ezekiel 8:1 when it came to pass for Ezekiel in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month. Again you get descriptions of those four faces, slightly altered as this time round as the four faces were akin to a cherub, man, lion and eagle (Ezekiel 10:14) – the ox had gone, so maybe these weren’t the exact same aliens. But you still get the technology of the wheels and the clouds and the brightness and the fire and the lifting up and departure, and so ‘second contact’ ended by the conclusion of Ezekiel 10.  

Something seems amiss at first glance however as first contact was in the “thirtieth year” but second contact was in the “sixth year”. I gather the thirtieth year was his 30^th year in captivity down by the river at Chebar, while his sixth year was his 6^th year back at home following. At a minimum that means at least six years between first and second contact, not that that has any great significance.

There is however one more follow-up to these four-faced creatures. Revelation, like Ezekiel, is dominated to a nearly excessive degree with four living creatures. Revelation 4:7 relates another four creatures, all with now familiar faces – lion, calf, man and flying eagle. But in the time elapsed since Ezekiel’s day (a time that hasn’t actually arrived yet apparently), these aliens had sprouted an additional pair of wings, for a grand total of six wings as related in the following verse, Revelation 4:8. Maybe these creatures have differing number of wings due to age (they grow more wings as they grow older), or sex (females have four wings; males six wings or vice versa) as something part and parcel within their own natural selection and evolution.

These six-winged beasties are probably the Seraphim as related in Isaiah 6:2 and 6:6. They like to cry out “holy, holy, holy” (their catchcry), exactly the same phrase you get uttered in Revelation 4:8. They, the four beasts with the six wings, were also blessed with a myriad of eyes (as in way more than two) on all sides. Lots of eyes can be found in Greek mythology too. Argus was a 100-eyed giant, ultimately slain by Hermes who presented the corpse to Hera (Mrs. Zeus) who incorporated the eyes of Argus into her iconic symbol – the peacock.

In any event, four-winged ‘spirits’ were commonly depicted in ancient Mesopotamia so there’s nothing unique about Ezekiel’s neural network and visions and so perhaps Ezekiel wasn’t hitting the bottle after all.  

These intelligent beings might be thought of as outside the province of cryptozoology or zoology full stop, yet the Sasquatch/Bigfoot, Yeti and similar hairy hominoids are considered legit. But since Ezekiel’s creatures are unknown humanoids to science, intelligent or not, whether they fall in the realm of cryprozoology or not, well that’s just unnecessarily splitting hairs. Still, one could argue that the Cherubim (and Seraphim) might fall more into the interests of astrobiologists and/or ufologists if my premise is correct and they are really extraterrestrials.

*Cockatrice: Both Isaiah and Jeremiah acknowledge the cockatrice which is a relatively small two-legged dragon, but with the head of a rooster. In some versions it’s cited instead as a basilisk, which in legend is king of the serpents with the evil eye (much like the Gorgon, Medusa), though without wings. Some editions just wimp out and call it a viper.

*Dragon: There are many references to the concept of dragons in the Bible, but the biggie is Revelation 12:3 – “And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.” And Revelation 12:7 – “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.” Of course in this context the dragon is equated with Satan, but “seven heads and ten horns” has to be a rather weird description of Satan, an original angel, methinks. Still, here’s the reference: Revelation 12:9 – “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” So there!

*Flying Horse: When you think of a flying horse you think of Pegasus, but Pegasus doesn’t get a mention in the Bible. But, you do get a relation of Pegasus, cited in 2 Kings 2:11 when Elijah gets abducted, placed on a chariot of fire drawn by horses of fire and gets transported to heaven whether he likes it or not. I presume that in order to get from ground level to heaven the horses must have had wings. Then there’s Revelation. I think Revelation 9:17 is confusing the concept of the horse with the dragon since one doesn’t normally associate a horse’s mouth spewing forth smoke, fire and brimstone! And our poor very confused author of Revelation has trouble distinguishing a lion’s head from a horse’s head – even a very young child can tell the two apart. However, later on down the track we get white horses and riders (one of which I gather is J.C. himself – as a rider, not as a horse) heading hell bent for leather to strut their Revelation stuff. Presumably, those horses will be descendents of Pegasus, otherwise by the time they (the riders) reach terra firma from heaven it’s going to be splat-city (unless they have parachutes of course).

