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Melly’s Crazy Obsession

Garibaldi Rous — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 23:15:32 +0000

Melly's crazy obsession is ME!

Mirror, mirror on the wall
Who’s the craziest of them all?

MELLY!

I’m not making that up. I heard it on line from the Huffington Post. You can hear for yourself by following this link. I’m not saying that Melly is crazy, I’m just saying that everyone else is saying that she is. Okay, and maybe I’m saying it too.

Try to resist my cuteness...if you dare!

The only thing is, and I hate to be the one to break this story, reality TV is not reality.

That’s right. It’s all staged. Well, not the part about how cute I am or how obsessed Melly is with me, but some of the other stuff. I am assuming y’all have watched my television debut on TLCs My Crazy Obsession but if you have not, here is a top-secret link.

In general, I liked the show and I think Melly, Coral and Sheldon did too. But there are a couple of things that have to be set straight.

Just to start, I don’t think of Coral as my sister either. I don’t do that with humans, I think it’s weird.

Most importantly, I do not bite! Okay, maybe I have nipped Melly a couple of times in the past year and more that I have been living with her but she does not have to “put up with daily nips and bites” like they said on the show. It’s just five people invaded my house, disrupted my routine, stuffed a big camera in my face and then said, “Act natural!”

Secondly, while I really did like that Sonja person, I had no idea she was supposed to be talking to me! I was quite hungry at the time and had my nose stuffed into a tub of lettuce (delicious, by the way). I don’t pay much attention to when humans talk to each other because they are quite boring. But later Melly told me I am supposed to sleep with her on the bed more. I will, but only if she’ll let me eat the pillows. She has something against that right now and she needs to work to get over it.

This pillow is mine, get your own dinner!

I would have teared up when Melly talked about Caplin Rous if I’d been listening and if capybaras could cry. I know she still misses him but I am working to fill a little bit of his pawprints.

Baby Caplin Rous

I bet I was just as cute when I was a baby but there aren’t any photos of me so I can’t prove it.

At any rate, I think my first big job as Capybara Ambassador came off pretty well. A lot of people learned that Melly is crazy but a lot also learned that capybaras exist and that we are smart, loving and adorable. For instance, here is a link to a blog post where the author says she’d like to date me if she weren’t already dating her guinea pig. And this blogger complemented me on my internet savvy.

I’d love to hear what y’all think about the show and if it has educated you about capybaras at all.

Capybara Ninja

Garibaldi Rous — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:19:05 +0000

Just read an interesting blog post about a person who got to meet a “wild” capybara in Venezuela. Here is the link. There are some excellent photos and a cute video. The capy is just a baby, I’d say 2 – 3 months old and maybe 20 lbs. Y’all should go check it out.

20/20 Hindsight

Garibaldi Rous — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 00:51:53 +0000

Me and HP with Me and HP on TV

What a relief that 20/20 appearance is behind me (literally in the photo above). It was so stressful not knowing if they were going to portray me in a good light or not. Sure I’m ultra-adorable but I do have my dark side.

The best part of the whole show was the scene where Hello Pineapple, aka HP, was sitting on my head. She is the best and cutest guinea pig. Not many of her species would be willing to take such a precarious position. In general, guinea pigs are a little afraid of heights.

I also liked how John Berman showed a healthy respect for my teeth. It wasn’t quite as exaggerated as his reaction to Wildthing, the bison from north Texas, it was just in proportion to my size.

I was disappointed that Capycoppy didn’t show up except as backdrop in the above shot. And they didn’t really show me swimming which is where I show off my true grace and agility. Well, you can’t have everything and, on the whole, I think the show did a pretty good job of showing how cute and smart we capybaras are.

If you haven’t had a chance to see it, you can find it here or here. I am at the very end. I don’t know why I am on with bullying. That is an important topic to be sure but I would hate to have anyone (other than Coral) associate me with being a bully.

Anyway, drop me a comment and let me know what you think, especially about who is cuter, me, the bison or John Berman.

20/20 Update

Garibaldi Rous — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:36:03 +0000

Hiding under the covers to avoid the paparazzi

I am going to be on 20/20 tomorrow night, that’s October 15th. I hope everyone gets a chance to watch it. Drop me a comment and tell me who you think is cuter, me or that bison?

