Ohai was in southern California..?



(Yes, I know, it's spelled Ojai but I just couldn't resist! )

Last edited Thu Jan 29, 2015, 12:34 PM - Edit history (1)

I would have kept the picture to myself. There are far too many people who would see this animal as something they'd like to take to a taxidermist.

Pretty little fox. I saw a red fox the other day, driving from my house in St. Paul, in a nearby park. Made my day.

By VERONICA ROCHA
Los Angeles Times, Jan. 29, 2015

The elusive Sierra Nevada red fox has been spotted at Yosemite National Park for the first time in nearly 100 years.

“They are extremely cute little animals,” said Yosemite spokeswoman Kari Cobb. “When you see them, they are pretty majestic.”

Motion-sensitive cameras captured the red fox -- one of 14 mammals protected by California -- on Dec. 13 and Jan. 4. Park officials are still trying to determine whether the cameras caught the same fox or a second one.

“The chance of running into them is very unusual,” Cobb added.

California’s Sierra Nevada red fox is one of the rarest mammals in North America, Cobb said: Fewer than 50 of the bushy-tailed mammals exist in North America.

CONTINUED...

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sighting-rare-sierra-nevada-red-fox-20150128-story.html

When I was young, I owned the ugliest motorcyle in Orange County, California. Often after work, I would take the day's receipts to the bank on my misused Kawasaki 440. One sultry summer evening, as I was meandering down a curvy boulevard in Laguna Niguel near Leisure World -- no cars, pedestrians, nothing, just me and two lanes of smooth blacktop -- something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. It was an owl -- flying in parallel to me as I rounded the curves and enjoyed the journey. That image of me in a helmet and on my bike, looking over to my side and seeing this beautiful creature, I remember gray and black spots with some gold on its wingtips, makes me feel all is right with the universe.

Politics is another matter.

If people a century from now still can marvel at this creature and the other wonders of the natural world, it will be a miracle or people deciding in our day to take Democratic action -- that is protect the world we ALL share.

And a good picture too.

Hopefully some asshole hunter won't kill it.

I pray some trigger happy hunter doesn't confuse him for a coyote..

http://www.hcn.org/articles/mistaken-identity

In late December, near the town of Beaver, in southwestern Utah, a hunter took aim at a big canine. Then he pulled the trigger, killing it.

The problem is that the animal in the hunter's crosshairs turned out to be a federally-protected gray wolf. In the days following, speculation swirled that the 3-year-old female was none other than Echo (named by schoolchildren), who appeared on the north rim of the Grand Canyon in October – the first gray wolf sighted there in over 70 years.

An ammosexual's dream.