Is nothing sacred?

Vicar gives Holy Communion to dog

An Anglican church in Canada has become the focus of controversy after a vicar gave Holy Communion to a dog.

The priest gave the Host – considered by Christians to represent the body of Jesus Christ – to an Alsatian cross called Trapper.

St Peter's Anglican Church in Toronto has since been deluged complaints from Christians all over Canada.

Donald Keith, the dog's owner, said he had taken his pet to the church because he had been told animals were welcome.

He said that because he was newcomer the vicar invited him up in person to receive communion.

"The minister welcomed me and said come up and take communion, and Trapper came up with me and the minister gave him communion as well," said Mr Keith.

"Then he bent his head and said a little prayer," Mr Keith said.

"I thought it was a nice way to welcome me into the church," he said. "I thought it was acceptable." He added: "There was an old lady in the front just beaming when she saw this.

"Ninety nine-point-nine per cent of the people in the church love Trapper and the kids play with him." He said one member of the congregation was unhappy about the vicar giving the dog communion and complained to the archbishop, Colin Johnson.

The dog has since been banned from receiving the sacrament.

"It was just one person who got his nose out of joint and went to the head of the Anglican Church," said Mr Keith.

"Holy smokes. This is small stuff. I thought it was innocent and it made me think of the blessing of the animals.

"This has blown me away. The church is even getting emails from Catholics," he said.

Peggy Needham, the deputy people's warden at the church, said that no further action would be taken.

"The backlash is from just one person," she said.

"Something happened that won't happen again. Something our interim priest did spontaneously.

"This person went to the top and emailed our bishop to make a fuss and change things. But he misjudged our congregation."

Zoo

(a most disturbing film about a very dark side of human sexuality)

Zoo, a film by The Stranger columnist Charles Mudede and director Robinson Devor, and executive producers Garr Godfrey and Ben Exworthy, is a documentary on the life and death ofKenneth Pinyan (played by Adam T. McLain) a Seattle area man who died of peritonitis due to perforation of the colon after engaging in receptive anal sex with a horse. The film's public debut was at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007, where it was one of 16 winners out of 856 candidates, and played at numerous regional festivals in the USA thereafter.Following Sundance, it was also selected as one of the top five American films to be presented at the prestigious Directors Fortnight sidebar at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.

The director and festival shortlist producers describe the film as:

"The complete antithesis of what you expect ... To begin with, 'Zoo' is neither graphic nor exploitive. Most of it takes the form of recreations, but from the point of view of the men 'who met for years without disturbance in the shadows of Mt. Rainier,' as Devor puts it."

"I aestheticized the sleaze right out of it." - Devor

"This was a guy who was a conservative man at one point, and those ideas started breaking down for him. I think that 9/11 triggered a lot of it. But he was [also] in the center of one of the most secretive military complexes. Meanwhile, he listened to a lot of left-wing radio, he questioned everything our government was involved in, and he was ethically conflicted about his job and the money he was making. That's the core fascination for me." - Devor, describing his interest in the film's subject. 

The film was made with co-operation of the two men who took Pinyan to the hospital, as well as other friends of his, in the attempt to explore the life and death of the man, as well as those who came to the farm near Enumclaw for similar reasons, beyond the public understanding of the media. It does contain explicit material of sexual activities, but only in the view of video footage shown on a small television screen.

The Sundance judges called it a "humanizing look at the life and bizarre death of a seemingly normal Seattle family man who met his untimely end after an unusual encounter with a horse".

"They called us and were excited about the imagery, the poetry, the experimentation with the documentary form," says Charles Mudede, the film's writer and an editor at the alternative weeklyThe Stranger. [...] "It's unmentionable... And then strangely, suddenly, in 2005, it becomes the talk of society. How exactly does that happen? How do we go from something being utterly hidden from view, and then suddenly we're consumed with it and so upset by it we need to pass a law?"

Urban Fox Count

Tomorrow we think about the desert being in the city.

