Would we be better off if a mother elephant was president?
At least we would have a leader who possessed empathy. I’m sick and tired of politics and politicians so I’m going to write about animals this week. There may be little difference.

I have kept a file on animals for more than a half century, so I have picked a few stories and notes I thought were interesting.

• Cows: Having milked many cows in my day as a farm boy, I established good relationships with many and never caused a revolution and cow war.

This “bovine revolution” in Canada north of Montreal in 2022 made international news and the farmer Ferme Clement Lapointe faced animal cruelty charges after their five-month escape from the farm during a July thunderstorm.

For five months the pissed-off cows, a few that had calves while on the run, spent days hiding in forests and cornfields and only came out at night to raid pastures, grain fields and other local crops.

Farmers, who suffered an estimated $20,000 damages, hired local cowboys to round up the trespassing herd, but they were never successful. They were finally caught when a corral was filled with food as bait in January of 2023. Evidently, they were having difficulty finding enough food at night in the winter.

Having milked and shoveled their manure for about 10 years, I discovered that some cows loved to have their head and belly scratched while others loved to kick and chase you up the nearest tree in the pasture and leave you there. 

An Austrian Brown Swiss cow named Veronika should run for office. Now a 13-year-old pet and no longer providing milk, when she wants a scratch, rub or massage, picks up a long-handled brush with her teeth, and deliberately rubs the bristles along her back to eliminate an itch. If she needs a soft touch in a delicate place such as udder and bell, she uses the smooth handle to accomplish that task.

Most cows are sent to the meat plant and slaughtered when four to six years old. Researchers say Veronika is not special. All cows of her age are capable of her intelligence.

On our rather small farm we raised chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, pigs, cows, bulls and horses. They were all on different steps in what was once called the Chain of Being and required special treatment.
By the way, I’m French and we eat a lot of rabbits and horse meat. We had a large hutch for our rabbits but never ate our Belgian or Percheron horses. They were awfully big.

• Starling: In 1784 Mozart bought a starling in a pet store that seemed to chirp the notes and themes from his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major.

The bird lived with Mozart for at least three years, influencing his work, serving as his home companion, his distraction and his muse according to friends.

• Octopus: Musician Mattias trained an octopus named Takoyaki to use its tentacles to strike the keys of a modified keyboard placed in its tank, to the tune of “Baby Shark” while he strummed the tune on his guitar.

The octopus got a crab in a transparent tube to eat after he hit the right key. Octopuses have about 2,000 suckers on eight sensitive tentacles that are not controlled by a central brain.

• Bald Eagle: A childless male bald eagle named Murphy at the World Bird Sanctuary at Valley Park, Missouri, had been there for 31 childless years and had never sat on a real egg to help a female eagle bring an eaglet into the world.

At times he had sat on a rock egg for company. The sanctuary took in an injured and orphaned baby eaglet. The keepers “introduced” the eaglet to Murphy to see if he would become a foster parent.
Murphy, after a few days of fooling around with the eaglet, fell in love with his child, and was soon happy tearing fish apart and feeding the eaglet.

• Sea Otter: Surfers off Santa Cruz, California, are being terrorized by a large sea otter. The female otter has been videoed biting surfing boards and forcing the rider to jump off so it can ride the board alone to the beach. The state Fish and Wildlife have been unsuccessful in capturing the otter.

• Parrots: A study involving 18 parrots proved that parrots, often lonely because they are the only one in the house in a cage, can be trained by using an IPad to look at photos of other parrots in other homes and then tap it to select another parrot they want to call.

In just two months the birds initiated 147 calls to “friends.” They quickly developed friendships, singing and preening to one another and calling each other frequently. They also would show off their toys, fall asleep together on the phone, and bond quickly with close friends.

• A Dog Cartoon: My favorite. A dog is behind the wheel of a speeding car going down a street and the owner of the car standing by the side of the road says to his wife: “Well, what do you know – turns out he knew exactly what he’d do with a car if he caught one!”

