I am feeling the frenzy too. After reading books like The World is Flat , it’s easy to realize that trends well underway that we should have been on board with at least 3 years ago. Any non-profit serious about longevity needs to be actively engaging its supporters online. It’s time. It can’t be ignored anymore.

That being said, there has never been a better time to just cool it. Calm down. The web is both urgent and attractive right now, but we need to maintain temperance and caution in any strategy we pursue. Of course it’s the future — it has been for years.

Here are a few rules to help us keep our heads on straight:

1. IT’S YOUR CAUSE, NOT THE COMPUTER

Don’t fool yourself: being successful online, whether you’re Obama or the local food bank, is only 10% due to the technology. The rest depends on the strength of your cause.

Obama, for example, had a compelling personal narrative. Do you? Obama had a well-controlled brand. Does your organization have that? Obama also had a captive audience that spanned not only the nation but the world, and had a major presence on every single media outlet for the previous 2 years leading up to the date of the American election. Does your organization have that? Lastly, Barack Obama had a role of historical significance unparalleled in America’s recent history. If your organzation doesn’t have those things, then use the Obama example as your inspiration, not your business plan.

You’ve got more work to do than just “get up there” on the web. It’s wonderful start, and by all means, run with it, but don’t forget to be a well-rounded organization.

2. STRATEGY FIRST, SOFTWARE SECOND

There is absolutely no point in shelling out the dough for an expensive constituent relationship management tool (CRM) or online fundraising solution if you have no internal strategy behind it. If you’re investing in your online giving technology, make sure that you know why you’re doing it.

• Have you found yourself limited by the free tools, open-source software and community-driven social networks that already exist?
• What percentage of your supporters currently give online? Has that number been growing or shrinking?
• Have your past online endeavours shown your supporters are comfortable interacting with your organization on the web?
• What is the impact on your organization if you don’t expand your online initiatives?

Do not swoon at the first software salesperson that comes digi-knocking. Know why you need to grow, before you branch out.

3. PEOPLE ARE THE ANSWER

Web 2.0 is not a machine made up of parts, but of people and faces. “If you build it, they will come” does not apply online. On the web, people gather where they feel connected. You need to reach out to people to meet them where they are, and to give them what they need — it’s not just a matter of dropping your organization’s fishing line into Facebook and hoping for a bite. Software is not going to do the work for you — people need to be behind it, before it, within it. If people are passionate about your cause, their personal endorsements and support will carry you far further than any purchased tool or ad ever will. It’s vital to respect that support by showing that you’re listening. You can’t just set up a new website and expect (or demand) they sign up.

4. EXPERTS ON THE INSIDE

Just like our mothers warned us about taking candy from strangers, the same applies to taking advice from consultants. If you want to develop a web strategy that really works for your organization, it needs to be developed from the inside. Not just because it’s less expensive, but because it’s more relevant and valuable. At your organization, at least one half of somebody’s job should be dedicated to overseeing your web strategy, including social media.

There are so many nuances to how your organization lives, breathes, works, thinks. There’s an equal amount of nuances to how to use the web. Knowing the intricacies of both is what makes a good web strategy work.

5. THE WEB IS WORTH INVESTING IN

As a direct counter-point to Rule Number Two, sometimes you have to pay for services and software if you want to do the job well. Assuming you’ve done your homework and checked out the existing free or low-cost options, don’t be afraid to part with some serious cash if you’re getting a good product. Do the math, do your homework, and make sure that you’re going to be getting an adequate return on your investment…then pay up.

6. JUST DIVE IN

Go to http://search.twitter.com and type in your organization’s name. Read the results: that’s what people are saying about you right now on Twitter. You don’t have to stay on the outside looking in: you as an organization can start participating in that discussion within minutes.

