Last month, maybe the one before that, I posted an essay titled “Deer Prudence” <links below>. That isn’t/wasn’t a typo then and it’s not a typo now. The essay was a tongue-in-cheek assay of recent conflicts between human animals and our forest-dwelling mammal cousins.
The upshot of that essay is that so-called wildlife is, as it should be, ever-present but only at the periphery of the manmade world. It’s as though the animals are sometimes cozying up to humans, sizing up our environs for when human societies finally implode, leaving the rubble to nature to do with it as it may. Perhaps to renew and try yet again.
In another essay citing Robert Harris’s book, The Second Sleep (2019, Random House Canada) <link below>, I outlined that the book is about a fully-developed human society without a past. It was as though humans had been made extinct then repopulated the earth oblivious to said extinction. The novel did not reveal the circumstances of human extinction, just hinted at it. I pointed out that we no longer need a prequel to the novel to learn what brought about the demise of the earlier society (indeed, perhaps multiple earlier incarnations) because we seem to be living it in 2026.
“Deer Prudence” pretends to ponder the proliferation of close encounters of the animal kind.
Anyway, animal-interest news stories keep cropping up in all kinds of ways, so this is a little update with some of the cuter, funnier and perhaps disturbing newsworthy articles along the same lines.
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In a May 30, 2026, a CTV News story <linked below> summarizing Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s. apparent animal fetish in an article gleefully titled, “Live snakes, dead bears and brain worms: RFK Jr’s wild animal antics.” From the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ dept.:
· In 2024, Kennedy acknowledged in a video that a decade earlier, he had put a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park with a bicycle to make it look like a biking accident. Hmm, where’d he get the bear, I wonder, and already dead, I assume?
· Similarly, in a 2026 biography, Kennedy said he cut out the penis of a road-killed racoon to study it later. Behind closed doors, one hopes.
· In his latest animal adventure, Kennedy posted a video, on X, of himself picking up two thin black snakes by their tails from the corner of an outdoor patio, and began waving them around, perhaps imitating a Rowan Atkinson skit <sample link below>.
I don’t know what there is to say about RFK’s obsession with dead bodies (though maybe that explains his determination to end some lifesaving vaccines), but it can’t be mere coincidence. In my mind’s eye I imagine him dressed in white robes, leading a congregation of “the faithful” in various animas rituals to ward off evil spirits. Or, perhaps, as prequel to sacrificing a three-legged goat in what’s left of the White House Rose Garden. Fateful public servant that he is…
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In my earlier posts on the subject of the coming animal insurrection, I devoted space to cats, including that cat with four ears. In a May 6, 2021, CBC Ideas segment, titled “Feline Philosophy: What We Can Learn from Cats,” followed up in a CBC article by Tayo Bero (May 12, 2026), titled “Why cats may have more to teach us about living the good life than Socrates,” author John Grey “uses the concept of the detached and carefree temperament of the typical house cat as a springboard for discussing humans’ approach to philosophy and the meaning of life. Can a school directive mandating children to read up on identifying cat-astrophies save the day?
And, where there’s cats, there’s sure to be birds. With the idea of animal worship in mind, consider the reverence shown for flamingoes recently demonstrated in Albania. It seems that America’s favourite gilded couple, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, pose a threat to Albania’s favourite waterfowl, the flamingo. According to The Guardian (August 29, 2026, Reuters). The flamingo has become a symbol of what locals see as a growing disparity between haves and have-nots, flamingos in a wildlife refuge area have become emblematic as threatened by uber capitalism.
“For more than a month, thousands have taken to the streets of Tirana to protest … [it’s] the biggest outbreak of unrest in Albania since the collapse of communism more than three decades ago. What began with environmental concerns about protecting a nature reserve and the more than 2,500 species it hosts has become the flamingo revolution, questioning the very direction of the country.”
It’s true that the flamingo has been adopted as a poster bird for a political movement, and that’s a lot, but is that all? Is it possible that flamingos are readying themselves for a new world order taking flight?
Now, I don’t know if this next story truly qualifies for my theory about a coming animal nation, but a three-month-old kitten was recently weaponized in an attempted bank robbery in Beltsville, Maryland, giving new meaning to the term cat burglar. A would-be bank robber had apparently been casing the joint (as they say in outdated crime novels) from a cat rescue charity nearby, during which time he grew so fond of a particular kitten that he cat-napped it. Then, reportedly, “…he went into the bank with the cat in his arms, and he walked up to a bank employee and said, ‘Can you hold this?’” And then he wrote a note and handed it to a bank teller and it said, essentially, give me all your cash.
Next, a CBS news story on The Daily Report (August 5, 2026) noted “Cleaner coastal waters and successful conservation laws have led to a major rebound in baitfish and marine mammal populations,” in turn drawing more sharks – but also more swimmers – closer to shore, resulting in “an uptick in seasonal sightings and close encounters.
“Are Shark Attacks a Sign of Conservation Success? Cleaner water and more prey [ahem] may mean that more sharks are moving into water where people swim and surf, scientists say” WSJ, August 7, 2022.
Next, “I think there’s a fox in your bed.” An August 6, 2026, CBC article reported that it was actually a coyote, but still…. “Every Tuesday evening,” the article says, “Alice Kent leaves the back door of her Christie Pits [that’s an area of Toronto] home open for her cleaner,” and then she goes out for the evening leaving the cleaner to do her dirty work. Before Kent left for her weekly whatever, the cleaner came downstairs and, as above, reported what she thought was a fox in the bed. It was a coyote, actually. The animal was safely dealt with by local authorities. No doubt it was disappointed at the eviction.
