Day: April 8, 2025

A Dire Question

/ animar64 / 4 Comments

I wasn’t going to weigh in on this particular topic but in the end I had to because I love Wolves.

When I was 10 years old and our class was doing reports on our favorite animals, I did mine on the Dire Wolf and I got an ‘ A’.  I slaved my heart out working on that report and this was in 1973- google didn’t exist then.

Dire Wolf Skeleton (Aenocyon dirus)

As you may have heard, Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences announced it has successfully created three dire wolf pups using ancient DNA and gene-editing technology.

I was curious who this company is and found out that Colossal is the highest valued company based in Dallas, Texas at $10.2 billion. That figure is as impressive as their website which looks like a promo for a movie:

Many companies claim they’re going to change the world.
At Colossal, we believe that the world doesn’t need to be changed.

THE WORLD
NEEDS TO
BE HEALED.

Cave hyena (Crocuta crocuta spelaea) painting
Chauvet Cave

That’s a sexy headline, isn’t it?

You know what’s not sexy? One of it’s investors said she got the 411 on one of Colossal Biosciences from Elon Musk- you know the guy who want to go to Mars but his rockets keep blowing up.

As the debate about bringing back exitince animals ramps up,  I’d have to ask myself, who would gain the most from bringing back Woolly Mammoths, Saber Tooth Tigers, and Dire Wolves?

Obviously the companies involved with the breeding,  housing and keeping the animals.

Given the cost of caring and feeding and  paying for the insurance for these animals would not be cheap- PROFIT is going to be a BIG DEAL here,  so I doubt if families are going to pack their kids into a car or on a plane so they could go and feed a Woolly Mammoth or a Giant Sloth.

So who would get to visit these exotic high maintenance and valuable animals?

Well consider:

  • Axiom Space revealed the three private citizens who paid $55 million each to go to the International Space Station
  • Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic offers tickets to space for $450,000

    “Lions hunting Bison, Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, France. Upper Paleolithic, c.35000 BCE …

  • Exploring the Titanic wreckage site is one of a number of expensive experiences the wealthy take part in.
  • A submersible plunging the depths of the Atlantic went missing during a tour that costs $250,000.

But would there be  enough of these rich people to fund these ” zoos “?  Disney makes bank on tourists from various economic classes  but look at all of the sites and amenities they have to offer. A working class family could  and do swing it because they’re getting bang for their buck.

Unless you have  herds of Woolly Mammoths,  armies Dire Wolves and a Prides of Saber Tooth Tigers (whose mission in life would be to hunt  the animals  Colossal Biosciences  wants to bring back from extinction)  roaming around the Park waiting to get their pictures taken- it seems like an iffy kind of deal for a family.

So in the end I’m thinking the people who would go back again and again and again, who would spend a week chasing after these animals-

would be

Big Game Hunters with very deep pockets.

In my mind, the safest place for these animals that have gone extinct maybe on a shelf in a museum or a quiet and  undisturbed grave.

Royal BC Museum: Victoria BC
Photo A.M. Moscoso

FOR RDP TUESDAY: ENGAGE

The Best Workout EVER

/ animar64 / Leave a comment

The best form of exercise that I can recommend to is to let your imagination run wild.

It may seem like slow going at first, like there are times you will stand there and say- ” well, now what?”

But I can promise you once it gets going, once you get your heart rate up, once you get into he zone and you start to run with your imagination

there is no telling how far you will go,

or where you will end up.

Poor Old Alexander Armsworth

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WordPress Prompt: What book could you read over and over again?

Photographer Unknown

 I started to read books by Richard Peck when I was around 11 years old. I had been writing for about 2 years at the time  and I loved….ADORED ghost stories so when I won ” The Ghost Belonged To Me ” in my classes weekly spelling test challange, I was thrilled with my prize on a serveral levels.

FIrst of all it was a ghost story and in that story was the ghost of a girl and a her ghost dog ( plus) the main character ( Alexander ) had an Uncle who told him stories about a premature burial, a suicide that took place in the family’s sitting room and at the end Alexander and his Uncle and Blossom ( who I will get to in a minute ) all end up in New Orleans in Cemetery #1 where they reinter the bones of the Ghost Girl and her dog together.

I kept reading the adventures of Alexander and Blossom as I got older – but plot twist- it turned out Blossom Culp ended up capturing the series from Alexander who was the main characater at the onset of the story.

From the start, even though Alexander could see ghosts ( in fact, in the first book Blossom was just a girl with a sense of adventure ) Blossom had more meat on  the bones of her story.

Blossom and her Mom lived in a shack near the railroad tracks and raided their neighbors gardens for food and Alexander’s family was well to do.

In one chapter Alexander talks about being served his bacon and eggs breakfast  by the family’s help that Alexander’s mother refered to as ‘the servant’.  The servant replies that the help weren’t refered to as servants where we ALL come from – so you kind of get the hint that Alexander’s Mom is well off now, but she probably wasn’t before she got married- and she married well.

Blossom had an apple and a nickel for milk for her breakfast.

Blossom’s Mom was a Gypsy Fortune Teller who helped the police by communicating with the Jane and John Does- who it was explained were decapidated at the morgue, their heads were placed in jars of formaldahyde and kept in a speacial room for ID because there wasn’t any other way to store them. Did I mention Blossom could talk to the dead? Well she could though she always felt her powers weren’t up to par with her Mom’s- only because Blossom was never sure if her Mom ever reached her full potential ( which is sort of a statement on poverty when you think about it ).

These are great books, they aren’t meant to be read once and set aside. Pick one, read it and see if you agree.

The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp

The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp

by Richard Peck
Book 4
Blossom Culp and the Sleep of Death

Blossom Culp and the Sleep of Death

by Richard Peck
I can pick up any of these four books and re-read them at any time ( though I like to do that during the winter ) and if you want to read a good story set aside the fact these are for ‘ young adult ‘ readers. A good ghost story is a good ghost story and these stories are pretty darn good.