Snow and Cottage Cheese, the Secret Life of

I just dropped a needle on my crotch. No, seriously. A needle. Fortunately it was pointing up and did not pierce my pants. That would have been sort of… painful, I guess. *is tired and has the dumb*

I recently discovered my life has become full of little things to tell and discuss, things to write about and just notice. I have my jaw trouble, for example, and the snow storm that hit the country a few days ago, school is always a good subject, too.

I have made numerous observations of the philosophical kind lately, mainly because of the snow and the beauty it brought with itself. I do not only mean the storm with this, because we had some modest snowfall before that. I was waiting for the bus last Friday when I noticed how beautiful the snow looked, spread out on the branches of the dark tree branches. White on black, something young and virgin and fragile touching hands with a most endurable, silent watcher above the humans that walk by under it every day. At that particular moment I found it miraculous how the world has given us both things we can rely on to persist through most of the storms of life and history, and things fragile and evanescent that disappear soon after we’ve had time to acknowledge their existence, but always return, even if for the briefest moment.

Poetic, much, not.

Why the hell don’t the English/Americans/whoever have a word for ‘kohupiim’? There is ‘cottage cheese’, I know, but it completely fails at grasping the real essence of what I am actually talking about right now. It’s a (sweet(, or tasty at the least)) thing that you make from milk, it looks a LITTLE bit like cottage cheese and feels a LITTLE bit like cottage cheese in my mouth, but it. Is. Not. Cottage Cheese. It’s kohupiim! Argh! And another word the English should invent in the near future, because it is one of the best things a human being can eat during its petty, impermanent existence, is ‘kohuke’, or some equivalent of it. Because it is made of our special kind of cottage cheese that is not really cottage cheese. It is a bar of (not)cottage cheese wrapped in chocolate, it sometimes has jelly or other cool stuff inside and is about the best food EVUR. EVUREVUR.

And with that I am done. Capish. Time for bed. Bedtime. Almost midnight. One more day and then it’s weekend and I will be off to Tartu to learn about biology and be generally totally awesome in my own not-awesome way. I pwn everyone at failing to be awesome. Yeah.

So good night, everyone. I hope this was not the least informing.

Triinu

P.S. My thumb hurts. I have been sewing for two hours.

P.P.S. Hah. I’m just going to call the tasty Estonian thing (not)cottage cheese. We have cottage cheese, you know, and the thing I talked about is not it. As you probably already realized…

A Big Furry Hug: Introduction to My Polar Bear Obsession

Ursus maritimus. Ursus polaris. Ursus groenlandicus. The polar bear. One of the most magnificent predators on land, but also one of the laziest, except for lions maybe. Although, if put to the test, I am quite certain polar bears would win the Most Inactive Hunter award, since their idea of catching prey generally means sitting in one place and waiting for a seal to show up.

Now that I come to think of it, polar bears are hardly lazy: they will walk miles to wash off bloody muzzles and paws after a fresh meal. Hygiene is everything to these animals as a clean fur provides better insulation in the cold weather; and that is what keeps the polar bear alive – warmth. Their pelage consists of two layers and is so thick that, with the help of the also very thick layer of blubber, puts them in danger of overheating rather than freezing. The only part of the polar bear’s body that radiates heat is its muzzle, which it sometimes covers with a paw when sleeping. Now, imagine a polar bear curled up in a heap of snow, nose covered with a furry paw thirty centimeters wide.

Cute right? Doesn’t the sight of that just make you want to give that huge fuzzy thing a biiiiiiig hug?

No?

Didn’t think so.

However cute and cuddly the polar bear, we are still talking about a predator who will eat whatever is thrown in its way when hungry. No need to worry too much, though: reports of polar bear attacks on humans are rare, and on those occasions the bears have always been absolutely famished or deeply angered for one reason or another. No animal kills for the sake of killing in an adequate state of mind, and the polar bear is no different. Give the bear no reason to suspect you of stealing its food or intruding its safe zone and you should be fine. In short, just stay away. : )

Ringed and bearded seals, unlike humans, have no escape from the danger of becoming a polar bear’s dinner. They constitute the greater part the animal’s diet, usually caught when surfacing to breathe through a hole in the ice next to which the polar bear has been lying (sometimes for hours) in wait of its prey. If only we could get around as easily: just sit down behind the table and wait for the food to crawl up, all ready to be consumed. I doubt a chicken salad would do any such thing, though, salads are not known to be very mobile.

