They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore

Since the cavemen began pegging rocks at wildebeests two million years ago, man’s attempts to keep domination over the animal kingdom have been going strong. And mostly those attempts have been successful. But not always, of course.

When we invade their turf, rattlesnakes bite hikers. Mountain lions kill runners. Alligators snap those who get too close to the water’s edge.

And now, it seems, some animals are starting to fight back, coming after land we thought that we owned. Animals are flexing their rights and demonstrating that there’s an animal kingdom out there.

They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more.  

Global warming is harming the polar bears’ habitats. So in remote arctic areas in Russia, the polar bear express is coming to town. Forget the very hungry caterpillar. We’re talking very hungry polar bears, and they’re invading towns in Novaya Zemlya. I even saw a picture of one of them in the corridor or an apartment building.

“There’s never been such a mass invasion of polar bears,” said Zhigansha Musin, the head of the local administration. “They have literally been chasing people.”

Alexander Minayev, the region’s deputy head, added: “People are scared, and afraid to leave their homes. Parents are unwilling to let their children go to school or nursery.” A state of emergency has been declared in the region. (Source: The Guardian)

Not to discount the emergency this presents to the locals, but if we need any more evidence that the warming of our planet is a state of emergency for polar bears and humans, I don’t know what would be.

In one warmer clime, the problem is hippos. Pablo Escobar’s hippos, to be exact.

It seems that Colombia’s late and not especially lamented drug lord had, among his other crimes, smuggled in four hippos for his private zoo. The people of Colombia had bigger issues with Escobar than the animals he kept in his zoo. “He's said to be responsible for some 7,000 deaths.” But this is not to discount the problems that the hippos are starting to cause.

After Escobar (with whom, I just learned, I share a birthday; swell!) was taken down in the early 1990s:

…the government relocated most of the animals but not the hippos who were basically allowed to roam free.

"People forgot the hippos," said biologist David Echeverri, who works with CORNARE, the environmental agency in charge of tracking and managing the hippos in the region. He estimates there are about 50 or more of them now. (Source: CBS News)

The hippos have no predators, and while they mostly roam around the former Escobar estate (now a theme park, of all things), some of them have been swaggering around town, getting a bit too close to comfort for the locals. So far, no deaths, but these are dangerous animals which in Africa “cause more human deaths than any other large animal.”

Then there’s the news from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

In February 2019, a group of enterprising chimpanzees managed to get out of their enclosure at Belfast Zoo (Northern Ireland) by propping a tree branch against the wall to enable their improvised escape. (Source: Digital Journal)

The chimps did no harm. In fact, having checked out the outside world:

…all of the chimpanzees returned home, apparently not caring much for human habitats.

Maybe so, but I’m guessing that this may have been a reconnaissance mission. We may have an Irish Planet of the Apes sitch on our hands at some point.

Overall, it looks to me like the animals are on the move. And who can blame them? We destroyed their habitats, dragged them off to strange places, and put them in cages. No wonder they’re mad as hell.

Polar bears and hippos and chimps, oh my. The animal kingdom is just not going to take it anymore.