Backcasts archive: Through June 13, 2008
By Brett PaulyBlog calendar: June 13 | June 11 | June 10 | June 9
Monkey business continues with daring escape in Indiana
Monkeys seem to be in the news recently.
First they're fishing in Indonesia. Next their on the lamb in Indiana.
Now it's really none of our monkey business … well, let's amend that, when it comes to escapees, yes, in fact, it is our concern, especially when it has anything to do with a garden hose, a boat dealerships and a zoo in the Midwest.
The day started innocently enough at Washington Park Zoo, then all, er, monkeys broke loose.
Make that one of two spider monkeys recently added to the Michigan City, Ind., menagerie went over the wall … of a moat … using, yes, you guessed it, a garden hose to scale it … and into freedom (however short lived it was), the Associated Press reports.
The Curious George wanna-be waited until its enclosure was being cleaned and the moat was emptied to make its break. (Indiana Jones is our vote for a name, or new name, for the rascal.)
What a smart, little monkey to outwit its keepers. Apparently the zoo workers thought the spider monkey would stay put, even without the water obstacle to slow its escape claws, or paws, or hands with opposable thumbs, or whatever primates have at the end of their arms.
Not a chance.
Over the dry moat and up the wall the smart, little monkey went.
See monkey run. See monkey jump onto the roof of a water filtration plant. See monkey retire to a white and blue speedboat. See zookeepers recapture monkey at the dealership.
Dick and Jane would laugh to see such frolic, especially when, according to the zoo director, the monkey is sociable and posed no danger to people, the AP reports.
During the chase zoo personnel apparently were able to keep the monkey out of the adjacent woodlands by corralling it, at least temporarily, near a creek, according to Newsroom Solutions.
In the end, the spider monkey was back at the zoo and we trust no worse for wear.
Meanwhile, Backcasts wishes all dads a happy Father's Day … with plenty of monkeying around.
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Maybe Oz really does exist. After fishing monkeys & unicorn deer, we believe
It's the stuff of children's books and sappy, '70s ballads, but we're here to tell you, fishing monkeys and unicorn deer are real, at least according to the Associated Press, which believe we do.
Park officials in Italy today reported spotting a deer sprouting a single horn right from the middle of its noggin.
Meanwhile, some anglers have been known to monkey around, but fishing is all business for the long-tailed macaques in Indonesia that have begun catching fish.
"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, Italy, told the Associated Press about the odd deer.
Well, that might actually be stretching the truth a bit, Gilberto, don'tcha think?
What is known is that the 1-year-old, single-horn roe deer– nicknamed, well, what else, "Unicorn" – was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town near Florence, Tozzi said.
Biologists are calling the deer a freak of nature – born with a genetic flaw, in their terminology – as his twin has two horns.
Single-horn deer are not altogether unheard of, but exceedingly rare is the central positioning of the lone spike, according to the AP.
And ol' Gilberto suggests such an anomaly could have spawned the very myth of the unicorn.
"This shows that even in past times there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said. "It's not like they dreamed it up."
Hmmm, next he'll be saying something even more fantastic, like whales that grow sole, spiraling tusks.
Sure, they've been known to grab low-hanging fruit, and high-hanging fruit, and just about every other kind of fruit in the jungle. Crabs and insects are on their menus, too. Oh, and tourists who get too close soon realize their culinary preferences lean toward bananas, stolen right from the mitts of the human onlookers.
Now the macaques have added a new staple: fish.
Know new is a relative term, or at least as it relates to researchers, because the observations of the monkeys scooping up small fish with their hands and eating them along rivers in Indonesia's East Kalimantan and North Sumatra provinces actually began in 1998, the AP reports from Bangkok, Thailand.
"It's exciting that after such a long time you see new behavior," said Erik Meijaard, a senior science adviser at The Nature Conservancy and one of the authors of a study on the fishing macaques that appeared in last month's International Journal of Primatology.
Though scientists haven't quite, er, angled in on the rationale behind the macaques' switch to fishing, it can be assumed it has something to do with adaptation – perhaps adjusting to changing environment and shifting food sources, according to Meijaard.
"They are a survivor species, which has the knowledge to cope with difficult conditions," he said. "This behavior potentially symbolizes that ecological flexibility."