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(All photos taken by Kevan Gilbert, unless otherwise noted)

10. Final Fantasy

[Photo courtesy of Flickr user Gunn]

Owen Pallet (who performs as Final Fantasy) is not a solo violinist, he’s a one-man orchestra with shirt-tails and foot-pedals. I don’t know how long he’s been playing the violin, but it’s as if he reached the limit of training and theory and started thinking, “In what other ways can I use this violin? Can I pluck its strings? Can I play it lying flat, like I’m sawing a two-by-four? Can I yell at it? Can I sing while I play it? Can I use guitar looping pedals to make a symphony?”

The answer to all these questions was yes, and Pallet’s innovation was transcendent. He used dissonance as a foil, employing noise as a means of making the beautiful passages even prettier. His lush loops let him accompany himself, sometimes stepping up to his keyboard to introduce new layers, and regularly offering his voice as an additional instrument, his unassuming tenor giving way to a heavenly falsetto. Owen Pallet’s performances this weekend were groundbreaking tutorials on how to subvert the cold rules of reality to instead fulfill a fantasy.

9. Nathan

“Trans Am, take me away,” she sings, a careful, child’s voice from a mouth on a face that belongs on a living room figurine. Her name is Keri Latimer, and her two pom-poms of hair atop her head only add to the precocious music that sounds much, much too mature to belong to her. Evoking Eisley and the Innocence Mission from verse to bridge to chorus, the dark folk songs of Nathan disarm, unhand and enchant with startling force.

Harmonizing from stage-right with line-for-line precision is Shelley Marshall, whose black Johnny Greenwood locks obscure her face as she pumps a purple accordion in time to a shuffling beat. The beatkeeping is done by an aggressively talented percussionist who somehow manages to balance and play his guitar atop his drums while keeping rhythm with his feet, occasionally switching it up to blow breezy solos into a mounted harmonica. Meanwhile, the ironclad bassist keeps the band rocksteady with his grounded fretwork. This band, hailing from Winnipeg, is a lighthouse on the plains; they’re a unique prairie beacon that gave us some beautifully unified performances, and managed to upend all our best guesses as to who this mysterious “Nathan” really is.

8. Six String Nation

The arbitrarily chosen assortment of musicians that filled the side stage on Saturday morning were not what you’d call a natural fit. The ensemble was made up of four members from Lubo Alexendrov’s Bulgarian gypsy group, two Americana country-styled bluesmen on lap and pedal steels, an unseen bass player, very Canadian songster Hawksley Workman and his everpresent sidekick, Mr. Lonely (aka, Todd Lumley).

While many of the mixed-musician sessions that took place this weekend found the performers taking turns to perform their own songs, Six String Nation was an hour-long jam session. Each musician would get the chance to set the pace with a rhythm, a chord or a riff, and the other players would weave in and out with surprising dexterity. You’d be amazed, as we were, how well the pedal steel can get along with gypsy folk, or how a disco beat set by Hawksley on the drums can accompany a country dirge. This was beautiful improvisation, on-the-fly inspiration that came to define what it means to be folk.

7. Bettye Lavette

[Photo courtesy of Flickr user Jenniedo]

Since when do legendary soul divas from Detroit stop by to pander to placid white audiences on the Canadian prairies? The Calgary crowd was preoccupied with emitting friendly vibes and folksy expectations, and suddenly Bettye Lavette brought the funk. Her very serious, very incredible backing band set up an infectious groove, and with a Jackson-esque yelp into a wireless mic from backstage, Lavette strutted out in an all-white outfit to begin breaking our hearts en masse.

Out here in the Canadian west, the closest we come to funk and soul is odor and theology. I’d wager that after her show concluded and Lavette swaggered backstage again, at least half the audience pulled out their “to do” lists and wrote down, “Get some funk.” The Bettye Lavette concert was an astonishing explosion of Motown energy that made all of us wish we had even 10% of the rhythm, soul and sexuality that was bring broadcast from the stage. But in true soul form, the sensation was not called inadequacy, it was empowerment. Soul powah.

