Browsing: Animals/Pets

A Brief History On October 1, 2014, the findings of a medical study of adults between the ages of 57 and 85 published in the online journal PLOS ONE created a little stir on the internet when it was reported that a loss in one’s sense of smell could be indicative that one has less than five years to live! In other words, how good or bad one’s olfactory system is operating could be an indicator of one’s mortality and remaining life expectancy.  The exact mechanism, i.e. the correlation between the nose and general health, for this discovery is yet unknown, and further studies are necessary. Digging…

A Brief History On October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson shot his famous footage of a bigfoot at Bluff Creek, California.  The creature was later determined to be female and became known as “Patty.”  Digging Deeper Patterson was someone who might be considered an amateur bigfoot hunter.  Together with Robert “Bob” Gimlin, a rancher and horse trainer who acted as a guide, he set out on horseback to capture a bigfoot, or sasquatch as they are also known, on film.  They followed various sets of tracks (Patty’s were later found to have been the medium-sized ones…) until they reached Bluff Creek where the horses reeled upon catching sight of…

A Brief History On October 19, 2011, Zanesville in Muskingum County, Ohio became hunting grounds for lions, tigers, bears, leopards, mountain lions, and even monkeys when the owner of an exotic animal farm released his private zoo into the open and then shot himself. Digging Deeper Muskingum County was the home of Terry Thompson, a Viet Nam War vet who had maintained a private farm of dangerous and exotic animals.  Among his successes were handling animals on the Rachel Ray Show and providing a lion cub for a photo shoot which featured Heidi Klum (click on her name for a link to the video).  Despite these moments in the sun,…

A Brief History On September 27, 1937, the smallest of all sub-species of tiger, the Bali Tiger, native only to the Indonesian island of Bali, went extinct.  Approximately 40 years later, it was joined by fellow Indonesian tiger, the Java Tiger.  Currently, the only Indonesian tiger still among the living is the highly endangered Sumatran Tiger.  Unfortunately, no film was ever made of a Bali tiger, and none were ever displayed in zoos.  The last one was an adult female that was shot. Digging Deeper The various tiger subspecies that have gone extinct or are endangered today are pretty much all victims of habitat…

A Brief History On September 16, 1920, years before the great stock market crashes of 1929 and 2008, some unknown, disaffected malcontents showed the fat cats of Wall Street some serious financial terrorism of their own by setting off a bomb in a horse-drawn wagon in front of J.P. Morgan Bank in New York’s financial district. Digging Deeper The perpetrators were never caught, and anarchists to members of various revolutionary and anti-capitalist groups were suspected of committing the crime.  Investigation showed that the bomb consisted of 100 pounds of dynamite and 500 pounds of metal sash weights meant to act as projectiles.  The bomb was…