Drawing by Wayne Lewis courtesy of Colorado Division of Wildlife.
by Peter Walker
Three years ago my then 7-year-old grandson, Jason, introduced me to the recent hit animated movie “Over the Hedge.” One of the funniest scenes takes place in a tract home when the invading small animals are confronted by the woman of the house, armed with a broom.
In the confusion the skunk turns to one of her compatriots and says, “I’m sorry you have to see this.”
Then she yells out, “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”
The view pans back away from the house as, “POOM!” a green cloud blows out simultaneously from the windows and doors. Read more…
By Peter Walker
The human brain is a complex organ. There is still so much about this natural computer with its enormous capacity for data storage and retrieval that is a mystery to science. Obliquely, my story today is about a little-used function of the human brain stem.
Evolutionists believe the human brain stem represents the original brain possessed by our reptile-like ancestors millions of years ago. As such, it was not capable of very much thought, but it served to keep body functions like breathing and heart rate steady. It was also capable of conducting certain instinctual reactions to external stimuli – reactions like fright response.
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BY PETER WALKER
Let’s face it. Chickens are not smart. Inside that small, silly-looking head is a brain about the size of a garbanzo bean. That’s not much to work with.
Still, insofar as a hen can cluck while at the same time walking from Point A to Point B, chickens are capable of rudimentary multitasking.
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by Peter Walker
“You aren’t going to believe this one,” said the young Maine game warden as he poured himself a cup of coffee in the office of the fish hatchery in northern Maine one late fall day.
Of course that got our full attention and all craned his way to hear every juicy detail. Not much goes on a typical day in an outpost village on the edge of the boreal forest.
The state salmon, trout, and char hatchery where I worked that fall lay nestled in the balsam fir forest just downhill from the little village of Enfield, Maine. The next township to the southeast, and the last partially settled area before the start of the vast corporate timber holdings of Diamond International and Georgia Pacific, was Passadumkeag. The name is Abnaki Indian, but the locals simply shorten it to “Dunky.”
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by Peter Walker
Growing up in a very rural area of Maine, having other kids to play with was the exception, not the rule. My social skills were slow to develop. Rural grade school was okay; but high school in the city was absolutely painful. Scholastically I was placed in the same classes with the A-list kids. But being an outsider and the son of a plumber, they were never going to cut me any slack socially. To make matters worse, I had the physical coordination and athletic ability of a top-heavy rock. I couldn’t make the B-list either.
By my junior year in high school I reached my full height of an even 6 feet. My legs were so short I wore pants with a 29-inch leg. My torso was so long I could not wear a hat while sitting in a car. I was a giant penguin!
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by Peter Walker
(Maine whitetail photo by David Walker)
One of my favorite game warden stories was told to me years after the fact over cups of coffee with two of the three Maine wardens involved in the caper. Roger and Danny were in the same Maine Warden Service training class in the early 1970s. As the end of several months of training drew near, they spent more and more time in the field being mentored by experienced district officers.
The fall night of their big adventure, the two were assigned to patrol for night hunters in eastern Maine under the tutelage of Eric, a tall, gruff, deep-voiced veteran of the Maine Warden Service. The three were sitting in the dark in a pickup truck pulled into the edge of the woods off a large field. The field was well off the highway and accessible via a one-lane woods road.
Catching “deer jackers,” as they are known in Maine, is a game of patience. It takes long hours of sitting quietly, waiting for the bad guys to make a move. Even then you must witness them at least using a spotlight in order to make a pinch. In Maine, the fields are carved from dense woodlands. So that narrows the playing field a bit for the game wardens just as it concentrates the whitetails for the poachers. Read more…
IF YOU MUST SLAP A MOOSE….
by Peter Walker
(photo by David Walker)
Once again I am taking you back to my native state of Maine. I knew a young game warden (for the purposes of this story I’ll call him Danny) when I worked there about 30 years ago who began his outdoor career as a 6-month seasonal state park ranger. After three years as a ranger, he transferred to the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
As a ranger Danny was assigned from May through October to Baxter State Park, a very remote 180,000-acre tract of mountains, clear northern lakes, and boreal forest in northern Maine. Baxter State Park is a remarkable natural treasure that was accumulated by a wealthy bachelor governor, Percival Baxter, who bequeathed the property to the people of the State of Maine with the proviso that it remain forever wild. Read more…
White Terror
by Peter Walker
A few weeks ago I went out to my garage one day and discovered a white dog about the size of a Volkswagen standing by the door. Luckily he had that “I’m glad to see you” look about him. It was a Great Pyrenees – an Old World breed originally intended as guardians for sheep and goats. The friendly old boy probably weighed 100 pounds and was covered in several inches of fine, thick, wooly hair.
Most of the Great Pyrenees dogs we find in American suburbia are latter day strains bred as house and show dogs and have consequently lost much of their herd protection instinct. If you have ever been around a working Great Pyrenees, you would wonder how that could have ever come about.
The original working version of Great Pyrenees is a strange beast indeed. With respect to other dogs, even their own kind, and their human overseers, they are aloof loners. They would rather be out amongst the herd or the flock.
When riled, a Great Pyrenees makes a formidable adversary. Woe to the wild dog or coyote or even a bear that approaches a flock of sheep under the watch of a Great Pyrenees. Often the huge dogs blend in so well with their flock that predators never realize the danger until it is too late. Read more…
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