• Istanbul’s Commuter Dog: Back in 2021 a street dog in Europe’s largest city became the most famous dog in the world by learning to use mass transit such as buses, subways, trains ferries and some other conveyances. He became a hit on social media, where he averages about 50,000 followers a day.

City officials got so many calls about Boji they put a radio and microchip collar on him and have workers track his movements. A newspaper photographer followed him for several days and took pictures of him on mass transit and ferries, traveling to nearby islands. Tram lines are his favorite ride. The pictures are in the Guardian file.

He has excellent mass-transit manners. He waits for people to get on and off, sits in seats or on floors out of the way, and never bothers anyone.

He averages 29 stops a day on his chip traveling the metro area. When he is hungry, he has stops at several restaurants. He barks at the door to announce his presence and that he is hungry. Waiters serve him at the door. He is a celebrity at restaurants. 

He has a tag on his ear indicating he is a stray in Istanbul and has been neutered and vaccinated. Every time he walks by a bus, van or other mode of travel he seems to get excited. The city has a kennel for him in a metro station where he can spend the night and eat.

• Cats: In a recent cognitive recognition test cats outperformed 14-month-old human babies. They paired words with images. Cognitive scientist Sako Takagi said she was surprised how seriously cats performed while participating in the experiment.

• Arctic Tern: The greatest and longest migration on earth is accomplished by a four-ounce argonaut that flies from Greenland to Antarctica each year and back again for an amazing total of 44,000 miles.

• Fish, Animals and Magnetic Fields: Scientists are still trying to figure  out how magnetic fields work on creatures on earth. Live carp kept in tubs in fish markets always tend to float on a north-south axis. Red and Arctic foxes usually jump on mice from northeasterly direction. And, dog owners, take notice. The next time you let your dog out to relieve himself, see if he crouches on a north-south magnetic field line.

• Symphonic Dogs: When the Danish Chamber Orchestra performed Leopold Mozart’s Hunting Symphony Cooki, Sophus and Sica had prominent parts. They barked with fervor when they were trained to. It took several months and several practices to get the Spanish water dog, a cocker spaniel and a German shepherd to bark live on stage at the right time, but it was done on time with a flair after training sessions with conductor Adam Fischer. He had held audition sessions to find the right dogs with the right barks.

• A Summary about Earth’s Animals: The Independent Media Institute has a one-paragraph statement about our animal friends and enemies that summarizes how nonhuman animals may feel about themselves: “Nonhuman animals value their own lives, have their own interests and experience a range of emotions similar to  our own that run the gamut from joy and fear to pain, anger, sadness, stress and grief; they have their own cultures and dialects; they play, work cooperatively and use tools; they remember and plan for the future; they love, form long-lasting bonds and show empathy. The conclusion that they have rich emotional lives isn’t more anthropomorphism, it’s backed up by research in multiple fields, including cognitive ethology, evolutionary biology and neuroscience.” We musgt learn to love them.

• Poor Children: Because we now have millions of poor children and many millions of millionaires and billionaires in Trumpistan, I desire to repeat sections of a unique satiric essay written by Jonathon Swift in the 18th century: “A Modest Proposal For Preventing The Children Of The Poor People In Ireland From Being A Burden To Their Parents Or Country, And For Making Them Beneficial To The Public.” I’m going to use just five paragraphs from a much longer essay, but I think his message is clear.

“I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance……that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled, and make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or ragout.
I do therefor humbly offer to public consideration that of the 120,000 children already computed (After a very high infant mortality rate), 20,000 may be reserved for breed, whereof only1/4 part to be males, which is more than we allow sheep, black cattle or swine, and no reason is that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage…..therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females.

  That the remaining 100,000 may at a year old, be offered for sale to persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them fat and plump for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when that family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, will increase to 28 pounds. This food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, when, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have best title to the children.”