Bunny Emergency.

Please visit the Tranquility Trail Animal Sanctuary website and help them with a donation if you can!!!
http://www.tranquilitytrail.org/Emergency_Bunny_Rescue.html

From their website:

TTAS was contacted about a backyard situation out of control in Phoenix. We have spent the last two days catching, sexing and separating the bunnies. We are up to 100 bunnies with many still in burrows and numerous pregnant females. Our detailed plan to get the situation under control and what supplies/volunteers will follow. We have set-up an Emergency Rescue Fund that will be used exclusively for this rescue operation. Funds will be used for medical treatment and spay/neuters. We estimate the cost for this portion of the operation to be $5000-$7000. If you would like to make a donation, please visit http://www.tranquilitytrail.org/Donation_Center.html and note Emergency Rescue Fund.

We've also compiled a list of things that we need to make this rescue a success.  Items can be dropped off at the sanctuary at any time during business hours.  Feel free to call us if you come across anything that may be useful to our rescue mission.

Emergency Rescue List of Needed Supplies
 
Paper towels

White vinegar

Syringes for medication

Disposable surgical gowns and booties

Mobile Air Conditioning Units and Fans

X-pens

Litter – Carefresh, Yesterday’s News or Wood Stove Pellets

Hay/Food

Chicken wire

Pavers or bricks

Vegetables for nursing mothers

Gift card for hardware stores, grocery stores, Costco, Staples, gas stations

Copy paper

Space – empty offices, warehouses, houses for temporary housing

Spay/neuter services

Towels and blankets

Toys for the bunnies

Monetary donations

Photo printer

Camcorder for documentation

Large Rubbermaid type storage containers

Large storage shed or container for bales of hay

Spray bottles


Please feel free to contact us at: (480) 406-7301 or email: info@tranquilitytrail.org with any questions.

International Wildlife Museum in Tucson

Hooray stuffed and mounted dead things!

We just got back from the International Wildlife Museum in Tucson, as mentioned in the title, and it was even better than I remembered it as a child.  I was only about eight or nine years old when we went, but twenty some years later I wanted to go again.

Mostly, I just remembered "Goat Mountain"...

There's also a very horrifying room filled with heads.  Hundreds of heads.

(Note broken tail on the lioness in foreground.  At least she hasn't just been tossed away.  I think she's out in front for the kids to pet.)

I just can't resist these places.

Here's some more pictures!!

Demon Deer!!!! ( or elk,  I wasn't paying attention.)

Birds of Paradise.

It's only $7 per adult!  There are also many beautiful insect displays with mounted butterflies, moths, beetles and stick bugs.

So, if for some reason you ever end up in Tucson, you have to go.  That's an order.

Book recommendation number two

Two of my favorite things are history books and natural history museums.  I like creepy, old dead things with informative placards and bad lighting.  If you can kinda smell the weirdness, that's even better.  I finally got to go to The Field Museum in Chicago a few years back.  Awesome.

(Photos are from The Field Museum Website)

My want to visit was sparked by the great book Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums, by Stephen T. Asma.

From back cover:  "Asma takes us on a wide-ranging tour of natural history museums in New York and Chicago, London and Paris, interviewing curators, scientists, and exhibit designers, and providing a wealth of fascinating observations. We learn how the first museums were little more than high-toned side shows, with such garish exhibits as the pickled head of Peter the Great's lover. In contrast, today's museums are hot-beds of serious science, funding major research in such fields as anthropology and archaeology."

 The title of the first chapter is "Flesh-eating Beetles and Secret Art of Taxidermy" and in it he describes how pieces are prepared for storage and exhibition by letting beetles eat all the leftover meat, etc. from the bones of animals.  And who doesn't want to read about taxidermy?

(Photo taken in Hunterian Museum in London from Atlas Obscura website.  Click on the link if you love this kind of stuff)

Other chapters describe the evolution of taxonomy.  When "cabinets of curiosity" (similar to above, but creepier) ruled the scene, specimens were organized by completely different categories than they are now.  So, all the livers were together in one cabinet, all the beaks in another. And, yes, there were penis cabinets and eyeball cabinets, too.

A few other museums mentioned in the book:

American Museum of Natural History

Britains Museum of Natural History

Franklin Institute Science Museum
Grande Galerie de l’Evolution at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to visit the Galerie d'anatomie comparee in Paris anytime soon.

(Infant skeletons.  Photo from above link)

Identity Theft Prevention

They're having a big 'shred-a-thon' downtown today to help prevent identity theft.  I guess you bring down all your super personal information and bank statements, etc and they take care of it all for you.

We don't have a shredder.  

We have gerbils.

  Would you go digging through gerbil pee soaked bank statements?  Yeah, me neither.  Plus, it's 'green.'  No electricity required.

Shredding rules and gerbil rules are almost exactly the same:

-no staples or paper clips

-no plastic or metal

-no cd's or other disks

-no ink cartridges

-no toxic materials

-no biological matter

Now, I don't want any little gerbils getting hurt here.  Please use common sense if you decide to employ your rodents as soldiers in the war against identity theft.  Inks can be toxic, especially in large quantities!  Give them a rest between jobs...

As you can see, my little guys don't eat the paper.  They just tear it apart to make a fancy mattress with the bits.

(By the way, they are not devouring each other in this picture.  They just snuggle weird.)