*Locusts: In Revelation you also have a plague of locusts appear, which doesn’t sound too unusual or anomalous, except these locusts were shaped like horses and had the faces of men and crowns on their head which was covered in the hair of women and teeth that you associate with lions and the tail of a scorpion. Are you getting the impression the author here either had some magic mushrooms for breakfast or else was puffing on the good stuff?

To be continued…

Animal Mutilations

For the better part of going on towards five decades worth, there’s been a ongoing and gruesome phenomena seemingly clustered around the American mid-western regions that involves what has been described as the mutilation of large herbivore wildlife such as bison, but more usually domesticated livestock like cattle, sheep and horses - Whodunit?

For the better part of going on towards five decades worth, there’s been a ongoing and gruesome phenomena seemingly clustered around the American mid-western regions (though Charles Fort collected similar cases from England in the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries) that involves what has been described as the mutilation of large herbivore wildlife such as bison, but more usually domesticated livestock like cattle, sheep and horses. Mutilation is not usually a word associated with natural processes like predation, rather deliberate acts for purposes other than taking down an animal as a natural food source. We’ll return to that unnatural bit later on down the track.

These unfortunate victims usually have selected and nearly consistent bits and pieces of their body removed with near surgical precision. Most of the carcass is left behind, though the body is usually devoid of blood.

Firstly, from the outset, there’s no denying the reality of the phenomena – ghosts and UFOs come and go like will-o’-the-wisps, but animal mutilations, like crop circles, stick around and are available for ongoing scrutiny and analysis, and both have some other common threads like clustering in geographical areas (crop circles tend to be associated with and clustered in SW England). Both are ongoing and both now number in the hundreds to thousands of individual cases. Further, there have been several (two) independent Federal inquiries into the phenomena, one by the FBI (1979), the other by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT). Both studies produced conclusions that anomalies existed in some mutilation cases and that further studies were warranted. There have also been various State-level investigations as well as Senate hearings.

The most obvious answer to the mutilation mystery is that all can be attributed to natural predators doing their thing. In fact professional veterinarians usually associated with university schools of veterinary medicine or science proclaim from their ivory towers that these are indeed the results of natural predation by known carnivores, all by studying the photographic evidence – god forbid they’d actually do any on-site fieldwork. However, they do admit that not all of the hundreds to thousands of mutilation cases fall into such neat little piles. All agree by now that all cases cannot be easily explained by wild cats like mountain lions and bobcats or those from the canine side of things like wolves and coyotes, and similar predators such as foxes and wild dogs. 

An obvious problem with the natural predation theory is the appearance of the phenomena in the mid-1960s (apart from still relatively recent England noted above). Prey and predators existed way before that as well as humans to report the cases.  

In contrast, the man-on-the-land, the farmers, rangers, hunters, wildlife field biologists and vets who work for government departments and other outdoors types who are quite familiar with viewing and inspecting your run of the mill animal predation tend to take a more opposite view – there’s nothing natural about these sorts of animal predations and the state the remains of the carcass are found in.  This might appear to be a typical academic skeptic vs. eyewitness (I know what I saw) disagreements were it not for a few other unusual features.

Firstly, you’d expect to see signs of a predator-prey struggle – the ground should have been scuffed up a bit; the vegetation slightly disturbed. That’s not what you find. You’d expect in many cases to observe the tracks of the predatory animal(s). You don’t tend to find tracks. Often there are not even tracks of the victim in the immediate vicinity as if the animal were dumped from above at the spot. Thirdly, if natural, you wouldn’t expect the ground/soil and surrounding vegetation in the immediate area of the kill to show any long-term lasting effects. Often the kill site can be identified way down the track by unusual changes in the condition of the soil and vegetation, usually for the worse.