Here are a couple of links about the show:

Link1

Link2

ABC Me

Garibaldi Rous — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 22:23:16 +0000

Me with John Berman from ABC's 20/20

There are some things I don’t understand about humans. Take, for example, the photo of me with John Berman from ABC’s news program, 20/20. He asked me to kiss him! So why is he making that face? And, according to his ABC profile, he has been a war correspondent. Is he really afraid of a capybara?

But I can’t be too hard on John, his interview with me on 20/20 (either Oct. 8th or Oct. 29th, 2010) is a great opportunity to advance my cause as Capybara Ambassador. Maybe I shouldn’t even use that photo…nah, it’s too cute not to use.

A "better" photo of me with John Berman

Let me start at the beginning.

Last Sunday at 9:30 am, the crew for the 20/20 shoot arrived to spend the day with me. It started out fine with a few popsicles fed to me by the crew before they started to film. Then John Berman showed up and came out on the front porch to meet me. Like the camera crew, he brought popsicles, which I was more than happy to eat.

After he and my owner chatted some on the porch, they moved to the living room. I don’t like being left behind so I came in too. It was really weird though, they didn’t seem to like where our furniture currently was, everything had to be repositioned. And they brought all these big, hot lights. I sat on the couch to watch (once it’s position was stabilized) and my owner sat next to me. John sat in our (also newly positioned) blue chair.

See how they messed up our living room?

I was a pretty good capybara for a long, long time while they moved this and fiddled with that. My owner always has a lot of nice things to say about capybaras and about me in particular but I’ve heard it all before–boring! Do you see Capycoppy there at the other end of the couch? He is way more patient than I am! He didn’t fidget at all.

Filming at Capybara Creek

Eventually we moved outside. After a brief interlude where I made it clear I wasn’t much interested in swimming in the pool, we went down to Capybara Creek, which was much more satisfactory.

Swimming for the camera in Capybara Creek

Wonder if that camera is waterproof

I had a fun time in the creek even though I prefer some privacy while swimming, which I totally didn’t get. I got out on the far bank and managed to get a few minutes of grazing in before I was hauled back to the house.

Me with producer Kim Launier

We went into the computer room where they filmed me using mind control to get my owner to type for me. I’m not sure exactly what she typed though because after a while Kim Launier sat next to me and started feeding me the seed heads from my Timothy hay. I might have forgotten to give proper direction to my owner during part of that time.

Why doesn't Kim want a kiss?

Afterward I was so grateful that I tried to kiss Kim but she shied away. That hurt my little feelings.

To round out the day, we went out to dunch at a place where they have a playground, a fountain and lots of kids.

I did NOT knock that girl over and try to eat her!

This water is not nearly deep enough

Dunch was at a sports bar. I’m not into sports or, for that matter, a fan of very many human activities. I tried to ignore the TVs blasting the game at an absurd volume. I liked finding out that so many sports fans are also capybara fans though. Who knew?

Me, my owner and Clarissa "eating" at the sports bar

I got a feel for what it would be like to live in a zoo with the crowd of people watching me through the glass from inside the restaurant. I think I’m happier as a pet.

Grazing in the yard

Finally the day was over, the film crew, John Berman and Kim Launier all left. I got a good graze in as the sun set on a hectic day.

The good news is that I managed to keep my New Year’s resolution not to bite anyone. The other good news is that I bet I will be super cute when the show airs and millions of people will fall in love with capybaras. If you are one of those people, please leave me a comment!

Meet Noah, Spokescapy for Toyota

Garibaldi Rous — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:30:35 +0000

Hi everybody who is supposed to be a capybara lover,

My name is Noah, a boy capybara residing in Japan. I’ve just debuted as a Toyota car commercial film character, playing a pet capybara of a Japanese family which owns the car. The car is the Toyota Noah—but I’ve not got any reimbursement from Toyota and I have nothing to do with selling this car to you—I’m not being bribed.

Check this out!

http://toyota.vo.llnwd.net/e1/toyota/noah/index.html

Oops, of course, it’s written in Japanese, which I understand perfectly. For the people who have a problem with Japanese, I’ll try to explain the Website page by page in English.