“In recent years, Toronto has experienced a spike in encounters between people and coyotes. Since 2020, there have been nine incidents where people in Toronto have been bitten by coyotes, according to statistics provided by city staff. In February 2025, Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik put forward an urgent action plan.
“This June, a child was attacked and taken to hospital in Whitby, Ont., followed by a two-year-old in July, also in Whitby. The recent encounters have sparked public outcry and led to a debate about population control.”
Hmmm, “population control”? On whose part, I ask.
Bears are people too. A September 10, 2026, Facebook post by whomever is behind David Attenborough Fans, recounts a story in which a black bear is seen on a surveillance camera to be delivering an injured raccoon and leaving it on the doorstep of a wildlife rescue clinic. The piece goes on to say that the same bear was earlier caught on camera delivering an injured fox! The markings on the bear, states the report, match an orphaned bear cub that had been treated at the same clinic.
Proof that animals are people too? Be still my beating heart. Of course, the photos and post were quickly dismissed as fake news. But are they? Or are they a PR stunt by the secret service of the animal kingdom?
Next, and speaking of Bears…. “Hungry bears wander into western U.S. homes, shops in record numbers,” says a headline on CTV News (August 29, 2026, Reuters).
“Matt Errico was sitting on the toilet when he heard noises [blush, happens to me too] in his Colorado home.
Mr. Errico got up and found two young bears about the size of golden retrievers standing in his hallway. “After a staring match, they bolted out of the front door. …Errico has had bears get into his garbage before but the home invasion … was a first.”
I would have shit myself.
“[B]lack bears, also spotted in a Granby vape shop, are among thousands heading into towns and cities across the U.S. West in record numbers.
“Bears have wandered near a school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, climbed a tree near a farmers market in Denver and startled humans in other ways across the country after the driest winter in memory wiped out plants, grasses, berries and nuts that form around 90 per cent of their diet, according to bear experts and state wildlife agencies.
“The animals’ incredible sense of smell is drawing them to human food. That is leading to record bear deaths in some states as hundreds are euthanized, run over, shot and even electrocuted as they interact with humans, according to wildlife agencies.”
The article calls the situation, “Bearmaggedon.” Indeed, taken all together my outtakes might lead one to think of Armageddon. Me? I’magettin’ a kick out of it all.
Not to give bears the last word, check out the CBC Quirk & Quarks (Sept. 12, 2026) piece on the destruction of research apparatuses by wildlife everywhere. In the segment, “Bears, caribou and other animals are messing with … researcher's equipment,” and they’ve got the photos to prove it.
A wildfire research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service studying how forests in Atlantic Canada regrow after forest fires, set out (2022) to understand how forests might regrow on a planet when temperatures are rising due to climate change.
To do that, “he and his team lugged 19 open-top chambers (OTCs) through the forest and set them up around seedlings they’d planted. OTCs are like mini greenhouses and look like clear hexagons with an opening at the top. They can increase the temperature anywhere from one to three degrees, mimicking the effects of a warming planet. The study is currently in year three of five.
“[They] expected some difficulties — the treks of up to a kilometre in difficult terrain, and the infamously dour Newfoundland weather, for example … [b]ut in September 2023, on one of his regular check-ins, he ran into a problem he didn’t expect. They noticed that some of these greenhouses had visitors who proved to be a little more territorial than they’d figured on.”
Those “visitors” included caribou, moose, black bears, wolves, rabbits and owls, some of which vandalized the cameras meant to look at snow depth over the winter. “Out of 19 sites, 11 have sustained damage at some time or another. And the animals wouldn’t just trample the greenhouses — some made off with the temperature sensors.
“The greenhouses had been completely obliterated … broken, smashed to smithereens.”
From Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia, bears, moose and elk have gotten in on the action. Elsewhere too. From baboon to hyenas, elephants and monkeys in Mozambique, wildlife object to being observed, and they’re taking matters into their own hands, ’er hoofs. They know we’re watching. Bear in mind, they were here first.
It may be coincidence, but have you noticed that TV advertising is no longer limited to cars and trucks, but focus on life insurance these days? Coincidence or serendipity?
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Link to my blog essay “Deer Prudence”: https://mike-r-hunter.blogspot.com/2026/06/deer-prudence.html
Link to my blog post “Sleep Walking Strangers: https://mike-r-hunter.blogspot.com/2025/10/musitorial-sleepwalking-strangers.html
Link to CTV News article on RFK and his wild animal antics: https://tinyurl.com/whtjhx3u
Link to Wikipedia entry on John Grey’s Book, Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY, 2020): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feline_Philosophy
Tiny URL link to The Guardian article on the “Flamingo Revolution”: https://tinyurl.com/2rcbujah
Link to Wikipedia entry on The Flamingo Revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamingo_Revolution
Link to CBC radio piece on urban raccoons: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/raccoons-domestication-science-research-animals-9.6997038
Link to news story about attempted ‘robbery by kitten’: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/thief-tries-to-rob-bank-in-beltsville-with-stolen-kitten-in-hand/4129698/
Link to CBS news story about increasing shark sightings: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/scarborough-maine-sharks-video-pine-point/
Link to Wall Street Journal article on shark sightings: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-environment/where-sharks-are-encountering-people-along-the-east-coast-14d480c1
Link to CBC News article about the coyote in a Toronto bed: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/coyote-pup-in-bed-9.7298531
Link to CTV News (Reuters) story about bears in the U.S.: https://tinyurl.com/3b6pj92u
Link to CBC Radio Quirks & Quarks (September 12, 2026), “Bears, caribou and other animals…”: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/fire-forest-research-animals-destroy-equipment-9.7331035
