I’m not one who takes much stock
in “conspiracy theories,” whatever definition that conveys – unless, of course,
it suits my purposes in other ways. I prefer instead to try to interpret
various ways of being, knowing and acting as natural phenomena that can be
understood, addressed, accepted or refuted (or joked about).
Admittedly, this attitude has on
occasion got me into hot water – usually because I cannot adequately translate
my thoughts into logical communication in time to stave off rapid-fire
reactions, often erroneous, by others. I never know whether to blame such kneejerk
flareups and flameouts (by others) on the aggression of those others, or
defensiveness on my part, or to blame the fact that I should have kept my mouth
shut in the first place (and/or learn to do my homework).
Enough about that. Today’s essay
is about the intersection of communication and conspiracy.
I have amused before about what I
see as the slow but steady encroachment of wildlife into “our” world. Those ‘amusings’ (links below) are hopefully understood as satire. So, whether the reader takes
the following notions as just plain fun or as satire is entirely open to
personal interpretation. Below I provide a list of links should anyone be
inclined to look at them in their entirety.
The gist of those earlier essays and
musitorials was/is that maybe, just maybe, the frequent encroachment of
wildlife is because they are checking us out, checking out human civilization
in order to better prepare for the seemingly inevitable end of human occupation
of the planet everything will be left to nature and its creatures once again.
They want what we have and don’t appreciate.
Let me explain, or as the CBC’s Andrew
Chang says, “about that.” Where we live, vehicular calamity happens
almost every night. Each passing year more and more deer seem to be lying in
wait at roadside, ready to leap out and (a) scare the bejeesus out of you or
(b) do serious damage to your vehicle. The old saying, “like a deer in the
headlights,” might be better phrased as, “spotlight on deer.”
But such travel mishaps just
might be “collateral damage” to life and limb of a few deer for the benefit of
the greater good, the larger project: the return of the native species.
So, that was/is my thesis: We are
witnessing a second coming, an animal insurrection (AI). The signs are all
around us. Consider the evidence I present herein.
~~
Exhibit A: Talking to the
animals (and them “talking” back).
Most pet fanciers freely admit
that they talk at their animal friends (though I’m sure those pet owners would
prefer to say, talking with the animals). I use the term pet “owners”
advisedly, for pets frequently prove it is they who are in charge. Like a lot
of things on this earth, we humans have it backwards – They own us.
Imagine what interplanetary
visitors think when they observe even the smallest of dogs leading their human
around on a leash. Worse, the human actually has to stoop and scoop the
pet-poop, like a medieval serf. Monty Python (link below) could have had a
field day with that notion.
Don’t get me wrong, people are
smart too, but a recent news story points out just how smart dogs can be, and
that they do indeed understand us. Well, some of us. Some dogs, it seems, may
even be considered “gifted.”
“Studies show [that] our
four-legged friends can identify more words than previously thought,” says
Shany Dror, “and even help us learn.”
“Some dogs are more adept at
learning language than others, but there are a rare few that can learn hundreds
of new words. In science, they’re known as ‘gifted word-learning dogs.’
Researchers studying these ‘special’ dogs discovered that, much like human
toddlers, smart furry canine companions can pick up words just by eavesdropping
on their owners’ conversations.” Shany Dror is a postdoctoral researcher at
E.L.T.E. University in Budapest and the Veterinary University of Vienna (link below).
Special? Gifted? Or spys.
Exhibit B: Let’s not
forget domesticated cats, whose willingness to communicate with us can be very
selective, to say the least. Make no mistake: they may ignore us but they do
hear us. It just may not suit them to admit it or to answer unless or until it
suits them.
The latest evidence that I’ve
seen arose in a human-interest story on CBC The National (February 25,
2025, link below). The cat in that story has four ears. Count ’em. Four!
Aside from the possibility that
cat must be able to hear twice as much, I’m willing to wager that cat can also ignore
people twice as much. And I’m ready to speculate that cat is just one
manifestation of the true nature of cats: they hear you, they just don’t want
to acknowledge you (link below). What’s behind
it? What’s going on in that furry little brain?
This brings to mind a news story I
first read in the Chicago Sun in 2001, about the “acoustic kitty.”
Acoustic Kitty was a CIA project launched in the 1960s, which intended to use
cats to spy on the Kremlin and on Soviet embassies. Fat chance a Western cat
would agree, but read on.
In an hour-long procedure, a
veterinary surgeon implanted a microphone in the cat’s ear canal, a small radio
transmitter at the base of its skull, and a thin wire into its fur. This would
allow the cat to innocuously record and re-transmit sound from its
surroundings. Due to problems with distraction, the cat’s sense of hunger had
to be addressed by still another operation.
