"WE HAD TO DESTROY THE ANIMAL IN ORDER TO SAVE IT"

President Theodore Roosevelt enjoyed a reputation as a fervent naturalist and conservationist. As a result, the Smithsonian Institution commissioned Roosevelt and his son Kermit to travel to Eastern Africa in 1909, along with other zoologists, to harvest examples of various exotic wildlife for display and study in the United States.

The expedition brought back over 11,000 specimens, including insects and plants. However, T.R. and his son personally killed 512 vertebrates, including seventeen times as many lions as Dr. Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who recently got in hot water for hunting the big cat in Zimbabwe. A full casualty list of the two Roosevelts is attached below. Some of the animals are still on display at the Smithsonian.

There is no doubt that Theodore Roosevelt was a devout conservationist who really enjoyed killing animals. This is not necessarily a contradiction, as evidenced by the fact that deer hunting is an important aspect of keeping herds from becoming so large that they end up dying from lack of food. However, it should be noted that several of the Roosevelt trophies included white rhinos (called "square-mouthed" on Roosevelt's list), which even in 1909 were on the brink of extinction and certainly did not need harvesting in order to prevent mass starvation.

For a brief synopsis of the 1909 expedition, please click here. To read the book written by T.R. on the subject, African Game Trails; an Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist, click here.

REMOVING MOLES

By Didier Descouens (Own work)
 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

Most folks who even think about them regard moles (the animal) as a small, gross, ratty mammals which destroy lawns. What they may not realize is that, for a while, moles were highly prized in the fur trade. 

In the early 1900s, Queen Alexandra, the wife of Britain's King Edward VII, ordered a mole-fur garment and started a vigorous fashion trend which resulted in a thriving industry in Scotland of converting what had been major pests into little patches of fur and sewing them together for coats and other wearing apparel. Because the mole travels backwards into his tunnel almost as often as he goes forward, the fur is very short and dense and has little nap. As such, it is very soft and velvety.

Moles have a strange biochemistry which enables them to breathe in very low oxygen areas, such as their tunnels. They decompose extremely rapidly, which means that they had to be skinned almost immediately after their demise in order to avoid ruining the pelt.

1921 MAGAZINE FUR AD FEATURING
A MOLESKIN COAT

THE WYOMANS' PAUCITY OF VERTICAL TRANSLOCATION

There are only two sets of escalators in the entire state of Wyoming. Both are located in bank buildings in Casper.

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SO YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE CRAMPED ON YOUR LAST FLIGHT

The most number of passengers carried on a single aircraft occurred on May 24, 1991, when an El Al 747 transported 1,087* Jewish refugees away from a politically unstable Ethiopia.  Actually, the number increased to 1,090 before the trip was over, as three babies were literally air-born.

This evacuation was part of Operation Solomon, where the Israeli government transported a total of 14,235 Jews out of Ethiopia in a 36-hour period. 

*This is the official number of passengers registered for the flight, according to El Al on its webpage describing the operation. However, according to many sources, there were numerous unregistered children who were smuggled aboard, and the actual number of passengers on the plane was 1,122 (prior to any births).

By Eduard Marmet [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0),
 CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
 or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

REMEMBER THE MAINE (COON)!

One of the most popular breeds of cats in the United States is the Maine Coon. Its big hair and big body do not fit the standard feline stereotype of a typical domestic shorthair, and one can almost conclude that they look a little weird. However, their playful nature, extreme intelligence, and mellow disposition (where they seek and enjoy the companionship of their owners but without constantly demanding physical attention) more than compensate for their unconventional appearance. In fact, many of them will eagerly learn to do tricks such as fetch (or more accurately, they will teach their owners tricks like how to play fetch).

There are several theories about the origin of the Maine Coon cat. One impossible one, genetically speaking, is that normal house cats mated with wild raccoons (or even tame ones, for that matter). Another one, implausible but not totally impossible, is that Marie Antoinette, after her arrest, arranged for her snobby long-haired Persian kind of cats to be smuggled to the USA, where they bred with conventional style felines. A third theory is that English sea captains, including one named Charles Coon, introduced long-haired cats on trips to America, where they swapped genetic material with the local population. A fourth postulate is that Maine Coons are the result of matings between bobcats and domestic felines. A final possibility is that they are the descendants of Norwegian Forest cats which were introduced by the Vikings in the 11th century when the Norsemen landed in the New England area. This hypothesis may not be totally bogus, as sea captains brought long-haired cats to America all up and down the Eastern Seaboard, but only the Maine Coon cats (which in fact originated in Maine) resemble Norwegian Forest cats.

Whatever their origins, they are pretty cool cats. For more information about them, click here.

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DUELING PANCHOS

Dueling is still legal in Paraguay.  However, duels can only take place between two people, the duel must be registered with the authorities, there has to be medical staff on hand, and the participants must be registered blood donors.

Or is it? There are numerous sites on the internet confirming that duels are still legal in Paraguay--including that of the Chicago Tribune. The statement contained within the first paragraph of this factoid has been asserted as an axiom on so many occasions in so many places that it is almost universally accepted as totally valid. However, one is hard-pressed to find any authoritative source confirming the legality of duels in Paraguay. In fact, in a mind-boggling expose by the Mississippi Library Commission, it confirmed that the Paraguay Embassy had informed the MLC that dueling is NOT legal in that country.

How did the rumor get started? Well, dueling WAS* legal in Uruguay between 1920 and 1992, and probably, in a sad commentary on education in the USA, some writer got confused about geography and mixed up the two countries in a story while omitting the part that dueling was eventually banned. The misstatement grew legs and scurried around the internet until it evolved into apparent truth.

*Or was it? Wahahahaha...

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