Further, natural predators tend to avoid or shy away from the mutilated carcass even though it’s an apparently easy meal. Ditto other livestock avoid the area as well. It’s like a no-go zone. Some post-mortem biochemical studies suggest that the victim in question was tranquilized prior to the mutilation. One of the anomalies often reported via laboratory studies of the carcass are unusual alterations in the amounts of vitamins, minerals and other associated biochemical compounds. The findings of tranquilizers and/or anomalies in the standard biochemistry of the victim, points more to a human or an otherworldly culprit. What about the human animal?

Because the nature of the wounds often having the nature or hallmarks suggestive of surgery; well there’s another predator that needs to be considered, the human predator. Well that doesn’t really appear to wash either – again, no human footprints in the area prior to discovery; no tire tracks (and most of the kill sites are off the beaten track – a long walk to get to them). Further, to the best of my knowledge, no human(s) have ever been observed in the act, far less caught, tried and convicted. Further, no human(s) or cults (Satanic or otherwise) have claimed responsibility. In gun-toting America, especially rural America where rifles and shotguns probably outnumber their human owners, any other humans with animal mutilation on their depraved minds are really risking their hides – farmers seeing their livestock (and livelihoods) butchered are liable to shoot first and ask questions later!

Further still, the nature of the incisions hasn’t been duplicated in the laboratory by lasers (an obvious human tool if humans were responsible) since there’s no signs of heat or cooking on the carcass incisions. Laboratory tests show that the time and effort to do the high precision cutting job using sharp steel implements is quite considerable. Hides are tough, unlike human skin. Further, no evidence beyond reasonable doubt (say by the FBI or the AFT) of any human or cultist activity was ever uncovered by any official investigation

Of course there have been claims that the American government is actually responsible via clandestine or covert research into possible cattle-human transmitted diseases like ‘mad cow disease’ and scrapie, research  via the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) with covering support from the armed forces via ‘black helicopters’. However, on balance, you’d think such work in the public interest wouldn’t have to be done undercover! Surely the American powers-that-be can buy livestock at random for testing; ditto hunt other wildlife for routine and ongoing testing in the open. Some conspiracy scenarios make sense – this one doesn’t.

You can’t really pin this on some sort of unknown, undiscovered predator like the Chupacabra – an animal that would be in the providence of cryptozoologists since there have been no sightings of such potential critters in the area with the necessary ‘tools’ (teeth and jaws), and anyway no tracks, known animal or unknown animal.

Since the phenomena exists and requires explanation and resolution, perhaps that leaves the otherworldly. Are aliens in UFOs responsible? While there have, on occasion been reports of unusual aerial objects in the relevant vicinity prior to mutilations, it would seem on the surface to be relatively absurd. Why would aliens want bits and pieces and the blood of large herbivores?

Alien beings will, by definition, have alien minds, an alien psychology and alien motives – alien relative to us of course.

There is however an obvious parallel with alien UFO abductions. Humans who claim to have been abducted by the ‘Greys’ also claim to have had tissue samples taken from them – biopsies – and often have the unexplained scares to ‘prove’ it, though to the skeptics that hardly constitutes real evidence, far less proof. Still, it’s another dot point suggesting that aliens, for whatever reason, just take tissue samples to monitor – what? Well, who knows? At least the humans aren’t sacrificed on the alien’s altar.

Needless to say humans (biologists, vets, nurses, medical doctors & researchers) do tissue sample work all the time and sometimes it’s necessary to kill the subject under the knife first.

Ultimately, to date, the only reasonable conclusion that can be reached is that there is no ‘smoking gun’ proof yet to identify beyond question whodunit, if indeed there is just a single whodunit.