Since we're in a truth-be-told mode, far be it from us to keep it a secret that other primates have exhibited fishing behavior, including Japanese macaques, chacma baboons, olive baboons, chimpanzees and orangutans, the AP reports.
Bottom line: When it comes to fishing, our business is monkey business.
And our apologies, Gilberto, we've just learned there actually is a whale with a sole, spiraling tusk. Enter the narwhal. Go figure.
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Editor's note: My Back Pages recalls previous columns penned by the author.
It's best to take high road; Mono
Pass Trail is a rather lofty route
At 10,300 feet, the trailhead is one of the High Sierra's tallest accesses from the east
TOMS PLACE, Calif. — Great views, sheer granite, afternoon thunderstorms, few visitors – all can be expected from a late summer or fall hike into Pioneer Basin over Mono Pass Trail. But one of the 9-mile hike's biggest attractions should be appreciated even before lacing up the wafflestompers: the starting elevation.
At 10,300 feet, the trailhead at Mosquito Flat Trail Camp is one of the High Sierra's tallest accesses from the east. And that makes the climb to the trip's high point – 11,920-foot Mono Pass – a veritable breeze compared to other backcountry options. Trekkers ascend less than 1,700 feet and crest out in just 3½ miles.
From the Inyo National Forest parking lot, a footbridge over Rock Creek points the way toward walk-in camp sites that serve as staging areas for backpackers. Those ready to hike will follow the creek upstream; chipmunks scurry as the sign to the John Muir Wilderness greets passers-by on the dusty road.
At the top of the first of many ups on the day, a junction offers hikers the alternative of hoofing to Morgan Pass via pristine Little Lakes Valley or to Mono Pass. Veer right to Mono and in two turns pass the equestrian trail used by those starting from the Rock Creek pack station. Soon the U-shaped profile of the glacier-formed valley comes into full view and jumping trout can be spied in the lakes for which it is named. Standing guard to the southeast is 13,748-foot Mount Morgan.
As the trail winds below 12,835-foot Mount Starr, it's difficult to judge the location of Mono Pass under all that granite. But as one passes the sign to Ruby Lake in a small, gentle basin 1.8 miles in (elevation 11,100 feet), the route becomes apparent – a series of zigs and zags point west, traversing Starr's base and a clutter of lupine and Indian paint brush. To the southwest, glorious Ruby Lake is hemmed in by 13,451-foot Mount Mills, Mount Abbot (13,704 feet), Mount Dade (13,600-plus feet) and Bear Creek Spire (13,720-plus feet).
| If You're Going … |
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Mono Pass Trail starts out from Mosquito Flat Trail Camp at the terminus of Rock Creek Road, which takes visitors south from Toms Place on Highway 395 to Little Lakes Valley, found between Mammoth Lakes and Bishop, Calif. To reach the Eastern Sierra trailhead from Los Angeles, drive north about six hours on highways 5 and 14 to 395. Turn left at Toms Place, some 20 miles northwest of Bishop. Drive 10 miles to road's end and park. Backpacker parking and a single night of camping for staging are free. Wilderness permits for overnight trekking into Pioneer Basin and other backcountry sites are required during the backpacker-quota period – the last Friday in June through Sept. 15. Permits can be reserved up to six months in advance by calling the Inyo National Forest Wilderness Reservation Service, (760) 873-2483. Fishing licenses are required for anglers ages 16 and older. Maps: Mount Abbot 7.5-minute series topographic or Tom Harrison Cartography's "Trail Map of the Mono Divide High Country." Additional details: White Mountain Ranger Station in Bishop, (760) 873-2500. |
The trudging pays off as a wide bend in the trail reveals an exceedingly simple final push north to the pass, following the contours of Starr's western shoulder. Plan on 2½ hours to the summit, which a sign atop states is 11,920 feet but which topographic maps suggest is higher than 12,000 feet. William Brewer and his survey party crossed this spot marking the boundary between Inyo and Fresno counties on Aug. 2, 1864, but the pass might not have been named until many years later.
The day's goal – Pioneer Basin – can be spotted after trotting beyond Summit Lake in what is now Sierra National Forest. Many similar basins define the Mono Divide high country, but Pioneer is the only one clearly visible from this vantage. Six switchbacks lead to Trail Lakes (11,200 feet), a pleasant site for lunch. If it's a tent city, which it can be in warmer months, move down another eight zigzags to a meadow that affords stellar views of the Mono Creek watershed.
