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August 22, 2008

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Emile

Thanks for that cool account! My household (OK, I) have occasionally not been as dutiful about keeping our trash bear-proofed as we (er, I) ought, and one night after we had seen a young black bear raiding the garbage can we looked out the window a few minutes later and saw a (red?) fox picking over the leavings. Interesting to get more perspective on that.

Susan McCarthy

Wow -- you didn't even have to leave the house to see it. That's so luxurious. (Where are you located?)

There's more on a fox checking out what a larger animal had been eating in the post called "Brother Wolf, You're Not Eating. Aren't You Hungry?"

Bear, wolf, velociraptor -- I bet anyone who leaves scraps is popular with foxes.

Mary L. Fischer

I am fascinated by the comment posted by Emile. I didn't know that black bears had foxes,too, but maybe they do. I would have thought this was just a case of two predators going independently to a habitual feeding ground with easy pickings, but maybe not. Now I have to look into this.

The connections between animals are something that few people seem to take note of. When you look at all the animals milling about Ngorongoro crater, it's clear it's a sort of "downtown in the wild." Everyone hangs out, and every now and then a predator takes prey-- regrettable perhaps, but not so different from the attitude of people in big cities. Every so often gang warfare breaks out, or someone gets mugged, but usually it's just people going about their business, acknowledging others, and passing peacefully by. That's what it looks like to me on the African Savannah, too. There they all are, in a great "civilization of animals," watching to see if the Giraffes notice something in the distance, or the Elephants are responding to sounds that make them nervous, or the Birds of Prey are gathering anywhere. If so, action is called for. If not, it's business and socializing as usual.

katecat

fascinating post and comments.

Emile

Susan, I live in Southern Oregon, outside of Ashland. We are right on the border between vineyards/orchards and mixed doug fir / oak madrone woods. We've been here 5 or 6 years now, and "our" bear regularly passes through in the spring once it wakes up (very interested in our trash) and in the fall when it is gorging on grapes, pears, apples and blackberries down in the valley (not so interested in our trash.)

It's interesting to reflect on the connections between inter-species relationships and animals archetypal personalities in various folklore traditions.

Thanks for the cool blog!

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