Friday Fuzzies

The chipmunk above was photographed at one of the scenic stops we made on the way from Banff to Jasper in Alberta, Canada on our honeymoon in August of 2003.  There were so many lakes and falls that I've lost track of all of the names.

Below we have several mammals indigenous to the Canadian Rockies, plus a few invading species. The elk (aka Wapiti) was wandering around the parking lot of the Jasper Park Lodge. It was mating season, and these impressive, if not intimidating animals were roaming freely about the grounds, bellowing. The next pic features a marmot (aka groundhog aka woodchuck), which we met on the trail to the Plain of The Seven Glaciers near Lake Louise. Shortly after we saw the marmot,  we also spotted the little guy to his right, a pika (not to be confused with a pooka, a trickster spirit that may take the form of a rabbit, but is not, in fact, a lagomorph).

On the second row we have an invading species, the buck-toothed graybearded tourist, which has created problems by competing with native Canadians for scarce resources, such as parking spaces. There is a popular movement afoot to allow shooting a limited number of these animals during tourist season, but so far the Canadian government has failed to act (and we admire their health care system?)  The next critter is a dog that was discovered far above the treeline on Whistler's Mountain (he traded in his mother for it) at an elevation of nearly 8000 feet. The summit of this mountain is a craggy moonscape covered with cairns built by a long forgotten race of cairn builders. For obvious reasons, this breed of dog is know as a Cairn Terrier. You will note the dog has a leash, but no owner attached to it. Another example of Canada's crazy socialistic laws.

Finally, we have another sub-species of invading tourist, the Cairn Tarrier. She tarried just long enough for me to take the picture as I recall.

Comments

[Steve-o]

Well, there's at least one thing that's pretty creepy in there...

[graybeard]

My favorite is the tarrier. It's very frisky.

[Jessamy]

Yay! (Some) Things that aren't creepy!