From a tornado in Bay Ridge to a dead whale, Mother Nature fooled with Brooklyn for most of the year (heck, we had some snow in January!). There was even a bill by a city councilman to have old ladies arrested for feeding pigeons.
And this wouldn’t be a “Year in Nature” without at least a few mentions of that most unnatural of waterways, the Gowanus Canal.
So now, with help from our own editorial cartoonist Cristian Fleming, here are the stories that showed some of Mom’s wrath — and her good-natured side:
1. Squawk! City Councilman Simcha Felder — best known in these pages for his outstanding bladder — proposes a bill to criminalize pigeon-feeding. Consider the scenario: “Freeze, Granny — and put down the birdseed! Jimmy, cuff her.” In the ensuing battle over the bill, a flock of pigeons is mass murdered on Eighth Street in Park Slope. Police have no leads.
2. Space invader: A Canadian bird called a Nuthatch invaded Brooklyn in August. Global warming was called the culprit for this atypical incursion of this Rocky Mountain specimen.
3. It’s a twister! It’s a twister! Auntie Em! Bay Ridge gets blown away by the first tornado in more than 100 years.
4. Masked bandits: Raccoons were running so wild in Bay Ridge that even legendary bandit-fighter Vince Gentile ran out of his supplies of Critter Ridder, a humane pesticide.
5. Sludgie, we hardly knew ye: The Gowanus Canal made international news — for once because of something natural! — when a 12-foot Minke whale wandered into the mouth of the fetid corpse of water and couldn’t find his way out. The good news is that the Coast Guard fished out the body before Sludgie could sleep with the fishes.
6 & 7. Sex on the beach? The Gowanus Canal was diagnosed with gonorrhea. Oh, so that explains all the condoms floating on its surface!
8. Oh, baby! Ayveq, the famously masturbating walrus at the New York Aquarium, has his first child, a boy. He’s a great dad — but he’s still having fun in his own special way.
9. Hairy situation: A Williamsburg man grows the longest nipple hair ever. Believe us, it was not disgusting!
