Scandinavia and the World

Whats the term for riistakamera in English? Anyway, my parents once used that to figure out what animal was crapping on backyard and turned out it was couple of... Whatever is supikoira in english. Oh and fox once. Anyway, didn't know former even live near suburban(sp?) areas

Reading all this suddenly makes me feel very sheltered. In Paris, I think the only wildlife I ever encountered, apart from (possibly) stray cats and dogs, are rats. There may be some foxes in the forests in the region around Paris, but I never saw one. And my most exotic encounters in the French countryside were small deers crossing the road in front of me (I thankfully never hit one, though they caused me some frantic swerving or braking).

Riistakamera = game camera or trail camera. Supikoira = raccoon dog.

edited 28th May '18 3:12:26 PM by BestOf

Oh and all the dumpsters are of course locked in case of bears yeah. Even our cities get raccoons and stuff.

I usually say tanuki, as I find raccoon dog entirely misleading.

And now I have further questions.

Wait is supikoira same animal as tanuki/raccoon dog? Seriously?

Many farms use geese as guard animals. They are a lot more effective than you'd think.

The tanuki is a Japanese/East Asian breed of it, but yes. Apparently, it was deliberately introduced west of the Urals from the 1920s onwards, from Kyrgyzstan all the way to the Baltic states. It was for the benefit of the fur trade. They spread rapidly, including outside the USSR.

So basically, we have them because the Soviets wanted to make some money and didn't care about the damage that an invasive species would cause. They caught them in Soviet-controlled islands near Japan and they didn't even stop at giving them to fur farmers - they also let them loose in the woods for trappers to hunt.

edited 29th May '18 9:25:58 AM by BestOf

Geese are evil dinosaurs with teeth on their tongues. You don't want to mess with them. Also, they are very territorial and loud, so they make good guards.

Anyway, it is quite surprising to me how common bears seem to be in residential areas, and how clam some of you guys are talking about them. I would freak out myself. Not to mention fox and stuff. I grew up hearing about stereotypes of we having many animals roaming streets here, being a tropical country and all, but you guys seem to have to deal with as many, if not more.

Foxes aren't all that dangerous, are they? As long as you leave them alone.

I don't know, I never seen a fox before. But they are carnivorous and they are wild so I kinda always thought of them as small wolves.

Oh coyotes we also have coyotes (speaking of small wolves, if small wolves sounded more human like).

Oh yeah North America and I guess Northern Europe just has bears.

They're probably not much more dangerous than your average stray dog.

Geese are evil, vicious animals, perfect for defending other farm animals against stray fox cubs.

I mean there dangerous to house pets (coyotes). I don't know how dangerous stray dogs are.

Around my parts (the foothills of the Wet Mountains of Colorado), I have almost everything in the area.

I have bears, I have foxes, I have coyotes, I have cougars, I have bobcats, I have great horned owls (huge friggin' birds), I have tons of game animals from rabbits to turkeys to antelope to deer to elk, we have eagles in the region, we just have tons of wildlife. We don't have moose or wolves or grizzly bear though. (Not anymore. They used to be this far south but they're now found further north. Reintroduction programs at least for moose are underway in other parts of the state.)

Many of them frequently cross paths with humans and human settlements for one reason or another. The main ones that are dangerous or annoying to humans are coyotes, foxes, bears, cougars, bobcats and great horned owl (they'll scoop up pets easy-like). Even then the only ones with actual danger to humans are bobcat, cougar, coyote and bear.

edited 1st Jun '18 5:42:30 PM by MajorTom

We have all of those besides foxes, though I've only ever heard the owl (or know what sort of owl it is), huh that's a lot when you put it like that I guess. And I guess we don't have moose in the suburb I live but we do in the rest of the province.

edited 1st Jun '18 6:51:23 PM by phantom1

I love how all the other threads have these long discussions about plot, or bicker with each other over stuff, and here we are, discussing wildlife.

Also, there was no comic this week. Did something happen and I'm unaware of it?

I always thought it was posted Sunday?

Wasn't it friday?

Well, I've always treated it as a Sunday strip, but I could move it to Friday.

It's not really a big deal, I just usually see it on friday, and was wondering if something had happened.

Wait, what do you mean you could move it to friday?

edited 2nd Jun '18 10:15:07 AM by TheLovecraftian

It's How You Use The Word

Separated by a Common Language strikes again.

As in, watch the comic on friday instead of sunday.