Today we note signs of the countryside invading the urban landscape.

Urban Fox Count: The Daily Telegraph launches study to count urban foxes

The first urban fox count in nearly 15 years is launched today by The Daily Telegraph in an attempt to find out just how many of the animals are living in the country's towns and cities.

 

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent 
Last Updated: 9:17AM GMT 28 Feb 2009

Foxes were first noticed in towns and cities in the 1940s and have been on the increase since

The number of foxes being drawn to urban living is thought to have increased significantly in the last two decades but no study has been undertaken to assess the population since 1995.

Now The Daily Telegraph and Telegraph.co.uk are to carry out The Urban Fox Count, with the help of readers, to draw a map of the country showing the number of animals living in built-up areas.

The data will be fed to biologists at the mammal research unit at Bristol University, where they are carrying out the longest running study into foxes in the UK, as part of their ongoing work.

The count will also examine how foxes are becoming bolder, as an increasing number of homeowners are reporting finding animals intruding into their homes and are no longer deterred by humans.

As part of The Daily Telegraph's count, the Wildlife Trusts will also be looking at the information in order to gauge the public's engagement with the nocturnal creatures and interaction with other animals.

Foxes were first noticed in towns and cities in the 1940s and have been on the increase since, attracted by a plentiful supply of food from bins and litter on the streets.

But life for an urban fox is short, with an average lifespan of 18 months, because disease, usually mange, among numbers spreads more quickly in the towns and cities.

Colin Booty, RSPCA senior wildlife scientist, said welfare groups receive more and more reports of foxes living in towns and cities but he said there was little up-to-date information and welcomed the opportunity to build a picture of where foxes are living.

"Fox density in urban areas is related to housing type," he said. "Semis with large gardens are perfect for foxes but Victorian terraces and modern developments are not so favourable."

The mammal research unit at Bristol University currently has a number of ongoing projects looking into the behaviour of foxes in the UK.

Ellie Whittaker, a researcher at the Bristol University mammal unit, said: "It is always good to have even a vague census of foxes. Where are they most abundant? Where are they being seen? Where are they not being seen? Where they used to be seen? The animals move around a lot geographically and in a lot of cities the population of foxes is absolutely exploding.

"It is always interesting to know a real picture. There are not a lot of studies going on at the moment so the only way to find out more is to ask the public."

Miss Whittaker, who is currently researching the social behaviour of the animals, said it would be particularly interesting to see how brave the animals were becoming.

"Foxes are definitely becoming desensitised to people," she added.

There are thought to be 10,000 foxes in London and the animals have been spotted in the choir stalls at St Paul's cathedral and outside No 10 Downing Street. They are also increasingly brave in other cities with one fox coming onto the pitch at Parkhead in Glasgow during the Old Firm game between Celtic and Rangers.

Dr Jonathan Reynolds, at the Game and Conservancy Wildlife Trust, said no research has been done into fox numbers since the hunting ban. He said The Daily Telegraph survey would show a snapshot in the same way as the RSPB's Great Garden Bird Watch shows a picture of bird life.

"Foxes have been on the increase in urban areas since the 1940s when they first started colonising towns and cities but we have also had a number of set backs in the population because of the mange and other diseases. At the moment it is difficult to say what the overall picture is."

The Wildlife Trust encouraged people to take part in The Urban Fox Count and be inspired by wildlife in the UK.

A spokesman said: "The Wildlife Trusts welcome the opportunity for everyone to find out more about wildlife. There is a wealth of wildlife on our doorstep and we believe it's great for people of all ages to be aware, show an interest and share their experiences too. "

To take part in the survey please send details of your sightings of foxes toukfoxes@telegraph.co.uk . Please include your name, the full postcode of the location where you see the fox or foxes, your photograph of the animals, if you have one, and a maximum of 25 words of commentary.

New Year's Eve at the zoo

Trying out an inherited toy. Guess where?