6. Sarah Slean

“I wore pink for you, Calgary,” teased Ms. Slean, striking a pose at the lone grand piano at the centre of the mainstage. Slean is both cute enough to get away with that, and talented enough to still be taken seriously playing the piano in a pink dress with pink heels. She’s got arms and legs as thin as two pairs of chopsticks, which is half sexy and half hellish, her shrunken frame making us all think about metabolism, anorexia, drugs and other things that make people skinny. Whatever experiences Slean has struggled through, they inform a dark, deep and soaring collection of melodies and words which must be some of the must beautiful songs ever written.

Sarah Slean’s rich, angelic alto never once missed her intended note. Her classically-trained fingers seemed to know the piano’s needs and wants, with five microphones dipped into the open grand’s torso to pick up and transmit every key played. Slean’s performance was transcendent and charming, intimate and explosive. With no accompanying band and no backup vocalists, Sarah Slean sat alone at the piano and provided one of the most pitch-perfect solo performances of the festival.

5. Rufus Wainwright

Surrounded by nine talented men in stripes, and himself decked out in an absurd costume of brown lederhosen, Rufus Wainwright was clearly in his element. Bursts of cinematic jazz from a brass section of three, caterwauling piano rhythms from Rufus himself when he wasn’t busy gesturing grandly at the mic, and surround-sound choir backup from all nine of his band members made for a lush, well-orchestrated sound. There was nothing but bliss and revelry from Rufus, whose little boy smile never left his face during the whole performance.

Rufus had the privilege of being Thursday’s closing act, and his Broadway-style performance sent people home to bed with a pleasant buzz of satisfaction. His decision to conclude the concert with his cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah was brilliant; he had the whole crowd in a swaying singalong. While the Folk Fest was just another tour stop for Rufus, his presence was meaningful, and gave attendees a hopeful pride in the future of Canadian music, as well as for the rest of the Fest.

4. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

Funk is hard work. Demonstration: the Dap Kings, possibly the hardest working band at the Festival. Their extremely tight dress code supplied an extremely tight sound, but their formal suits didn’t stop them from sweating the night away. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings poured their hearts into their soul — they did it with brass, they did it with class, and they did it with pure, unstoppable funk.

Sharon Jones herself is from the hometown of James Brown, and it seems like soul runs freely in that city. “Lock up your sons!” the guitarist (moonlighting as MC) declared, before Jones overtook the stage like freshly freed prisoner, wild eyes ready to woo you, voice ready to vindicate you for the sin of being a boring-ass white person. During the performance, she taught the crowd how to dance (instructions, demo AND danceable music included), and her capable MC/guitarist did a phenomenally classy job making us all feel good. Besides Bettye Lavette and the New Orleans Social Club, no other show came close to showing off the sheer muscle and discipline of the fabulous Sharon Jones and her Dap Kings.

3. New Orleans Social Club

[Photo courtesy of Flickr user Digg Doug]

The very existence of the New Orleans Social Club makes me want to permanently disown irony. While many bands (let’s say, Tokyo Police Club, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and other similarly-named groups) choose names that “ironically” have nothing to do with their group affiliation or place of origin, the New Orleans Social Club is overwhelmingly, breathtakingly, unapologetically legitimate.

Consisting of some of New Orlean’s most accomplished, elite instrumentalists, these five black musicians got together after Hurricane Katrina claimed their equipment, their homes, and some of the city’s best music venues. The NOSC play a devastatingly cool blend of funk, jazz and blues that is so gritty, it exfoliates your heels. Check it: piano man Henry Butler is blind, and lead guitarist Leo Nocentelli unleashes blistering solos upon your head while staring you down from behind his foreboding shades. The performance by the New Orleans Social Club was probably the most unexpectedly awesome showdown of the whole weekend.

2. Hawksley Workman

Mr. Workman dispensed three eclectic performances this weekend, and none of them ended with the audience still sitting down. From Hawksley’s warbling “Oooo”s to the listeners’ adoring “ahhh”s and the eventual standing Os, these performances featured Hawksley’s expert manipulation of vowels and consonants into blistering, poetic rock and roll.