When you get in the URL above, you’ll see me sitting in my room with a laptop computer. Please come in, but make sure you take off your shoes before entering my house. It’s a Japanese custom to separate outside and inside by taking the shoes on and off. You’ll notice that my room is in typical Japanese style—I can sit on the floor that is covered with tatami mats, which are made of straw-like plants…you can tell that I’d really love that! At the right corner of the room, I laid my futon and pillow folded neatly. Japanese people unfold this kind of futon on the tatami mats when they sleep. It’s kind of nice as we can save space compared to the case in which we use a bed. Formally, the futon is supposed to be stored back in the closet to its right. That way, the space is absolutely empty during the day. The doors to the closet are sliding doors, which are also space-saving. The table is really low, which is suitable for those sitting on the yellow sitting pillows on the floor (called zabuton, which means “sitting futon”) while drinking green tea from the tea pot and cup on the table. You can notice that somebody is hiding in the closet and making noise—that is a famous baseball coach, who actually did my voice this time.

If you drag the mouse onto me, there is a caption says “click here and there in my room” and you can do it. There are 7 places that you can click: #1 the calendar, #2 the TV, #3 the radio, #4 the books, #5 the computer, #6 the window and the last, #7 the sliding door.

First, click the calendar for today’s twittering—I twitter on things every day, so if you click on a certain day on the calendar, you will play a video with my twitter for that day. Sorry, that is in Japanese and it’s too much to translate so I will skip this…

Second, click the TV, which shows you the making of the TV commercial in which I am featured, in four parts. The upper left part is how I observe my owner’s family; in the video I am pushing the busy family to go on a trip by giving them the car key. The upper right shows how I acted during the making of the commercial. The lower left is an interview with the actress who played the mother in the family. The lower right is an interview with a baseball coach who did my voice.

Third, click the radio, which plays a radio commercial with my voice.

Fourth, click the books, and my profile will be displayed. To the left there are my pictures, which can be displayed in larger form by clicking on the thumbnails. To the right is my detailed profile. For the people who don’t understand Japanese, I will try to translate. It says that my age is a secret, my gender is male, and my profession is a commercial film character named Noah. It also says that: my hobbies are bathing in a hot spring and feng shui; my talent is twittering; my favorite thing is going out on the weekend; and my voice is played by the coach of a famous professional baseball team. The pentagon is an analysis of my character. From the top of the pentagon and clockwise are: level of preference for the outdoors; promptness; obesity; sense of humor; and degree of wicked tongue. You can tell the degree of each by the number.

Fifth, click the computer, and you will see and hear the mother of the family explaining why the mother of the family decided to buy the Noah (the car, not the capybara). You need a Flash player for this.

Six, click the window, and there will be a page in which you can enter text to boast about your family, your Toyota Noah, etc. If this is well written, you have a chance to get a stuffed capybara character, Kapibara-san, from Toyota. However, this is mostly for Japanese users.

Seven, the sliding door will show you the famous baseball coach—Katsuya Nomura—who did my voice, as I told you above.

(Thanks to Chie Gough, who translates Capybara Madness into Japanese, for conducting this wonderful interview with Noah Capybara!)

(PS: I wonder how I can become the US Spokescapy?)

(PPS: I think Noah is going to steal my title of “World’s Most Famous Capybara.” I guess I’m okay with that.)

(PPPS: Even though Noah says his name is a secret, I estimate he is about four months old. Those who read this blog can probably make a similar estimation based on Noah’s apparent weight and the fact that his nose is very pink.)

More Sad News From Venezuela

Garibaldi Rous — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:17:35 +0000

Seems that this year there was a bumper “crop” of capybaras killed for consumption during the Catholic Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter. Link to article in Spanish.

Of course I hate the idea of anyone deliberately harming one of my relatives. It is actually hard to imagine since my owner loves me so much and I have so many adoring fans from all of the world. How could anyone do this to us? And worse is that this is not being done in a “sustainable” way. Larger human populations mean smaller habitats for wild animals and more demand for us as food and leather. Venezuela is squandering its natural heritage and that makes me so sad I can hardly eep.

Thank you to Yole from Venezuela for sending me this link, proof that many Venezuelans really do care about capybaras.