The first mission was to
eavesdrop on two men in a park outside the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C.
The cat was released nearby, but almost immediately hit and apparently killed
by a taxi. I guess it wouldn’t be appropriate to at this point mention
taxi-dermy.
Project Acoustic Kitty cost about
US $20 million (in 1960s dollars! Link below).
Exhibit C: We’ve all used
the expression, “raining cats and dogs,” but iguanas? During last year’s cold
spell in Florida – which greatly affected my daily ration of orange juice –
animal control officials had to contend with “raining” iguanas. The lizards
like to climb trees (who doesn’t!) and occasionally to sleep in trees; the cold
weather caused the cold-blooded creatures to fall into a semi-conscious state, thus
to lose their grip and to fall from said trees.
Gee, in a hot dry spell everyone
seeks the shade of trees. Imagine Chicken Little sounding that alarm! I
can’t help but exaggerate the situation to envision an evolved generation of
iguanas just biding their time like indolent primates waiting to take over
soon-to-be abandoned parks and even homes to live in comfort out of the
elements (link below).
Exhibit D: Accidental death? I wonder.
Speaking of deadfall (pun intended), “On December 9, 2024, a Virginia
hunter named Lester Harvey was killed by the very bear he set out to kill. The
58-year-old father and grandfather died four days after a freak hunting
accident in which a bear fell out of a tree and landed on him” (link below).
Hmm… fell on poor Lester, or jumped? It’s true that there
was another hunter involved (the one who actually shot the bear), but I can’t
help thinking that the bear’s dying act was aggressively sacrificial.
Postscript. The idea that
a “great bear from the north” represents a coming doom primarily originates
from biblical prophecy, specifically the Book of Daniel, with later
interpretations mapping this symbolism onto modern geopolitical entities like
Russia (though I daresay Canadians could be forgiven for reframing that as a
threat from the south).
Exhibit E: According to
CBC News (June 9, 2026), Alberta Fish and Wildlife Enforcement
Service reports that grizzly bears are “moving back” into former habitat
occupied by people. There are “rising conflicts [between Ursa and Ursula] … and
growing concern for residents,” according to the Alberta Bear Smart program.
The bears are becoming increasingly adept at pillaging chicken coops (link below).
I lived in Jasper, AB, for a
number of years. We had lots of innocuous encounters with black bears, but very
few with the reclusive grizzlies. In 2024 the town of Jasper was partially
destroyed by a forest fire, and human habitation has only partially, and
slowly, recovered. I’d say the extended quiet period is leaving openings for
repatriation by wildlife.
In Japan, the Asian black bear
that is creating havoc. In fact (well, according to reports), citizens of Tokyo
have been urged to keep their doors and windows locked at all times. There have
been fifty thousand grizzly bear sightings so far this year (June 2026), whose
favourite forage is – get this – acorns! What’s that old saying? ‘From little
acorns, mighty oak and grizzlies grow’?
The Guardian newspaper recently
reported (June 5, 2026) that an “extremely intelligent” bear not only unlocked
and opened a “locked” window of a building, it turned on a water tap! Much
easier than endless wandering in woods for refreshment. Obviously, we are being
observed.
That bear was subsequently chased
off, only to get inside an office building and – you guessed it – turn on another
tap before being chased off. Those wasabi peas are insanely spicy!
According to the report, Japanese
gun laws have been temporarily relaxed in order that people defend themselves
because, to March 2026, 238 bear attacks were recorded. Thirteen bears were
killed by authorities (link below).
I can’t leave the subtopic of
bears without noting that, conversely, time may be running out for the polar
bears’ urban renewal aspirations. CBC Under the Influence (January 16,
2025) reported on what they called “Last Chance Tourism,” wherein tour
companies advertise “vanishing” places – possibly the last chance to see live
polar bears attempting to acclimatize in a warming world of melting ice floes (link below).
Exhibit F:
Are animals competing for our
attention, or for domination? While dogs compete, cats don’t really seem to care
all that much. Bears are big enough that they don’t need to compete.
As cats are to dogs – note the
expression “fight like cats and dogs” – so birds are to cats, or so it seems. I
believe it’s been proven that the decimation of bird populations over the past
five-or-so decades has partly to do with feline fowl play. No wonder birds seem
so nervous!
Anyway, as we know, cats often
communicate by not communicating, e.g., by ignoring or pretending they don’t
hear you. Chickens, on the other hand, really, really want to
communicate and, apparently, they are interested in doing so with we humans.