On Friday night’s mainstage, Hawklsey’s brisk performance mingled with purple stage lights, blue twilight and his delicious backing band The Wolves, and steadily coerced the frightened crowd into believing that his brazen songs really were as colourful and tasty as they claimed to be. Tracks from his latest album (a sedate, folksy affair called “Treeful of Starling”) blossomed from bleak saplings into living, breathing, walking forests, and songs from his older albums found themselves injected with unexpected interludes, alternate words and surprise endings that demonstrated Hawksley’s restless, experimental spirit.

1. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

[Photo courtesy of Flickr user Digg Doug]

Let me set the scene for you: On the far right, we have a black man with natty dreads in a pirate hat, holding a beastly-looking guitar with yellow and red buttons, held together with electrical tape. His name is Futureman, and the device he is clutching is an electronic drum kit that he invented himself. He plays it with one hand while holding a drumstick in the other to play the kit, standing up.

To his left is the saxophonist, a bald man with a pointed goatee who managed to play two saxophones at the same time, different notes harmonizing with each other, his glowing red head about to explode.

On the far left, we have a man named Victor Wooten, who has been called the world’s bass player. The concert ended with a solo from Wooten that spanned over five minutes, involved his hands warping into impossibly twisted configurations, moving so rapidly over the fretboard they were virtually invisible (all the while expelling notes in a sequence that was still completely awesome to listen to), and then concluded with Wooten spinning his guitar in a circle around his neck while continuing to play.

And in the centre, holding it all together, alternating between a regular banjo and a purple MIDI banjo with horns, was Bela Fleck himself, the most normal looking man onstage. Dressed in jeans and a red New York t-shirt, Fleck defines “unassuming,” and yet was likely the most prodigious player of the performance. His lightning-quick picking joined with the over-the-top eccentricity exuded by his bandmates, creating a show so terrifyingly wonderful that the standing ovation would not go silent for a full five minutes after the lights went out.

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Whether you’re single or married, this budget thing is ridiculously useful. It has helped us pay back our debts, stay out of debt, put aside serious savings, and it helps us manage our money without accidentally overspending. And even though we called it the “newlyweds” budget, it will work just as well if you’re single, or have been married for years.

Brief Overview:

1. Figure out how much you make each month, in total.
2. Define your Obligations, Needs and Wants.
3. Assign limits that match your income and lifestyle.
4. Keep your receipts, and add them up each week.
5. Review once a month.

1. Figure out how much you make each month, in total.

Keep your pay stubs for a month, and add up how much your and your spouse/partner pull in by the end of the month, after tax and deductions. If either of your paycheques vary because of shiftwork or overtime, an average will be fine.

2. Define your Obligations, Needs and Wants.

The reason budgeting exists is to help you spend money on purpose. Part of that is knowing what you need and want to spend your money on in the first place. The best way to start is by separating your payments into three categories: Obligations, Needs and Wants. Don’t worry about filling in the numbers yet, just figure out what payments you make in the course of a month.

Obligations include bills you can’t stop paying. These include:

• Rent or mortgage payments
• Utilities bills, condo fees
• Car payments
• Debts, student loans repayments, etc.
• Savings, RRSP contributions, mutual funds, etc.
• Charitable giving

One of the most important things to consider for this category is Savings. Most people only put aside savings if they’ve got some cash leftover at the end of the month, but putting it aside as an obligation – that is, skimming it right off the top of your paycheque before you even get the chance to spend it – is extremely helpful. In fact, we’d say it’s necessary.

Needs include stuff you pretty much need in order to get by. These include:

• Groceries
• Gas
• Household goods like soap, toilet paper, etc.
• Dates

Yes, as cheesy as it is, my wife and I include “dates” under this category, since we figure spending time together each week is more than just a “want,” it’s a priority. (This is the intermission, where you can vomit if you wish.)

Wants are the things you can do without, but help make life a little funner. Talk with your spouse about what kind of items you want to include in this area of your budget. For us, it includes entertainment, clothing and spending cash. Of course, as newlyweds who probably aren’t making a ton of money, this is the area where a little bit of sacrifice is important. For instance, you might need to cut back on how often you eat at restaurants or go for drinks with friends.