Something for the weekend

Today is the feast of St Francis in the universal church and tomorrow Harvest Thanksgiving in the local churches. Here are some non PC views for the weekend from a local clergyman in his parish magazine (Cayton):

Fighting the Forces of Nature

Someone once likened me to Saint Francis of Assisi. The facial resemblance might be striking but there it ends. Since keeping poultry, I have considered that foxes should be hunted to extinction. I hate pigeons, rabbits, moles, and every animal that is a vegitarian. Hedgehogs are OK because they eat slugs.

Many years ago I bought a house with no garden. So began the long experience of having an allotment and fighting the forces of nature. I've seen it all; pigeons that ate the tops of the sprouts,pheasants that ate the bottoms, rabbits that devoured the lot. Slugs, snails, eelworm, caterpillars, a mole that burrowed under the onions and destroyed the whole row, a rampaging herd of pigs that escaped from the farm, a Billy goat that chomped through the brassicas, and thieves who came in the night and pulled up a whole row of potatoes.

How lovely, people say, to be able to eat vegetables fresh from the garden. They don't know the half of it. Supermarkets sell perfect stuff; no holes in the potatoes, where the slugs have had a go, no carrots infested with carrot fly, no cabbages with a hawk moth caterpillar in the middle, blinking in the sudden light, no sprouts with cabbage white droppings, no parsnips with rust, no broccoli bristling with white flies. I once had an orchard. I learnt not to bite into a juicy apple because the odds were that there would be a wasp in it. Farmers spray with herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and anything else that they can lay their hands on so that we have unblemished produce.

October is the month of Harvest Thanksgivings. People with twee middle class gardens with serried rows of pretty flowers, and who buy their food from a shop, really have no idea of what we should be thankful for, but I do. Every potato that comes up undamaged is a cause for celebration. When I see a thrush in the garden I know that the snails are in for a battering, and rejoice. The sound of a wood pigeon cooing anywhere near my greens throws me into paroxysms of rage, and sends me out, wildly waving my arms. People who feed these rats with wings should be put in the stocks. We can be heartily grateful that we are so well fed, and thank God for it.

May God bless you all,

Fr Allan.

Joseph's Amazing Camels

Three of Joseph's Amazing Camels from Warwickshire were in Scarborough yesterday.They had been hired to bring the wise men to Jesus in the crib outside Woolworth's in the main shopping precinct. Naturally the crowds turned out to see them as they had two weeks earlier to see Santa in his sleigh drawn by live reindeer. The camels belong to the only camel racing company in the country. A spokesman said "It's a unique event for a unique time of the year and we hope it is something that adds to the fun of Christmas".

Across in the Irish Republic at Santa's Magical Animal Kingdom at Westmeath, in their respective pens, piglets donkeys and lambs are cosily light by the reflected coloured lights of the Christmas tree. One evening someone failed to secure the pen of the camels. Gus, an immense, shaggy, intimidating beast is over from Morocco and is this year's star attraction. He pushes the gate of the pen and it gives way. By the time staff return Gus has scoffed 200 mince pies and is on his sixth can of Guinness. The mess was appalling as though a bomb had gone off. The proprietor commented "Gus is just a lovable rogue and rarely spits at the customers. Who can blame him for celebrating Christmas early?" After Christmas he will return to Morocco but he'll be back next year by which time there will be a more secure lock on his pen.

Not to be out done by these animal capers the Church of England has got in on the act too. In Norwich Cathedral to be precise. A farmer has brought four of his flock of sheep to town. They are from a breed descended from the kind of sheep that would have been there in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. Led on halters they take pride of place in the cathedral candlelight procession to the singing of carols. It will have been worth the mound of red tape that has had to be surmounted to get them there - a movement licence in quadruplicate to get them there, ditto to get them home again afterwards, plus a performing animals license.

What is it about animals and the Christmas story? It was St Francis who first created the live Christmas crib scene in a cave where the midnight mass was celebrated for the people of the mountain community he was visiting at the time.

"Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man".