Volume II • Issue 12• May 2005

Another week of reading the “weird” news, and there’s another story about some kind of bastardized new animal made up from mismatched animal parents. This week it was the birth of a part-whale-part-dolphin aka “wolphin.” Although it seems that the new “wolphin” is actually the kid of another 19-year-old wolphin that’s living in Hawaii. I guess where it’s living doesn’t matter a whole lot, but then again, I caught the story in a newspaper published in Iowa. Must’ve been a slow news day in Iowa. But at any rate, there’s been one of these wolphin things living in a sea park in Hawaii for the last however many years, and now it’s got a kid that’s only weeks old and is already bigger than a year-old normal dolphin.
 
But like I said, this is just the most recent in a string of the crossbred animal stories I’ve seen. I think the whole damn thing started back when “Napoleon Dynamite” came out however long ago, and there was that one bit about Napoleon drawing pictures of a “liger,” which is supposedly a cross between a lion and a tiger that’s not really real. But as it turns out, there actually IS an honest-to-goodness liger out there -- living in California -- and it’s supposed to be bigger than damn near anything except an elephant.
 
So I think the question needs to be raised, who the fuck is dumb enough to be breeding these super animals? A little bit of reading tells me that these hybrid-type animals are being bred in captivity, although it’s possible that the combinations could occur on their own in nature. I’ve not read a whole lot of science fiction in my day, but I’ve seen enough movies about “the folly of man” when it comes to playing God with science to know that nothing good ever, EVER comes of dumb shit like this. For shit’s sake, look at the friggin’ “Jurassic Park” movies, and that’s just a big ol’ T-Rex tearing things up, not some T-rex combined with a monkey. Monkeysaurus Rex. That dude will fuck you up.
 
So we’ve got a wolphin, a liger, and God only knows how many other kinds of shit running around out there. I made Google my bitch long enough to learn that there’s everything from beefalo (cattle hooked up to buffalo to make healthier meats… and I may have actually eaten this at some point) to a zebra crossed with a donkey -- a zebrass. And this is the scary thing to me: it’s clear that these guys aren’t strictly doing this to “better the world.” Guys that go out and make things like a zebrass obviously do it just because they’re bored off their nerdy asses and are trying to make things with funny names. Beefalo? Probably useful. Zebrass? No way. The only thing I think a zebrass would be good for is being the mascot for some Spanish soccer team, or to star in a disgusting-yet-heartwarming kid’s film.
 
My point is, why are our scientists out there playing around like this? I can only go with the argument that they’re trying to make more useful animals just so far. What the hell do we actually need a liger for, anyhow? To rough up the all the lions and tigers? My ass. Last time I checked, we had the whole lion and tiger situation under control. It’s why we have those “gun” things, to keep beasties in line. In fact, we’re so good at keeping those badass cats in line, we’ve almost wiped them out. Maybe we should work on breeding more of the normal kind of animals instead of making big super-sized animals that are likely only to end up fucking our shit up. Captive and docile now, sure, but you get one duck-billed platybear with a dream to lead an army of ligers with opposable thumbs, and it’s game over.
 
For the sake of all of us, science wonks, please stick to some more conventional things to play with. “Hey, you got chocolate in my peanut butter!” is something I can handle hearing, but I swear to you I can go my whole life without needing to hear something like “Hey, you got gorilla in my kangaroo!” Kangorilla? What in the hell would we do with one of THOSE?

Fingers complains about all of these cross-breed animals now, but we bet he won't complain when his mutant dog-goat keeps his lawn trimmed.

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