3. Assign limits that match your income and lifestyle.

Once you’ve clarified your Obligations, Needs and Wants, you get to decide how much money you’ll be spending on each category. It’s important to customize it with two things in mind: how much money is available, and what kind of things are important to you. You might need a few drafts to get it right, and it will definitely require a little guesswork the first time you create this. Don’t worry, we always end up modifying this a little each month, as gas prices change, holidays come around, and so forth. Just grab a piece of paper, write down each item in your O-N-W list, and starting putting down numbers.

The important thing is that by the end of it all, it all ends up being equal to (or more ideally, less than) the amount you earn each month.

Here is a fictional example of what a completed Obligations, Needs and Wants list might look like:

As you can see, there’s a “leftover buffer” of $556. This is extremely useful, and you and your spouse should decide what to do with it. You can readjust your numbers so it’s all worked into your budget. Or, you can do what we do: use it as an emergency fund for when unexpected and bad things happen – say, your dishwasher breaks, or your blinds need replacing. Every couple months or so, once the buffer has accumulated in the bottom of our bank account, we scoop up a thousand dollars or so, and invest it in savings again.

4. Keep your receipts, and add them up each week.

A budget is useless if you spend outside of it. You need to have a way to make sure your spending is on track – besides seeing the credit card bill at the end of the month, that is.

You’ll need a chart to help you track your spending. If you hate details and administrative work, this might be kind of annoying, but it’s still important. We’ve created one that you are welcome to download and fill in your own numbers with, or you can create your own. Here’s what to do with it:

• Customize the chart for your budget. *
• Print it off and put it somewhere in your house that’s private but accessible.
• Keep your receipts.
• At the end of each week, spend 15 minutes with your spouse, and add up all the receipts from that week for each category. Make a note of how much you overspent or underspent.
• Throw out your receipts after each budget session (no reason to keep them, unless you’re returning something or submitting it for tax purposes.)

Doing that every week, and adjusting your spending accordingly, ensures that you will always have money in the bank.

* More on customizing the chart for your budget.

Once you download the Excel file, you’ll need to make it fit your budget.

• Make sure the number of days on the left hand side reflects the current month. Grab your Obligations, Needs & Wants list. What categories will you be tracking? Type in their names at the top of each section. You only need to track categories where purchase amounts fluctuate with each transaction (groceries, gas, etc,). No need to track rent, as it’s a flat amount each month.
• Grab a calculator, and figure out how much you can spend each week. You can do this by dividing the month total in each category by the number of days in the month. Multiply by seven – that’s your number for each week. For the last week, the one containing an irregular number of days – you do the month.

5. Review once a month.

At the end of the month, evaluate how the month went. How much did you over or under-spend? In what categories do the limits need to be raised or lowered? Were you able to live and eat comfortably? Are there any specific goals you’re saving for? (A new car, a bedroom suite, a new TV, etc.)

Following these tips have helped us SO much. Each month, we’ve come in around $20 – $40 over or under our budget, meaning that our spending is almost exactly on target. We don’t have any credit card debt, we’re steadily paying back a lingering student loan, and we’re investing and saving plenty of money each month. It’s awesome. It takes a bit of discipline, but it’s definitely worth it.

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Academic essay
Class: Research in the Information Age
Grade: A+
Note: No plagiarizing, please. Feel free to share this, Digg this or talk about it, but please don’t pass it off as your own work. This essay has been research and written by Kevan Gilbert, and has already been submitted as an academic research paper. Plagiarism will result in a general ill feeling in your abdominal area, as well as a possible disciplinary action from your school (and from my foot). Thanks!

Who Would Win In A Fight Between a Penguin and a Lemur?

by Kevan Gilbert

Many researchers in the past have endeavored to observe and analyze the behavior and characteristics of almost all species in nature. However, it is not clear if researchers have ever attempted to put their encyclopedic knowledge of the inner and outer workings of these creatures to the test. Therefore, hoping to push existing boundaries, this paper will put the accumulated knowledge of two animals to the ultimate test, in an attempt to answer the age-old question of who would win in a fight between a penguin and a lemur.

