With the exception of most insects/bugs (walking sticks, tarantulas, butterflies, scorpions, ladybugs, fireflies and praying mantes are okay by me, and I can tolerate moths), I like animals. Dogs, okay. Cats definitely. Hamsters and guinea pigs, whatever. But I’m not just talking about domestic critters. In Arizona we have a good assortment of wildlife, and over the past thirty years I’ve spent a fair amount of time outdoors and off the beaten trail, and seen more of it than the average Indiana suburbanite (me, in another life) can claim.
As a new transplant, I was surprised to encounter bighorn sheep when I worked at the Grand Canyon and pronghorn antelope along highway 89. I’d thought these ungulates endemic to the Swiss Alps and the African savannah, respectively. My first jackrabbit left me befuddled. I’ve since seen ringtailed cats (on Mingus Mountain, which experts assure me is north of their range, though evidently they neglected to tell the beast itself), porcupines (usually roadkilled), foxes and one badger (on the Embry-Riddle campus, where I once worked).
Arizona is host to roughly 560 different species of birds, but I won’t dwell on the subject, since there’s a column for them elsewhere in this publication. Still, I always welcome the sight of the golden eagle, the desert jay, the magpie, the hummingbird, the quail, the woodpecker and roadrunner. There’s even a warm spot in my heart for the ubiquitous, comedic raven. I once saw a raven trying to plunder the contents of a discarded plastic grocery bag while being pulled along by the wind. He could have simply let go, but was apparently intent on reinventing parasailing.
I like all reptiles — fence lizards, skinks, garter snakes and rattlers. There was a time when I was awed by rattlesnakes, but I’ve seen enough of them now — diamondbacks to Mojave greens — to be somewhat jaded. I’ve even been struck by one (thankfully he got a mouthful of boot instead of ankle, and scared the mortal crap out of me), but that was my fault. He was stretched across the trail sunning himself and I almost stepped on him. No harm, no foul.
I have a sort of love-hate thing about coyotes. I can enjoy their deranged yipping and the fact that they’re an untamed canine, while despising their predation of domesticated animals. I remind myself that they’re merely following their nature, but I don’t have to like it. My brother back East informs me they now have coyotes there, as well, which we never saw or heard as kids.
Skunks are pretty amiable as long as you don’t scare or harass them. Owls evidently get a kick out of dive-bombing pedestrians, but I’ve never heard of one actually attacking anybody (though they are a problem around pets). The javelina has some bad habits, but isn’t much of a threat to anyone, except maybe a dog who insists on showing him who’s boss. I’ve seen several bobcats (at Embry-Riddle and elsewhere), and they showed more arrogance than aggression.
With two friends I was stalked by a mountain lion one evening as we walked down a road in Seligman. None of us was armed, and while I could hear it pacing us through the brush I only saw it in vague silhouette as it finally crossed the road ahead of us. I’m not sure if my friends saw it or believe that I did. I saw another, though, much more clearly, behind a grocery store in Chino Valley in the wee small hours. I stopped short and an expletive escaped my foul mouth. He glanced toward me before disappearing into an overgrown ditch. I turned around and went the other way.
I chased a small bear (my first thought upon seeing the creature was, “Wow, that’s a big dog!”) through the forest on Mingus Mountain, camera in hand, till I realized how mind-numbingly stupid that was. A short time later what I assume was the same bear was tranquilized and relocated for the crime of eating a watermelon left out by some campers. This was grossly unfair. People come to your house uninvited and leave a tasty treat laying around, and you get evicted for eating it? Not cool at all.
We can’t know how much longer either of us will be around, so let’s give animals their space, and enjoy their occasional presence while we can.
