Thursday April 22, 2021

   “Bog Brother is Watching You.”

 

"Thoralf was abreast of the scene with his sample 'bot'ls and tweezers ..."

  “Uffda! Lookit dat! I’m t’inkin’ dats udder poop,” exclaimed Thoralf Yohnson, as he unfastened his seatbelt just as their service truck rolled to a stop near the Thief Lake Refuge shelter house. Sven and Ula were hardly out of their doors before Thoralf (pronounced tore-ulf) was abreast of the scene with his sample ‘bot’ls’ and tweezers picking at the multitudes of specimens layered atop one of the three picnic tables there. He immediately began recording his findings with his phone:

“Specimen Vun is approximately cylindrical in shape, 2.43 inches long; vun inch in diameter; its ends blunted. It’s dark brown in coloration, vit chalky-vite speckles intermixed derein, enwrappin’ an interior of vat appears to be dry finely chopped vegetable matter, not at all da crayfish bones I expected to find in udder poop. I believe ve ‘ave an unfolding mystery ‘ere ...”

Sven and Ula weren’t perplexed by the leavings, for as Palmvilleians, they were quite used to excrement throughout their lives and childhoods, despite their vastly different upbringings. Sven, whose early days were spent in Iowa, a corn and soybean state, was all too familiar with bull; and Ula’s days as a wee lad were spent on gale and storm-tossed Atlantic beaches, where gull and tern alike freely smote rock and wharf with a liberal whitewash of Nature’s own.

They had been employed as scatological detectives a few years by that time

 They had been in business with Thoralf a few years by this time, employed as scatological detectives by law enforcement agencies of state and local parks; and national wildlife refuges, to identify excrement left by various creatures, big and molecular, to help identify immediate wildlife populations, and other possible contributors, (including human beings) so to diagnose certain conditions affecting digestive tracts, such as infections from parasites, viruses, or bacteria, poor nutrient absorption, tapeworm infestation, and subsequent law violations.

In layman’s terms: the three of them knew their shit -- and could identify individual people as well, through their DNA, should their clandestine defecation deposit be thought to have been secreted away beside a tree or astride a log in a public set-aside area, apart from facilities built for that purpose should they been available, for these three guys are known throughout the region as The Poop Police.

No shit.

“Bog Brother is Watching You,” has long been a natureland conspiracy theorist’s mantra about the over-reach of governmental surveillance. This trio of dedicated agents prove the point on a daily basis as they scour afoot or by air our miles of shoreline and beaches; fens and bogs;  public camping grounds and seasonal hunting camps; forest roadsides; creeks, rivers and lakes; boat landings, picnic areas and adjoining parking lots for litter of leavings and droppings, chancing upon a motherlode of serious shit that day in the shelter house at the corner of 250th St NE and Thief Lake South Drive.

Sven ventured that the mountain of excrement Thoralf identified as udder poop was actually raccoon poop, given its shape and contents. Ula, reading information on his cellphone aloud, commented that although udders and raccoons eat the same things, raccoon scat and udder spraint are shaped differently; raccoons having relatively uniform-shaped poop, and udders irregularly-shaped poop. “Raccoon poop is tubular an’ smoot’ vit generally blunt ends. River udder poop are irregular cords vit tapered or blunt ends; vitout clearly defined shape or form.”

He suggested Thoralf smell the spraint to see if it smells musky, like a dead animal, or if it smells ‘grainy’ like raccoon scat, but Thoralf declined, reminding Sven that smelling raccoon poop can potentially be fatal due to a parasite known as Baylisascaris procyonis.

“So udder poop is safe to in’ale, den Ula?” said Sven, using a stick to isolate a feces for closer examination, trusting that Ula had all the answers in the palm of his hand.

“Dung t’ink so,” answered Thoralf, thoughtfully. “A person vud be vise not to overindulge da senses ven it comes to in’alants of any kind, natural or othervise. Ve ‘ave to keep our vits about us ‘ere in da vilderness, you know.”

Ula, reading on in the article to himself, added, “Says ‘ere dat raccoons vash deir ‘ands an’ deir food before eatin’ an’ chew every bite of deir food a ‘undred times before svallowin’; vereas udders don’t, an’ are usually greedy, gourmandizing, voracious, insatiable, volfish, piggish, piggy, ‘oggish, gannet-like, edacious, esurient, gourmand, ventripotent an’ not to mention gluttonous, eatin’ larger pieces of, say, crayfish including vole legs an’ antennae.”

“I vill concede, vat ve got ‘ere,” Thoralf began, studying the fecal pile nearest him. “Iss raccoon poop, not udder poop, but not solely raccoon poop for it is apparent dat da ‘ole neighborhood hereabouts da lake has been poopin’ on or near this particular picnic table, including one yet unidentified goose hunter from Middle River.
 

"Vat? You ‘ave ‘is DNA already?” Sven asked incredulously.
 

“Nah,” Thoralf answered. “'is goose license. Seems he vas short on proper paper.”