   Despite the apparent simplicity of this question, there is actually a considerable amount of information to synthesize before coming to an intelligent conclusion. Since we cannot physically let these animals fight without the animal rights activists getting on our case, we must stage this fight on paper. The first thing we must do is choose the location of the fight; one equally advantageous for both parties. Secondly, we must choose which species and sex of penguin and lemur will represent its class. Thirdly, we must discuss each creature’s physical composition, weaponry and fighting style, and how the opponent might defend itself against the attacker. Finally, we need to account for any other factors that might influence the outcome, such as group support.

   The first item to discuss is the location of this battle. As with many things in life, the outcome depends on the context. As stated in Huntingford and Turner’s book Animal Conflict, “animals often adapt the form and intensity of their agonistic responses to the context in which an encounter occurs”. [1]  In a fight to the death between two entirely different classes of animals, it is important that the location for the fight to be equally advantageous for both parties involved. For instance, while the penguin is most comfortable in cold environments, the lemur has an extremely uneven body temperature, greatly affected by its environment. For the lemur, “when the environmental temperature is low, so is the body temperature, indicating decreased metabolic activity.” [2] Were this fight to take place in the penguin’s home territory, the lemur’s ability to perform at his best would be affected by the cold climate. Contrarily, penguins are “highly specialized for marine existence”, and, on land, are “handicapped by the position of their short legs, set far back on their bodies.” [3] It was thus be unfair for the fight to take place entirely on land, as the penguin would be at too much of a disadvantage.

   After a little investigation, it becomes clear that there is no geographic location in which lemurs and penguins coexist in nature anyway. All lemurs occur on the African island of Madagascar [4]– however, the closest that penguins get to that particular location is the coast of south Africa, a distance of just over of 1000 miles. [5] This means that the fight will have to take place in an environment orchestrated by man; we will have to create the scenario ourselves.

For our purposes, we will stage the fight in a zoo, one in which the cages have been broken and the animals are loose.  This way, there will be both trees and ice, water and dry land – this way, both creatures can hold the advantage at some point. However, despite now being in the same physical area, the penguin and the lemur still have no real reason to fight. As stated in Animal Conflict, “fierce, damaging fights are most likely to occur when the resource in question is very important for the fitness of the animals concerned”.[6] As lemurs are primarily vegetarian[7], while penguins feed on a diet of mainly krill[8], the two creatures would never be in direct competition for any food-related resource. However, two interesting personality quirks in each creature would provide reasonable grounds for a violent exchange. Penguins tend to be quite territorial, getting rather upset when intruders visit their nesting grounds, or when their young are threatened by any sort of potential predator. [9] Lemurs, incidentally, are rather “skittish and short-tempered.” [10] Female lemurs, in particular, will get into “instantaneous squabbles over a specific action or object, such as a right of way” [11]

Let’s imagine that after our fictional zoo’s fictional “zoo break”, the penguins were all too comfortable to bother leaving their display. The lemurs, however, have run amok, delighting in the opportunity to jump freely through the branches of the trees dotting the entire zoo.  Seven lemurs in particular have migrated to the other side of the zoo, to a tree right above the outdoor penguin display.  This wouldn’t be unlikely, as lemurs almost always use the same means of locomotion – that is, they “jump from the extremity of one branch to another,” [12] and also tend to travel in groups of 5-25 [13]. Using its highly developed sense of smell[14], one of the lemurs notices an apple core that has fallen onto one of the “ice floes” in the penguin display, and hops down to investigate. The other lemurs remain in the tree. However, in order to get to the apple core, the lemur must first walk through a colony of nesting penguins…

Before we go any further, let’s discuss the particular species of lemur and penguin we’re dealing with. In the lemur’s corner, it seems likely to choose the ring-tailed lemur as our contestant. The ring-tailed lemur, scientifically known as Lemur catta, is the “classic” lemur most people think of when they consider lemurs. It is cat-like in both body proportions and graceful movements, has a white face with dark nose and eye patches, and a distinctive black and white ringed tail, from which it gets its name.
[15] The ring-tailed lemur is one of the only diurnal lemurs, [16] allowing him to interact with the similarly day-active penguins. Although more than capable in tree-top locomotion, the ring-tailed lemur prefers ground movement, which would lead to a more likely encounter with the penguin. [17] The ring-tailed lemur is reaches a height of 18 inches, and weight of 7.5 pounds.

