Illustration by Tim Robinson.
“To the memory of Christopher Columbus,” reads the inscription to the large Columbus Fountain in Washington, D.C., “whose high faith and indomitable courage gave to mankind a New World.” The monument was erected in 1912, and one cringes reading those words now. Columbus did not give mankind a New World. As the statue of the Native American man kneeling by Columbus’s side suggests, that world was already fully possessed by humanity.
Books in Review
By Sonia Shah
Nearly everywhere European “discoverers” sailed, in fact, they met people who had discovered those lands long before them. The Americas had already been discovered; so had Australia and New Zealand and the Arctic North. Even seemingly remote Pacific islands were inhabited by the time Europeans arrived. It’s bracing to realize just how few truly empty places European sailors found “islands and ice, mostly,” according to the Yale cartographer Bill Rankin. Not counting th
Mar 08, 2021 01:07 PM EST
Real-life is frequently bizarre than fiction, so we re frankly not certain why people resort to these myths. To celebrate March 3rd (World Wildlife Day), here is some widely-clenched but easily disagreeable theories about animals you can quite acknowledging today.
(Photo : Pixabay)
Myth 1: Bulls Dislike Red
Cattle are partly color-blind, not only do bulls not dislike red, but they can hardly even see it and the color red does not fall in their range. You have likely seen pictures of bullfighters enticing their prey with red flags, but it s believed to be the clatter of the crowd, the spears of the comic, and the antagonistic actions of the matador that infuriate the animals, not the specific color of the fabric.
built this? in order to get a camera in there, because the wolf is habituated to the noisy camera, to the cameraman, this is all made up. reporter: yes, there was a notice included in the movie. it came near the end of the closing credits. indicating captive wolves had been used in the making of the movie. who reads the credits? except my mother. no one. the small print, you re covered. technically we re covered. people would think they were watching wild, free-running wolves. reporter: yes, they would indeed. palmer says it s not just him and it s not all that new. white wilderness won an oscar in 1958. this famous scene of lemmings committing suicide was outed as a fake years ago. those lemmings were hurled off those cliffs by the filmmakers. lemming suicide is a myth. lots of deceptions go on. and the reason i ve written the book is to launch a campaign around the world to ask whether what we re doing is right. reporter: part of this, of
you ve probably seen some amazing wildlife documentaries. the ones that capture animals in those unbelievable natural settings. seems they are unbelievable, because they may be faked. at least that s the claim from one documentary producer. john donvan reports. reporter: animals on the screen. we love them. beethoven in the movie of that name. lassie! reporter: lassie in the classic tv show. and then, of course, there is flipper. all of whom were, we knew, essentially actors. trained animal performers following a script. but animals on screen this way, in the wildlife documentary. and this is disney s 1958 white wilderness, what made it so dazzling, and what made later films like the imax blockbuster wolves so enchanting, or whales, was the sheer wonder of seeing animals wild, in a world with so much accidental beauty.