Aww, that's way too cute to illustrate my point.

No animal tops the food chain of its habitat as dominantly as the polar bear. They are the kings of the ice packs, the tooth and claw (and fur) of the Arctic. A majestic display of force and energy sufficiency that can inspire fear, awe and sympathy all at once. A polar bear in its sleep can seem like the perfect choice for a soft bed of a cuddly friend, but see one tearing up the carcass of a bowhead whale, you wouldn’t want to pat it on the head then…

And still, in all its magnificence and manifest dominance, the polar bear is a fragile creature. It isn’t hard to kill a polar bear: melt the ice under its feet and it will drown. Leave your garbage unsecured and its curious nature will lead it to it. Most likely the bear will eat what it can find and the chemicals and other dangerous junk will cumulate in its organism, poisoning the animal to the point of no return. Throw pollutants in the ocean, let rain water carry pesticides and fertilizers into rivers and seas, and it will all end up in the polar bear. They are at the top of the food chain – everything we produce and throw in the water will end up in their stomach. The bodies of polar bears are among the most contaminated in the Arctic.

It’s so freaking easy to kill them.

We need polar bears. Imagine the Arctic north without them, imagine all the seals they wouldn’t eat. Eventually the seals would surely move out of their natural cold habitat and take over the world. We would be enslaved by the fat and furry all over the world, every animal would plot revenge against us and seize the opportunity! Oh my spgspyoenpyssyhyü’owrthpoh!!

No, not really. But polar bears do form a necessary part of the biosphere, one that we should try to conserve and help along in any way possible. You can do that right now, by taking those plastic bottles to a recycling center instead of burning them or throwing them away, you can turn down the heat in your house/apartment, you can think more carefully about what and from where you buy the next time you go shopping. You can turn off the lights in the other room if there’s no one there. You can spread the word.

It’s not as impossible to help polar bears as it may seem.

No, I’m lying. The Arctic ice cap will keep on melting and even if carbon emissions are reduced drastically there will be a lag time for the planet to react to it. It will get warmer before it gets cooler again. That means the ice in the Arctic is going to keep on melting and there will be less and less of it left every summer. The polar bears will have to swim farther and farther to find dry land to rest on and hunt from. The decisions needed to change the direction of polar bear population trends must be global, they must be big and made by big (and little) people with big power because the large scale climatic events of the planet depend on the impact of their choices just as much as anyone else’s. (I hope that sentence made sense…)

In conclusion, the reason for my fascination with polar bears is as follows: How can an animal so majestic and full of such power be so easy to break? How can we let this happen? Why do we? I want my children, their children, and their children’s children to be able to marvel at the beauty and the contradictory appearance of these animals without regretting their extinction. Wouldn’t that be fair?

What do you think can and should be done on the big and the small scale for the conservation of the polar bear? How serious is the situation in your eyes? What species, in your opinion, needs more attention than it currently gets?

Pick all or any of the questions above and feel free to leave an answer. Any kind of feedback is welcome. : )

P.S. Yes, I am very aware of the fact that the polar bear is by far not the most endangered species in the world, its current status in the IUCN Red List is Vulnerable. Yes, I know about the Chinese giant salamander, the grey-faced sengi, the mountain zebra, the African elephant, and the golden lemur. They are all endangered too. But I’m sure there are people looking out for their well-being. I just happen to care passionately about polar bears.

P.P.S. Random cool bear fact: a sitting polar bear expends about 13 times less energy than a walking bear. No wonder they are not a very active bunch. : P

P.P.S. I do not own any of the pictures included in this post. If you recognize your picture(s) among the ones I have posted here and wish for me to remove them or add your credits, kindly let me know and I will. Also, feel free to point out any misinformation and factual mistakes this post may contain. I write what I know, but what I know is incomplete.

Sources of information:
Wikipedia: Polar Bear

Polar Bears International

Defenders of Wildlife: Polar Bear

National Geographic: Polar Bear

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: Marine Mammals Management: Polar Bear