From here, it's 34 turns downward through foxtail pines to Golden Creek (9,650 feet), 2.8 miles from Mono Pass. Upstream about a mile lies Golden Lake. Instead, head downstream six switchbacks to the junction with the trail to Fourth Recess Lake, which can be seen through the pines en route. Bear right, and a couple of switches later come to the turnoff to Pioneer Basin, a three-quarter mile hike from Golden Creek.
(Those who hope to explore Mono Creek either in addition to Pioneer Basin or to its exclusion will want to track westward from here down aptly named Mono Creek Trail. It winds beyond the Third, Second and First recesses and Hopkins and Laurel Creek trails to the Pacific Crest Trail/John Muir Trail and Lake Thomas Edison.)
At this point the day's roller-coaster ride takes an upward swing for the last 2 miles to several secluded camp sites at the largest of the Pioneer Basin Lakes. Note a fork eight-tenths of a mile up; take the trail to the right, a more gradual climb that gets one farther into the basin covering the same distance. (The other path was described as "disturbing" by one fellow hiker for it is terribly steep and deeply rutted by equestrian traffic.)
After ascending a mild ridge line, the mellower track crosses the basin's primary outlet stream; angler's take heed, for you will want to hike down from camp later on to this spot and fish upstream and in the brook trout-infested pond situated a short distance to the northeast. Move up the basin to the lake, which is flagged on topo maps by elevation 10,862; excellent camp sites are found on the eastern shore, not far from its outlet.
As you bed down for the evening after more than seven hours of backpacking, think of how the journey could have been far more exhausting had the parking lot been any lower.
This article originally appeared Oct. 1, 1998, in the Los Angeles Daily News
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Bald eagle gets a nose job to right a wrong done by a shooter
While the act of the shooter that inexcusably blasted off the beak of a protected Alaska eagle is as chicken as any we can immediately think of, the remarkable efforts of the Idaho engineer that designed the bird's artificial replacement offer a sense of balance to what had been until recently a tragic tale.
Beauty the bald eagle was slowly starving in 2005 when it was discovered scrounging for food at a landfill in the Land of the Midnight Sun. A bullet had decimated her curved upper beak, reducing it to a stump and exposing its tongue and sinuses, the Associated Press reports out of St. Maries, Idaho.
The eagle couldn't grip food or preen its feathers and had difficulties even drinking.
Its demise due to human thoughtlessness was imminent.
Enter human kindness.
The eagle was taken to a sanctuary in Anchorage, where handlers fed and nurtured it. They hoped for a new beak to grow, but of course it never materialized. Then last year Jane Fink Cantwell agreed to transport Beauty to her raptor-recovery center in Idaho and see to her care there, according to the AP.
Cantwell later met Boise engineer Nate Calvin, who offered to design a prosthetic beak so that Beauty could finally feed herself.
It took Calvin some 200 hours to create the complex, nylon-composite attachment, which has been credited for sparing the 15-pound eagle. Otherwise it would have had to have been euthanized, Cantwell said.
So while some selfish shooter fouls the image of sportsmen – targeting the very symbol of America, which just sucks – thankfully there are those among us who can repair such a fowl act.
Beauty is not out of the woods; the artificial beak is but a temporary fix as final measurements are made before the next volunteers – Boeing and a California manufacturer of artifical skin – collaborate to make a permanent replacement.
And while the majestic bird of prey will never fly free of restraints again (she's pent too much time around people and even the finished beak won't hold up in the wild), as the AP states, Beauty the bald eagle can live up to her name.
A prosthetic isn't altogether unheard of for injured wild animals at recover shelters.
National Geographic reported earlier this year that a green sea turtle would be getting a fake flipper, and you may recall several years back the dolphin in Japan that was fitted with an artificial tailfin.
About the author: Brett Pauly spent nearly six years editing and publishing ESPNOutdoors.com before moving on to produce the ESPN.com Sports Travel site. He is a national award-winning writer and editor with 14 years of experience in the newspaper trade, including stints at the Los Angeles Daily News and Seattle Times. The Evergreen State is where he now makes his home. Click here to email him.
