I'm sad this magazine will be ending soon. They do such great writing.
I was at orcas Island recently. I wanted to have my kids hear some good stories about the place, so I started asking anyone I met, "tell me a story about a dangerous animal attack here!"
Everyone would just say, "hmm, there aren't any dangerous animals..."
Then, one person said. "Well, there was that person that died from a bee sting."
Then someone said "Sometimes the elk swim across the sound and come on the island." I decided I would tell my kids they came over to attack people but I had no evidence that was true.
There were reports of bears getting confused and swimming over and they are quickly relocated.
The most dangerous animal apparently is the mink. In the seventies a rogue employee at a mink farm released a bunch of them, and now they have overrun the place. And they can be vicious hunters. The person that told me that said he had a recent picture in the local newspaper of a mink that went into the ocean and captured an eel. His picture is of the mink rising from the waters with that eel in its mouth.
The mink story is interesting... presumably they are native, but had disappeared locally due to overhunting. But probably many of their competitors also disappeared (martins, weasels, etc) so there's an opening.
Though even that wouldn't seem sufficient... it's not like minks are undergoing natural population booms elsewhere. Which makes me think that there's simply a critical mass advantage, like maybe mink are too anti-social for their own good.
I was at orcas Island recently. I wanted to have my kids hear some good stories about the place, so I started asking anyone I met, "tell me a story about a dangerous animal attack here!"
Everyone would just say, "hmm, there aren't any dangerous animals..."
Then, one person said. "Well, there was that person that died from a bee sting."
Then someone said "Sometimes the elk swim across the sound and come on the island." I decided I would tell my kids they came over to attack people but I had no evidence that was true.
There were reports of bears getting confused and swimming over and they are quickly relocated.
The most dangerous animal apparently is the mink. In the seventies a rogue employee at a mink farm released a bunch of them, and now they have overrun the place. And they can be vicious hunters. The person that told me that said he had a recent picture in the local newspaper of a mink that went into the ocean and captured an eel. His picture is of the mink rising from the waters with that eel in its mouth.