Livestock scientist Suresh
Neethirajan and his students “used AI to sift through four months of every
squawk, cluck and chirp made by a group of chickens. Eventually, farmers could
use the birds’ sounds to monitor them and adjust conditions to improve their
quality of life” (CBC, The Nature of Things), and thereby,
presumably, improve their worth to humans, if not their fate (link below).
“…we can listen to the variety of
calls made [in] different contexts and understand the buried emotions behind
these calls,” he said. “In the future, farmers could use their chickens’ calls
to monitor them and adjust conditions to improve their well-being. [A] happy
bird is a productive bird,” Neethirajan says.
In my neighbourhood (albeit
rural) there are more chicken than people. Apparently they make great pets and
are endowed with the added bonus as a 2-4-1 food source. I don’t know if it is
truly a bonus, but the male of the species also has 2-4-1 usefulness. In no
particular order other than editorial convenience, roosters do their share to
(ahem) regenerate the species and as farmyard alarm clocks – alarm
clucks, as it were. Funny thing about that, and to my point about animals in waiting,
the rooster next door has no idea what time it is. He’s crowing off and on all
day! It’s true that if one is truly regent of the roost, one gets to crow about
it, and to decide what time it is in the new world order when roosters will run
the country.
Exhibit G: I’m not sure
that chickens, being armless, are well equipped to take over from us, cooped up
as they’ve been for millennia, but they have proven themselves worthy
adversaries nonetheless (cock fighting is still a blood sport in some places).
As much as they (chickens) have
proven themselves true “homebodies,” they’re no match for homing pigeons, which
(whom?) do indeed fly far and wide and still – as their name suggests – find
their way home. In a May 30, 2026, broadcast, CBC Quirks and Quarks reports
the astounding fact that homing pigeons remember where they live thanks to –
get this – their liver. The immune cells in their livers! (link below)
They’d be lost without their
liver, which may explain human behaviour too, like when a drunken man can’t
find hid keys, or remember where he parked the car, or even where he lives!
Exhibit H: Exploding deer?
Deer strikes and insurance claims.
A spokesperson for Telile TV, the
community channel serving Isle Madame, Cape Breton, in a recent interview on
CBC Cape Breton’ Information Morning, used the term “exploding deer
population,” to illustrate the variety of topics they’ve covered over the
years.[1]
Of course, she was referring to the increasing numbers of deer locally and, by
extension, the increasing frequency of nuisance deer encounters.
For me, perhaps the most glaring
wakeup call of the wild just might be an excerpt from the latest Stephen
Spielberg movie. Whether life imitates art (as is often said) or art imitates
life (as is more easily perceived), I can’t say. Though I subscribe to the
notion that “spectacle” (a la cinema) is not really an art form, I will say
that when popular culture sparks an “aha!” moment, I tend to take note – as I
did with the Spielberg film’s advance publicity.
The recently released Disclosure
Day (Universal Pictures, June 2026) is bound to be such a spectacle and spark (link below).
The only thing I have to go on,
since I will not likely get to see the dystopian-future film, is an advertisement
running on TV in the Spring. In two places, the promo shows some surreally creepy
deer staring calmly at humans. In the first clip the deer are outside looking through
glass patio doors at a family of humans inside a home. In the second clip, the
deer are in the home, all innocent and Bambi-like, but also menacing a
la Spielberg. Very creepy.
I’ve often repeated the advice of
a veteran insurance adjuster who cautioned against ever reporting a collision
with a deer as, “hitting a deer.” Rather, he insisted, the car was hit “by
a deer.” I’m not sure he was being as prophetic as it now sounds, but….
Spielberg’s creepy depiction of
encroaching deer, and perhaps other wildlife (not to mention aliens), brings me
back to my opening mention of aliens, and my mistaken recollection of the song
“Aliens are Nice” as “Aliens are Nigh.” Deer and other of earth’s creatures are
indeed alien to the man-made world, but I sometimes wonder if our days – our
dominion – are numbered.
Conclusion (?)
If “utopia” means “no place,” is
“dystopia” everyplace else?[2]
A dystopian made-for-television
miniseries that both fascinated and frightened me was Stephen King’s dystopian The
Langoliers (teleplay by Tom Holland, Laurel Entertainment for ABC, link below).
To make a long story short, in The
Langoliers just a few passengers on a jetliner suddenly find themselves to
be the only passengers despite a full flight when they boarded. They soon
discover that everything around them is dull and lifeless, matches fail to
light, sounds lack echo, and food has no taste. One of those few remaining
passengers reports hearing a strange crackling sound in the distance, while another
deduces that the plane passed through a time rip, sending them to a past moment
empty of people and energy. The origin of the noise is finally revealed when
saw-toothed monsters appear, devouring everything in sight. They recognize them
as the Langoliers and one man flees in terror, drawing them (the Langoliers) away
from the plane, until they catch up and eat him. The other passengers board and
the plane takes off while the Langoliers consume every trace of the past.
