Saluting the best B.C. animals of 2019: Here are the nominees for best overall animal
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2019 03:47:31 +0000
This is our fourth and final instalment of the year-end series saluting B.C.’s best and newsiest animals of 2019. The non-televised categories are behind us, after looking at the year’s best cats, the best animal groups, and the naughtiest bears, and that leaves only the big one: best animal of the year.
In short order, one animal in this province will join the pantheon of legendary local animals: the Steveston sea lion, Canuck the Crow, the Chinatown otter, and others. Heck, the Chinatown otter could be our first repeat champion after returning to wreak havoc in the the area for a second straight year. But don’t sleep on the other nominees, which include an overly aggressive emu, a cuddly octopus, the first dog trained to detect fentanyl, and a posthumous nominee who turned up last January in a bowl of soup. In my mind, they’re all winners. But there can only be one.
And the nominees for best overall animal are:
PARKER, VANCOUVER ISLAND’S EMU ON THE LAM
A Vancouver Island emu shattered the stereotype of the flightless bird this August when the he escaped from a Chemainus farm one Tuesday morning. It was not the first time the five-foot-seven, 100-pound bird, named Parker, had flown the coop, so to speak, but it might be the last after what transpired that fateful day.
As Parker made his way down Chemainus Road with little regard for morning commuters, Mounties called in to deal with the agitated emu deemed him a “safety concern for passing motorists, pedestrians and residents,” according to an RCMP news release, and tried to apprehend the bird.
An emu was Tasered by Vancouver Island RCMP after escaping. Not this emu. This is an Australian emu model.
But Parker, a West Coast bird likely raised on West Coast hip hop, wanted nothing to do with the police and allegedly lashed out at the Mounties. “The emu was quick to agitate and was aggressive towards officers,” said RCMP spokesman Const. Amron Christensen, justifying what came next: they tasered poor Parker right there in the street.
He was uninjured but, according to sources, the emu was utterly shocked.
A trailblazing police dog called it a career this spring after five years sniffing out drugs for local and provincial police.
Doodz, an RCMP police service dog, was originally trained to sniff out cannabis, but in 2016, he became the first dog in Canada that could also detect the drug fentanyl. He made an impact right away, detecting 12,000 fentanyl pills during a traffic stop near Hope that summer. Later, he helped police seize a staggering 27,000 pills from a driver on the same stretch of highway. He was a very good boy.
After Doodz proved it could be done, police began training dogs to detect fentanyl all across Canada. Granted, decriminalization would have done more for the community than simply introducing the lethal opioid to dogs, but Doodz is trained to detect fentanyl, not shortsighted and provably ineffective government policy.
Meet Doodz, he was one of the first dogs in the world trained to detect fentanyl. He once successfully detected 27,000 fentanyl pills! After working hard for 5 years as a drug interdiction dog, he recently retired. pic.twitter.com/ExbVYz6Cfk
Doodz deserves a round of applause. He’s a dog, but he did more to combat the opioid crisis than most politicians, and I, for one, hope his post-police career includes a run for office.
Vancouver has been B.C.’s most rat-infested city for three years running, but in 2019, they had more rats than they knew what to do with — and I mean that literally. In April, the city began pushing rat adoptions after coming into possession of a whopping 76 fancy rats. This led to one of my favourite quotes of the year, courtesy Kathryn Holm, Vancouver’s Chief Licence Inspector.
“There are a lot of things you could buy for five dollars,” said Holm. “A rat is one of them.”
But the local rat that takes the cake is the one that took a swim in a vat of soup last January, horrifying Gastown foodies and forcing the closure of Crab Park Chowdery, a local cafe that was known for its chowder before it became infamous for its rat broth. A video of the rat emerging from the bottom of a bread bowl made the rounds early this year after being posted to social media, and that was pretty much it for the burgeoning soup craze in downtown Vancouver.
A video was posted to Instagram claiming that a friend had found the creature in a bowl of soup at Crab Park Chowdery, a downtown rustic-style cafe that serves clam chowder and soup in sourdough bread bowls.
Chowdery’s owner Ashton Phillips was “deeply sorry.” The rat was deeply soggy. Vancouverites were deeply disgusted.
“We will do whatever we can to get to the bottom of this,” Phillips added, likely echoing the rat’s final words.
SNUGGLES, THE EAGLE-STRANGLING OCTOPUS
When this series began with the nominees for best animal groups, some folks argued that the eagle and octopus caught battling on video near Vancouver Island last week were snubbed. I beg to differ. This is no group performance. The octopus is the star here, and he was winning this conflict handily — eight-handily, even — until a group of fish farm workers intervened to save the eagle from his death grip.
“I’ve seen octopus and I’ve seen eagles, but I’ve never seen them grappling like that,” said John Ilett, manager of the Mowi Canada West fish farm near Quatsino.
Nobody else had either, which is why the video, uploaded to Youtube just three days ago, already has over 2.5 million views. If this award is merely about virality, the octopus wins, tentacles down.
Finally, this list would be woefully incomplete without a nod to the Chinatown Otter, who never met a koi pond he wouldn’t dive into for a quick meal. Call him Cannonball Otterley.
The otter first arrived in Chinatown in the fall of 2018, making speedy work of the koi population at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. After devouring pretty much every koi in sight and evading capture, he skipped town, disappearing into the night like Keyser Soze. The entire saga captivated the world, and there was little doubt that the sneaky critter was B.C.’s best animal of 2018, even if the Park Board and the koi didn’t agree.
The infamous Chinatown otter.
But this fall, the infamous Vancouver koi boy returned to defend his title in a sequel we like to call Hairy Otter and the Chamber of Secrets. The Chinatown otter devoured another six koi before the Park Board realized the need to once again close the park, drain the pond, and save the few fish that had survived.
The otter has since moved on, but it seems safe to assume he’ll be back next fall to complete the trilogy. After all, you cannot stop the Chinatown otter — you can only hope to contain him.
And the winner is … TBA.
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