Buenos, the oldest known spider monkey in captivity died in Japan.  She was 52 years old, or the equivelent of 140 to 150 in human years.  Average lifespan for a spider monkey is about 33 years.

Buenos

Exotic deer are destroying the ecology of the Point Reyes Station National Park, and the park service wants to remove the deer from the park.

Unfortunately, the deer (axis and fallow) are cute--and some of the local residents don't want the park service to sterilize one quarter of the deer, they really don't want the park service to kill the rest. 

Yet these deer are an invasive species.  They are heavy browsers, eating the young trees and shoots that native deer species need to survive. 

So people in Northern California are having a fit; either save the environment, or save the deer.  Can't do both.

Environmental scientists are again blaming DDT for changes in animal health, using samples of frogs gathered in the last 150 years for institutions.  Per the article, the number of hermaphodites in frogs has risen sharply. 

I have a distinct problem with this data.  First, DDT hasn't been used in many of these areas for four decades--so how could it be responsible for the continuing changes?  Secondly, how many people will have to die from malaria to protect frogs?  DDT is the best known mosquito killer out there, and yet people die from malaria every year because environmentalists prefer frogs to people.

Of course, most of these environmentalists are rich white Americans and Europeans.  Most of the people dying are poor black Africans.  Since it doesn't hurt them, the environmentalists don't care that families are being destroyed and the small health resources of poor countries are being used up on a disease that should be under much better control. 

Most everyone who reads this blog doesn't know much about me, except for the fact I am Wayne's preferred human slave. I tend to keep it that way on purpose -- I long ago learned the costs of letting just anyone know much about me.

But some news just can't be kept quiet, nor am I willing to keep this bit quiet. I have a new job, and I just completed the first week of it. Surprise, surprise, it went well, and I'm not nauseous. This is a major improvement over the job I just quit to take this one. At the old job, my "real" limit of working there was about 12 hours in a week -- that's the point where I'd start getting queasy, but I could generally make it to 24 hours (3 eight hour days) before I couldn't keep from being actually sick. But, this week was the first 40 hours in a week ever where I didn't get sick from it. This is a landmark achievement for me. And I'm content with my working environment for the first time in several years. Granted, this will probably change in a month-or-two's-time, but for now, I'm relatively happy with work. And it's more money, which has some very important side issues to go along with it.

The major reason I could get away with shouting out my relief at having this new job on Mom's website is because I get my first paycheck Tuesday-ish, and on Saturday (first day I can take him), His Imperial Kittenness will be going to the vet for a three-fold purpose:

1) It's time for the Great Snip-Snip Event all tom kittens should face (except the ones being kept as breeding stock). I have yet to figure out an amusing euphemism for the female version of the same procedure. Besides, there aren't many women who grab the general area of their ovaries when spaying is talked about, so it isn't nearly as funny. Men, however, tend to subconsciously make protective gestures towards their own genitalia when neutering is talked about. Just a general, feminine public service announcement: it is a quick, easy, and endlessly amusing way to torture men, for any teenage girl who reads this site.

2) I need the vet to look at his belly -- he has some kind of weird growth or skin tag or something hanging down on one side of his belly, and I'm worried it's growing. It certainly wasn't there before. Maybe it's a hernia, or something, along the line where he was cut on his belly? I don't know, but it's definately Not Right, and needs to be taken care of ASAP, before it causes problems, like infected rub sores, or worse.

3) His upper canine teeth extend below his bottom jaw. This can't be comfortable for him, and it certainly isn't for me, because when he plays with me, he ends up breaking skin because his fangs are SO long (and he isn't doing it intentionally, I'm quite sure of that). I'm hoping the vet can do something about the situation, that doesn't include defanging him completely. (It's not right to either declaw OR defang a cat. It simply isn't.)

So, hopefully, I will be able to cover all the money it'll take to get him fixed up (and fixed!) with the first paycheck I get from the new job. If not, certainly by the second paycheck.

He's almost seven months old. And weighs 11 pounds, according to the bathroom scale that only reads in half-pounds I put him on this morning. If he's part Ragdoll or Ragamuffin (which I suspect, based off the description of the breed as having "rabbit fur" and going limp when held), then he might hit 14-15 pounds, because they don't mature until they're four years old. Gah. And I thought he was a lap-breaker now.

Anyhow, that's the latest update in the Wayne-centric part of the world. And I'm not interesting enough to have anything to talk about otherwise, so, ciao for now.