Kind of a horrifying version of Pac-Man.
That’s the quickest of
recollections of the story. Check it out for yourself via the link below, but
my interpretation is that we humans are just steps away from a past that – if
we don’t outrun or outsmart it – will consume us. Fate favours the fleet of
foot, is the old saw. If we dwell in the past we fall behind and are consumed
by it. But if we race ahead into the unknown we risk forgetting what came
before, the path that brought us this far.
I’ll close with a few lines from
the song, “Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends” (1958, Mitch Miller, songwriters
Charles Grean, Joan Javits & John Philip Sousa, BMG, link below).
Be kind to your web-footed
friends
For a duck may be somebody's mother
Be kind to your friends in the swamp
Where the weather is very, very damp
Now you may think that this is the end
Well, it is!
Remember, AI just might mean
Animal Intelligence!
p.s. Deer prudence is, of course,
my malaprop essay title providing an excuse to listen to that old Beatles song,
“Dear Prudence” (1968, The Beatles, written by Paul Mccartney / John
Lennon, linked below). Interestingly (to me, at least) when I play “Dear
Prudence” in my head, the tune gets mashed up with that of “Sexy Sadie” (also
by the Beatles, 1968, link below) to become ‘Deer Prudence … you’ll get yours yet!’ Enjoy,
if you can.
=30=
Link to my blog, “Is there a
disturbance in the force?” : https://mike-r-hunter.blogspot.com/2025/04/essay-is-there-disturbance-in-force.html
Link to my rant, “The Aliens are
Nigh” : “https://mike-r-hunter.blogspot.com/2023/09/rant-aliens-are-nigh.html
About That With Andrew Chang,
https://gem.cbc.ca/about-that-with-andrew-chang
Link to CBC article on dog
learning (CBC Radio, Quirks & Quarks · Posted: Jan 23, 2026) : https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/jan-24-dogs-learn-9.7058251
Link to Miami Herald, Ryan
Brennan, March 5, 2026, article “This Adorable Cat…”: https://www.miamiherald.com/living/article314935698.html
Link to Wikipedia article
on Acoustic Kitty : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty
Link to “Virginia Bear Hunter Dies
in Freak Hunting Accident….” www.allthatsinteresting.com : https://tinyurl.com/3zv9yjcs
Link to CBC article “What the
cluck was that? Scientists turn to AI to decode what chickens are saying,” (Vanessa
Caldwell · CBC Docs · Posted: Jan 29, 2026) on chickens research : https://tinyurl.com/ycke4rx3
Link to Wikipedia article
on the film Disclosure Day (Spielberg 2026) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disclosure_Day
Link to Genius for lyrics
of “Be Kind to your Web-footed Friends” (BMI) : https://genius.com/32521673
Link to Wikipedia article
on the song, “Dear Prudence” : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Prudence
Link to Genius for lyrics
of “Dear Prudence” : https://genius.com/The-beatles-dear-prudence-lyrics
Link to YouTube recording of
“Dear Prudence” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymQAyA0dWLI
Link to Wikipedia for
article on Stephen King’s The Langoliers (teleplay by Tom Holland, Laurel
Entertainment for ABC) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langoliers_(miniseries)
Link to Wikipedia for
article on “Sexy Sadie” (Lennon–McCartney, 1968, The Beatles (also known
as “the White Album”) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexy_Sadie
Link to Genius for lyrics
of “Sexy Sadie,” by the Beatles (1968) including “play” link : https://genius.com/The-beatles-sexy-sadie-lyrics
[1]
The topic of the interview conversation was the recent cuts in funding for NS
media, including publishing. “Exploding deer population” was a reference to the
kind of story the channel covers. Sadly, Telile has been hit with a reduction
in public funding.
[2] “Utopian”
describes a society that’s conceived to be perfect. Dystopian is the
exact opposite — it describes an imaginary society that is as dehumanizing and
as unpleasant as possible.
George Orwell's “Animal Farm,” for example, describes a
dystopian society in which Napoleon, a pig, represents Joseph Stalin in a
farmyard satire on Stalinist Russia and how power corrupts. Other famous
dystopian authors include Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, and Ray Bradbury. The
adjective dystopian describes anything that pertains to or resembles a
society such as those described in this sort of literature. (https://www.vocabulary.com)
