Google Photos made these 3 photos of one deer into one photo of one deer 3 times.
It might look cooler as a carousel on IG
Context for any who didn’t know! Deer grow new antlers each year covered in “velvet.” Then the velvet sloughs off, and it’s generally somewhat bloody. This is the deer’s own blood. We’ll never know how it feels but it probably doesn’t hurt too much, maybe it’s itchy.
As normal as it is, it’s interesting to see, and this is a pretty good picture of a pretty huge animal!
My friend has this phone case with coyboy images on it including an Appaloosa horse, and as soon as I saw it I said “I saw that horse in France 19 years ago” and sure enough it was Paulus Potter’s oil painting “The Piebald Horse” that I had seen in a French Museum, but made monochrome.
Point is I never forget an ungulate and I immediately recognized that deer as this:
Deer from William Cheselden’s Osteographica, or The Anatomy of Bones.
Anyway, lovely art, I love the colors and lights and darks and everything!
Point Reyes National Seashore.
The novel coronavirus appears to have somehow jumped from humans to wild deer in some parts of the United States.
In the northeast of the nation, a recent federal survey found neutralizing antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 in 40 percent of all white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) that were sampled.
In the state of Michigan alone, 67 percent of free-ranging deer showed immune markers for the coronavirus in their bloodwork.
It’s the first evidence of widespread exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in wild animals, and while the preprint study still needs to be verified and peer-reviewed, the findings are cause for concern.
While none of the deer showed adverse health effects, the presence of specific antibodies in their blood suggests they recently fought off the virus.
By silently harboring and spreading this pathogen, scientists worry deer populations are allowing SARS-CoV-2 to adapt and evolve into new strains – ones that could possibly re-infect humans years down the road with even greater transmissibility and severity than before.
This study only found positive tests for Covid antibodies in 152 white-tailed deer in 4 states, nothing about black-tailed or mule deer. This might not be a big deal but the more animals that Covid spreads to, the more opportunity the virus has to mutate, and potentially spread new strains to us.
Remember farmers in Denmark killed 17 million minks because of a Covid outbreak on fur farms.
I finally solved the horn mystery
From the National Museum of Wildlife Art:
June is National LGBTQ+ Pride Month. From antiquity to the present, LGBTQ+ artists have made invaluable contributions to the art world. Many LGBTQ+ artists have taken up animals and nature as subject matter. In fact, the green stripe on the original Pride flag stood for nature. We are sharing information about some of the LGBTQ+ advocates and artists in our collection to celebrate not only the work of LGBTQ+ artists everywhere, but also the relationship between the LGBTQ+ community and the natural world.
Rosa Bonheur
Regarded as one of the greatest women artists of all time and commercially successful as a painter in a male-dominated field in her lifetime, Rosa Bonheur regularly broke social conventions of the day. She received special permission to wear pants for practical purposes, as most of her art focused on animals and long skirts were impractical for trudging through grassy and muddy fields with her painting supplies. However, even when not painting, she would often wear shirts, trousers, and ties instead of dresses. According to historian Mary Blume, Bonheur lived with her partner Nathalie Micas for 40 years (whom she described as her wife and next to whom she was buried after her own death) and with American artist Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, who inherited Bonheur’s estate after she died.
Bonheur’s “King of the Forest” is currently on display at the museum.
.
Rosa Bonheur (French, 1822 – 1899), “King of the Forest,” 1897. Pastel on Linen. 60 x 44 inches. Purchased with funds generously donated by the Robert S. and Grayce B. Kerr Foundation. National Museum of Wildlife Art.
This is a fascinating read by my favorite deer journalist, the author of Buck Fever!
This is about two people who shot surprisingly big deer and went semi-viral for it, and then wildlife authorities came down HARD to investigate whether they had done something illegal.
Too hard? Not hard enough? This is a lot of food for thought; really enjoyed reading the puzzle solving here.
Every Skull Tells a Story
“It’s not healthy for some of these deer to be carrying rocking chairs on top of their head,” says Balfourd. No one knows exactly what producing these huge antlers is doing the bucks’ overall health, but experienced hunters say it’s easy to see that some of these deer have trouble keeping their heads up, with all the weight they’re carrying. And the concerns endemic to any farming operation where large numbers of animals are congregated in relatively small places — prevalence of disease (in this case, chronic wasting disease) and increased use of antibiotics and other drugs — apply here, too.
Transparent Crystal Elks for you
