The other week, we were skiing on Leslie Street Spit here in Toronto at sunset. Zelda, who sometimes comes on these adventures, was at home, since the whole park is a wildlife preserve.
I fell over a lot going through a bushy patch. I’ve improved since then but remain a very novice cross-country skiier. It’s a nice way to see the city’s wild bits, though. One reminder of the wildness of cities was on this particular outing was a sudden howl echoing through the air—the coyotes having an evening chat, I suppose. As I traversed the red osier dogwood and sumac, that howl made the surrounding city seem very far away.
A Death Valley coyote howls in a Discovery nature documentary. These coyotes tend to be smaller than those I might encounter here, per the National Parks Service. (Image: Giphy/Discovery)
Shortish
Kenyan farmers are turning crop-eating locusts into sustainable animal feed (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; As It Happens staff; central Kenya)
Why do we even have dogs? (Slate; Riley Black; Ice Age Siberia)
Blue dogs photos prompts health concern from animal welfare charity (Newsweek; Oscar Quine; Dzerzhinsk, Russia)
Meaty meals and play stop cats from killing wildlife, study finds (The Guardian; Damian Carrington; Exeter, England)
Longish
Hot house: The race to keep bats from overheating as temperatures rise (The Guardian; Isabelle Groc; Canada)
In the oceans, the volume is rising as never before (The New York Times; Sabrina Imbler)
‘There’s death threats’: Indigenous fishers nervous as Nova Scotia’s commercial lobster season opens (Vice; Lindsay Jones; Nova Scotia, Canada)
UN report lays out blueprint to end ‘suicidal war on nature (Mongabay; John C. Cannon; THE GLOBE)
What the mink COVID-19 outbreaks taught us about pandemics (National Geographic; Dina Fine Maron)
Stuff from me:
My most recent work.
What pregnant, breastfeeding, and prospective parents should know about the COVID-19 vaccines
Ramping up COVID-19 vaccine production is harder than it seems
We’ve barely made a dent in vaccinating the world against COVID-19
The last word:
Learning to read - Malcolm X
Reading colonialism in “Parasite” - Ji-Hyun Park
“We’ve already survived an apocalypse”: Indigenous writers are changing sci-fi - Alexandra Alter
Whitey on the moon - Gil Scott Heron
‘Lovecraft Country’ review: Tic’s in a nightmare, Whitey’s on the moon - Lex Pryor
All images in The Quick Fox are used under Creative Commons licensing. Efforts have been made to ensure that photographs of living animals or natural scenes have been taken ethically, in responsible pet ownership conditions, at AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums or under safe, non-damaging conditions in the wild. If you see an issue with any image we share, please notify me.