YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
Do you ever feel stuck in a rut and can’t get back in the groove? You’re not alone. Apparently, dude-bro elks go through something similar every autumn — go into a very deep rut, in fact — when they’re in the throes of mating season. Tourists flock to Yellowstone National Park between September to mid-October to watch — and listen to — the lovesick bugling of Cervus elaphus. According to yellowstonepark.com, it’s an auditory spectacle that is beyond thrilling: “The bugle starts low and throaty, rising to a high whistle, then dropping to a grunt or a series of grunts. It’s a sound that is difficult for the human alphabet to imitate, a guttural bellow, a shrill pitch, and a hollow grunting.” But before you say, “I’ll have what he’s having,” remember to keep your distance — these bulls are not forking around. The contest for dominance is serious business where the lady elks are concerned, and the last thing anyone needs is to be mistaken for competition. You don’t want to end up with a sharp rack to the ribs.
CALIFORNIA
It turns out that male flamingos make eggcellent foster dads. A feathery same-sex couple at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park is in the news for successfully hatching a flamingo egg. “The pair has perfected their fatherly duties by alternating brooding responsibilities,” the zoo stated on social media. The co-parents, both in their 40s, and their foster chick are called “lesser flamingos,” which seems like a rather rude name to us, but apparently the species, which is native to sub-Saharan Africa and western India, is used to it. The Guardian reported that earlier this year, the twosome showed signs of nesting behavior and were given a fake egg to care for so they wouldn’t meddle with other nests. Their trial run went well, so the zoo replaced the fake egg with a fertile one, which eventually hatched. The proud co-parents were clearly tickled pink. Same-sex flamingo parenting is not unprecedented: There have been similar families at the UK’s ZSL Whipsnade Zoo, as reported by Newsweek two years ago. Many birds are well-adapted for surrogate parenting, since they feed their young with crop “milk” from their upper digestive tracts. Which … er … sounds yummy, but we’ll take our coffee black, thanks.
MONTANA
The thriller you never asked for: Jurassic Park meets Frankenstein, or rather, “Frankensheep.” Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 81, of Vaughn, Montana, was sentenced to six months in prison and thousands of dollars in fines for illegally breeding and selling cloned sheep hybrids to captive hunting operations. Schubarth violated the Lacey Act, which prohibits animal trafficking, along with international treaties designed to prevent invasive species from harming domestic wildlife, Popular Science reported. Schubarth obtained, um, “parts” of a dead male Marco Polo argali sheep from Kyrgyzstan — the largest sheep species in the world and much sought after by trophy hunters — and had a lab use its genetic tissue to create embryo clones. The embryos were then artificially implanted into ewes on his ranch, resulting in “numerous hybrid offspring.” Over time, a “pure male Marco Polo argali” was produced, which Schubarth named “Montana Mountain King.” Other ewes were artificially inseminated with MMK’s semen and the resulting offspring were “extremely large, never before-seen hybrid supersheep.” And if this isn’t bizarre enough, Schubarth also sold supersheep semen to breeders in other states. Sheep with just 25% of MMK’s DNA can bring $15,000-per-head. This is some next-level super-villain nonsense and so baaad that The Onion satirized it, commenting that “Illegal sheep geneticists don’t last long in prison.”
MONTANA
Music has charms to soothe the savage breast, according to the oft-misquoted line from a 1697 play by William Congreve. But renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s eagerness to play music for bison grazing on Blackfeet Nation lands actually stemmed from his desire to find new connections between humans and nature. “More and more, every music I play is trying to figure out what is human nature, what is nature and how the two combine,” Ma told Montana Public Radio. Ma has traveled the country playing his cello in remote places as part of his “Common Nature” project. He was inspired to visit the Blackfeet Nation after learning that the tribe was re-establishing a free-roaming bison herd and planning to help other tribes restore bison too. Ma hopes to raise support and spread awareness of that goal. The bison were too blissed out to give a comment.
We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
This article appeared in the November 2024 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Heard around the West.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
