Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In case of Canada’s
current PM, Justin Trudeau, this is because he has worn blackface/brownface in
the past, and now it came back to bite him in the ass. The photos really show
him in an unflattering light, but are they causing him to lose?
Well, if he loses, those photos will certainly be one of the reasons, but not the only
one. As compared to the U.S., where each new presidential election is a bigger
show than the lost one, (a tendency that became really obvious since Bill
Clinton became impeached), Canadian elections… are not. Maybe it is because
Canada is still subjected to the U.K., whose queen (or king) can always
interfere, overtly or covertly, unlike the U.S., which is its’ own, independent
country, but another reason is that Canada and its’ politicians tend not to blame anyone else when things go
wrong in their lives; Hell, Trudeau has already apologized for those photos and
this approach seems to be working – certainly, at least some people are turning
onto Mr. Scheer for failing to apologize in his turn – it happens. Where were
we?
Oh yes, someone has pointed out that when in the past I was
doing my going-through of the AFO episode list, I forgot to cover the ‘cougar
vs. wolf’ episode, so I might as well do it for closure…
Right. So, in one corner we had the cougar, (also known as
puma and mountain lion), and in the other – the grey wolf. (As opposed to its’
more ambiguous cousin the red wolf, I suppose). The grey wolf lost. Why?
…Because the wolf is not an individualistic fighter, but a
team one. ‘The Velvet Claw’ series and the companion book are somewhat outdated
by 2019, especially when it comes to taxonomy of carnivores, but they are
correct in that the cats are individualistic fighters, and the dogs are not.
The puma, the lynx, the tiger, and the domestic cat have their differences, but
even at a first glance a complete amateur of zoology/biology will I.D. them as
relatives, and their lifestyles are very similar too. The only outliers among
the cat clan are the African lions and the African cheetahs, (for a while,
there were lions and cheetahs in Asia too, but now the cheetahs seem to be
extinct there, and the lions are doing barely better. Sad, this is), because
they do live in social groups – the cheetahs in family coalitions, the lions
are more derived. Why this is so, is another question, but for now let us focus
on the fact that the wild cats, small and big, tend to be solitary. And dogs?
This is where it gets blurry. Actually, most wild dog
species are solitary, behaving as, say, the red fox does – we’re talking small
carnivores that live on their own or in family groups; some of them, such as
the raccoon dog of Far East, (initially), and the maned wolf of South America,
can look very exotic, but their lifestyles are similar. And then there are the
pack hunters.
Who are they? They are the domestic dog, the wolf, (grey and
red), the coyote, the jackals, also – the African wild dog, and the dhole of
Asia. This is it, right?
…No, because there’s also the bush dog of South America; proportionally,
it may be related closest to the aforementioned maned wolf, but whereas the
maned wolf looks like a wolf, or a dog, on stilts, the bush dog looks like a
mix between a basset hound and an otter; it doesn’t even bark, more like chirps
and squeaks, and it can swim and attack its’ prey items in water, as well as on
land. A very atypical dog, but then again, South America has plenty of atypical
carnivores, period – but we digress.
Such outliers as the bush dog aside, most pack hunting dogs
look the same – streamlined, long-legged, long-muzzled, big-eared and
long-tailed… built not for strength, but for speed and endurance. These carnivores
evolved to act in a pack, overwhelming their prey through numbers, and using
their jaws to tear and rip it to pieces, sometimes even eating it while the
prey animal is still alive. They are hunters rather than fighters, especially
when it comes to other carnivores, such as big cats and bears, although when it
comes to dominance fights within the packs…they are ritualized, actually, and
usually are resolved through shows of strength… and then…
Well, there is a video clip on YouTube that shows a wolf
pack taking down a coyote. While externally wolves and coyotes are similar,
wolves are larger and bulkier than coyotes are… although now scientists know
that they do interbreed with each other as well as the domestic dog species,
creating such animals as the eastern wolf, the eastern coyote, and the red
wolf. The last species may actually be
a species, having evolved into taxonomic and biological independence from both
grey wolves and coyotes, but we digress. Wolves have evolved to function within
a social unit – their pack, with which they bring down their prey items, from
rabbits and hares to white-tailed deer, elk, and even the American bison. On
their own, wolves are not very effective, as compared to the great cats and
bears.
…Now a puma, technically, is not a ‘great cat’ – it is a ‘small
cat’: it cannot roar, it can mew like a domestic cat, (or a bobcat), does, and
while the jaguar, (can be twice as heavy as the puma) dominates the parts of
the New World in which it lives, the puma does not. It can break even with an
American black bear, (sometimes), but a grizzly (or brown) bear overpowers it
more often than not, and the same goes for the jaguar, (which is unquestionably
the bigger and more powerful animal of the two), and even wolf packs. Pause. ‘Packs’
is the key word here. A wolf pack can stand up not just to the puma, but also
to the American black bear, (the grizzly/brown bear is a tougher question to
answer), but a solitary wolf is no match for even the puma – which is precisely
what has happened down in the CGI simulation of that AFO episode. While the
rest of the carnivores are a mixed bag, (though, again, the ‘jaguar vs anaconda’
episode was something else), solitary pack hunters, (it even sounds as an
oxymoron), are fair game and just are not… up to their best game, (pardon the
tautology here), when facing-off with anyone by themselves. The grey wolf just
couldn’t win by itself, especially against a mountain lion, which might be
small and light by ‘great cat’ standards, but it still packs a punch well above
its’ weight. The ‘puma vs. grey wolf’ episode
was actually good, because it was honest and straightforward – whatever else you
can say about AFO, at least there weren’t any inconsistences and partisanship
as there was, (sort of), in DW, but that is another story…
…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!
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