Venezuela Hates Capybaras

Garibaldi Rous — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:39:36 +0000

Capybara family at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

(Owner’s Blog)

In Febrary of 2007, my kids (Coral & Philip Waters) and I went to Venezuela. One of the places we went was a large ranch called Hato El Frio in the Los Llanos region. Los Llanos is often reffered to as the New World equivalent of the African plains. Such a tremendous abundance of wildlife! And among those swamps and plains roam the world’s largest rodents, the capybaras.

Capybaras have disappeared in parts of their range where they are over-hunted or where there has been significant habitat destruction due to farming, daming and deforestation. Hato El Frio was one place where they still occurred in large number due to the ranche’s progressive attitudes.

Hato El Frio (and Hato El Cedral, although I did not visit there) were experiments in sustainable ranching along with ecotourism. Dams were built to encourage wildlife to remain year-round and to provide more habitat for aquatic or semi-aquatic species. In addition, cattle and water buffalo were raised for meat. Capybaras were also “harvested” but in a sustainable manner. For decades the ranch maintained a science station that studied the affects of ranching on wildlife populations.

The following photos show some of the interesting animals that we saw on our week-long stay.

Tamandua or Lesser Anteater at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Giant Anteater at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Rufous-tailed Jacamar at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Three species of Ibis at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Scarlet Macaws Flying at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Howler Monkey at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

I could go on but you are probably wondering what the point is. So let me get to it. The Venezuelan government, under Hugo Chavez, has nationalized Hato El Frio and Hato El Cedral. See this article, Venezuela Coverts Tourist Destination into Farm Land.

I doubt that they are even now maintaining the Hatos’ programs to rebuild populations of the seriously endangered Orinoco crocodile, red-footed tortoises, Orinoco side-neck turtles or river dolphins. I doubt that they are concerning themselves with sustainability. These ranches have served as a beacon to the region as to what can be done to use the land while retaining wildlife. Now all of that is gone.

This is a terrible tragedy made even worse by the fact that most Americans–who live so close–don’t even know what the world is losing. Most Americans don’t even know what a capybara is. Caplin and I are devastated. No species is safe if people and governments don’t care.

(Follow this link to see more of my photos of Hato El Frio including more capybara photos.)

Now We Come in Colors!

Garibaldi Rous — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:22:55 +0000

Big news! Tired of your same old sorrel-colored capybara? Even the white tipped hairs of the older individual seeming just a bit hum-drum? Well, your days of being jaded by our incredible cuteness are over! Now capybaras also come in snow white!

Yes, it’s true. An albino capybara was born at a zoo in Uruguay on Christmas Day, 2009. Her name is Snow White, or Blancanieves in Spanish, and she is gorgeous! Check out this article and photos and welcome to the world of colorful capybaras.

Bolivia, Venezuela, LA Times and Me

Garibaldi Rous — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:04:45 +0000

Two young capybaras cross the road (Image from LA Times)

Bolivia plans to export capybara meat to Venezuela;
famous capybara Caplin Rous is horrified.

I was quoted in the LA Times this week in an article by Lindsay Barnett. Normally this would make me very excited and happy but the topic of the article brings much stress to my little capy heart.

I am so worried about my wild cousins. It’s not like they don’t have enough to worry about with anacondas, jaguars, crocodiles, caiman, piranha, cars and humans hunting them for local consumption. Now my relatives in Bolivia are going to hunted and exported (dead) to Venezuela. I don’t think this is a good idea, and not just because we are adorable, smart, affectionate animals that would be much better appreciated alive.

Hunting capybaras will naturally make them much more reclusive. It will get harder and harder to spot them in the wild, even if their numbers don’t decline. As I said above, we are smart animals and we will figure out what’s going on in no time. This will hurt Bolivia’s ecotourism industy since ecotourists like it when they can see animals, especially large, cute animals like capybaras.

Also, capybaras are being ranched in Venezuela. It would be better to encourage that rather than importing animals from elsewhere. Ranching is (hopefully) done in a sustainable manner. The ranch owners have much more at stake in maintaining the local populations than hunters do. Sadly, hunting has greatly diminished our numbers, or even completely wiped us out, in large areas of our former range.

In some ways humans are smart but in others they are really slow learners. I hope they don’t learn too slowly for my wild cousins to survive.

Oh, and I wish people would stop saying that I should be in the wild! It’s starting to make me mad. The wild sure isn’t what it used to be.