   In choosing a penguin combatant, it is a natural impulse to select the Emperor penguin, due to its size – they can reach 3 and a half feet in height, and 82 pounds in weight.[18] However, despite being the biggest of all penguins, the Emperor penguin “is probably the only bird on earth that almost never sets foot on bare land.” [19] An Antarctic enthusiast has described Emperor penguins as “the most placid animals ever”[20], suggesting there wouldn’t be much excitement were this creature to actually become involved in a spat. Rather than the Emperor penguin, then, it would seem to be a wiser choice to select the Adelie penguin. The Adelie penguin is also the “classic” of its kind, sporting the ‘gentleman-in-a-tuxedo’ image so common to our perceptions. It’s the most common of all penguins in Antarctica, and also the most aggressive. [21] Being the most common, the Adelie’s fighting tactics are best documented and most observable, thus most easily applied to the lemur attack. Adelie penguins can reach 61 centimetres in height (24 inches), but can weigh only 12 pounds at most. [22] While not exactly a heavyweight compared to the Emperor, the Adelie still outweighs the ring-tailed lemur by 5 pounds.

   One more thing about the penguin: they can toboggan on their stomachs. They “propel themselves over the smooth ice in snow-toboggan fashion, using their flippers as paddles, helped along by the piston-like thrusts of their feet.”  [23]

   Let’s also assume it is mating season for both penguin and lemur. Due to the displacement of both creatures from their natural habitats, this overlap may be possible, since neither creature would be sticking to their traditional ‘schedule’. The lemur’s natural mating season is from August through to September [24], while penguins breed between October and March [25]. However, penguins and lemurs raised in captivity would have adapted to the North American climate, and likely synchronized their mating seasons.  This is pivotal because aggression is heightened in both species during mating season. For lemurs, “at [mating time], social order collapses in an uproar of howling, chasing, and mating” [26]. For penguins, breeding time in a crowded rookery can lead to “serious fights” among individuals. [27]

    Back to our ring-tailed lemur trying to get to her apple core. She pads across the man-made ice floe to where it meets the bottom of the brick containing wall, down which was dropped the apple core, out of the hands of some environmentally ignorant zoo-goer. Suddenly, a tobogganing penguin slides in front of the lemur, crashing into the wall right next to the apple core. The lemur, perceiving the penguin to be competing for her food, becomes upset and approaches the penguin as if to attack. The penguin, seeing the approaching lemur, begins to harbour intense distaste for the lemur’s intrusion into the penguin’s territory.

   As stated in Huntingford and Turner’s Animal Conflict, “how animals fight depends on the physical equipment they have at their disposal.” [28] As this fight gets underway, let’s take a look at what weaponry, defense mechanisms, and fighting styles each creature possesses.

   We’ll begin with the Adelie penguin. This bird’s flippers are very hard, comprised of flat bone with only skin and thin feathers on top. The Adelie penguin is also the owner of a particularly sharp beak. [29] It attacks by biting the opponent fiercely, and using its thick, strap-like wings to beat him furiously. Dave Houston, an Antarctic researcher who was once attacked by a penguin, says that “the closest thing to being beaten up by a penguin is being grabbed with a pair of needle-nosed pliers and beaten with sandals!” [30]

   For protection, “their stiff, close-packed feathers grow thickly all over the body”. These feathers form “a thick insulating mat with a smooth, shiny surface”. However, because of the way their bodies are, on land, they are forced to stand upright and hop, or to waddle clumsily with short steps. [31] Their defense mechanisms involve “loud braying calls, threatening attitudes (body moving side to side)”. [32] Penguins are also very social creatures, residing in colonies that can consist of up to 200, 000 penguins. In these colonies, penguins rally together to defend and flee from attacks by leopard seals, their main predatorial threat. [33]

