BigGameHunt.net Hunting Forums

[bitmasher]

No this isn't about the band...or...err...ummm...other topics.

There are hairless female black bears in Florida!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....Dec26.html

http://asia.cnn.com/2002/US/So......bears.ap/

P.S. All credit for the clever "subject line" goes to the author of the washingtonpost.com article.

[ This Message was edited by: bitmasher on 2002-12-29 00:08 ]

[Lever-action-lover]

The bear got into a bad fight with his everyday morning shave. =)!!!

[bitmasher]

:smile:, yeah I thought it was pretty wild what the bears looked liked without hair. They look like big rats....

[chechatonga]

Looks like it has the manage, foxes get it where I live.

[Lever-action-lover]

Weel at least now if I see one like that I wont be as intiminated because hes not as big as I thought! =)

[expatriate]

Now I know how ice-age man felt when he saw his first elephant.

A few months ago somebody developed a featherless chicken. It was the most disturbing anomaly of nature I'd ever seen. To see it, follow this link:

http://www.accessatlanta.com/a.....icken.html


[ This Message was edited by: expatriate on 2003-01-11 15:45 ]

[bitmasher]

Whoooo that is one ugly bird.

Maybe man shouldn't tinker with nature....

[ This Message was edited by: bitmasher on 2003-01-11 21:05 ]

[expatriate]

I read an article the other day that said spider silk is a remarkable material, but you can't farm spiders because they're cannibalistic. So the solution was to genetically engineer goats by splicing in a spider gene. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. The spider gene causes the goats to produce spider silk protein in their milk, which can then be refined to produce spider silk. The figure they'll be in production shortly.

I just don't think I'm ready to see goats swinging from building to building by their udders.

[bitmasher]

Yeah goats are a common host for these genes, because pound for pound goats put any other lactating animal to shame. Once you get the gene in the right place it will express itself in the milk like gang busters.

Reliable goat cloning is the big prize for ag/chemical/medical business. Once you create a nanny that has your silk gene spliced in and expressing correctly you can produce mirror images of her, without having to worry about losing the gene (or its placement) during regular reproduction.

[chechatonga]

What worries me is when we start crossing, or rather, genecticly modifying aninimal genes with plant genes, which has been done, somehow I feel we are opening a can of worms when we do this. Salmon that grow to full size in 3 months, vegis, that kill insects when they eat it, or cause them to go sterile, who knows what long term, down the road effects all this has in store for the people that consume all this GM stuff.

[ This Message was edited by: chechatonga on 2003-01-23 06:53 ]

[bitmasher]

I hear you Chechatonga, tinkering with the genome while exceedingly powerful, leaves a lot of questions unanwsered.

New technology and discoveries always seem to produce good and bad sides. Atom splitting is a good example, it produced nuclear weapons, but it also produced reliable nuclear energy, modern radiology (chemotherapy), and an abundance of knowledge that drove advances in other fields (nuclear medicine).

[expatriate]

Hey, if genetic manipulation could bring back Irish Elk from the Pleistocene, I'd be all over it. Seven feet high at the shoulder, 12-foot antler spread...honey, I'm gonna need a bigger truck.

http://www.wilddeerireland.com/Species_elk.html

[bitmasher]

Yeah a Megaloceros hunt just sounds cool.

I about bust a gut when I looked at the picture on that page though. The artist's "interpretation" of megaloceros' rack look more like the palm up hands-o-death straight off the grim reaper! Sorry but the rack just didn't look right to me....

These fossils were interesting:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/m.....shelk.html

There is a decent rack picture here too, about 30% of the way down the page:

http://www.alamut.com/past/0004.html

[expatriate]

Granted, the rack looked a bit overdone, but it was one of the few pictures I've seen that put flesh on the skeleton. I've seen some in museums (Denver Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian stand out), and it seems like the racks varied somewhat like moose racks do around the world -- some were more palm than tine, others were vice versa.

One article estimated Irish Elk at 800-1000 pounds (smaller than Pennsylvania Elk). But then primitive man didn't have a truck to drag one to, so that number is probably pretty low.

[ This Message was edited by: expatriate on 2003-01-28 23:14 ]

[bitmasher]

Yes, the racks I have seen are sort of a cross, not "tine only" like deer and elk, but have "palms" to them as well. An odd cross.

Next time I'm at the Denver Musuem I'll have to check that out...

Dragging effects are very important when estimating weight, since it is not linear with drag distance, but rather exponential...