   The ring-tailed lemur, unlike the clumsy penguin, is exceptionally agile. Its hands and feet are adapted for grasping, and it has “flat nails on all digits except the second toe, which instead has a long claw.” [34] It attacks noisily, making loud, rapid grunting noises, and will pull the hair on the top of its opponent head. [35] Other than these things, the lemur doesn’t seem to possess much fighting skill. Its fighting style is quite unique, almost to the point of being disappointing. The Dublin Zoo describes the ring-tailed lemurs fighting style like this:

“Rather than having a physical fight that could result in serious injury, they fight with their personal smells. Male ring-tailed lemurs have special scent glands under their armpits and on the inside of their wrists. They pull their tails under their arms and rub their wrists onto the tail and when they have collected enough scent they wave their tails at their opponent, sending their smell to him. We assume that whoever has the strongest smell, wins!” [36]

   This fighting style, however, is more ritualistic, and takes place primarily between fellow lemurs, not outsiders. It remains possible that a lemur might be able to deviate from its ‘stink fight’ in the face of a more dangerous opponent. While the lemur seems to possess the capacity to be a stronger aggressor, its ‘physical equipment’ is used mostly for climbing and gripping the trees it inhabits. Lemurs are vegetarian, feeding on plants and fruit, rarely even killing insects for food. Their inexperience with aggression against other animals is extremely limited, thus making it seem unlikely that it would know how to deal with an aggressor.

    Down by the apple core, the Adelie penguin and the ring-tailed lemur are facing each other head-to-head. The lemur begins to rub his tail inside his armpits and over his wrists, while the penguin stands up and begins braying loudly, waddling towards the lemur. The lemur becomes upset, and his grunts turn into a loud cry of “crou-crou-cou-crouou-crouiiiii!” [37] The penguin reaches the lemur, and strikes out with its beak, delivering a glancing blow to the lemur’s face. The lemur’s cry is stopped short, and he flicks his tail about angrily. A trickle of blood runs down his cheek, and the lemur backs up a little. In doing so, he bumps into another penguin nearby.  This second penguin stands up to its full height of 2 feet, and now two penguins loom on either side of the lemur, who is growing increasingly more frightened. He strikes out a claw at one of the penguins, but the claw merely sinks into its thick layer of feathers, without even touching skin. The first penguin begins to beat him rapidly with its flippers, causing the lemur to scream loudly. The other six lemurs in the tree above him have noticed, and have begun screeching at a similar volume. In the excitement, all six of them jump down from the treetops, and surround the two penguins. They begin grunting and crying in unison, tugging on the feathers of the penguins with their hands, and biting into fistfuls of it. The two Adelie penguins, becoming more and more provoked, have started braying even louder. More penguins in the display are waddling over, and before long, the penguins outnumber the lemurs again, 10 to 7. Unable to withstand the pressure of such rapid flipper movement against their small bodies, the lemurs reach the point of desperation. Of the seven, three are already bleeding from wounds sustained from the sharp penguin beaks. Only one penguin is bleeding, its white fur stained red from a claw that managed to penetrate its layer of feathers. More penguins are waddling over, some swimming through the nearby water channel and diving onto the land where the battle is taking place. The lemurs have lost focus and now begin frantically trying to escape. A branch hangs over the penguin enclosure, just within reach. The seven lemurs scramble for the branch, one after another. As the last lemur dives for the branch, he clambers over the head of one of the penguins, accidentally clawing into one of its eyes with his foot. The penguin catches the same lemur’s leg in its beak and drags it back to the ice. He is surrounded, and after a flurry of flippers and beaks pummeling his body, collapses to the ice. The force of the penguins attacking him pushes him to the brink of the ice, and he falls into the icy water. Unable to swim, and with no fellow lemurs to rescue him, he flails about as penguins swim up beneath him to peck at him from the water. Within minutes, the lemur is dead.

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by Kevan Gilbert

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