Word: faye
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Chicago Cub fans (columnist George Will is a particularly lachrymose example) wailing about how their beloved North Side team has not been in the World Series since -- horrors! -- 1945 or actually won one since -- worse horrors! -- 1908. As if to take pity on the star-crossed Cubs, Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent arranged for the club to play an easier schedule starting in 1993, a move prompted by the fact that the National League will grow from 12 to 14 teams next year. Sure, long-overdue geographic reform played a role in the four-club trade: the Cubs...
While we are exploring, Seraphin goes off with two Pygmies and discovers the remains of an elephant. Fay worries that this may be the work of poachers, but Seraphin points out that the elephant has its tusks. The Pygmies can find no sign that any humans have been in the area. The elephant could have died of natural causes, or it could have been wounded outside the Ndoki and then run inside for refuge...
Exploring this rich, fecund world is the high point of the expedition. In camp we eat pasta flavored with dried soups and sausages, but Fay uncovers more exotic treats on the forest floor. He likes to pick up half-eaten fruits left by the animals and to sample the untouched parts. I try the juicy kernels of a Myrianthus arboreus fruit and decide that gorillas know a good taste when they find...
...Fay's attitude toward the question of what foods people might take from the Ndoki has changed over the years. During his first ventures into the forest, he allowed the Pygmies to catch a duiker every two days, arguing that such brief hunts would in no way affect the forest. Since then, however, he has realized that conservationists should not introduce hunting where animals have never learned to fear humans. Moreover, only if there is a total ban on hunting will the Pygmies resist the temptation to exploit this immensely productive ecosystem...
...during our hike back toward the Ndoki River that we come upon the band of chimps -- an encounter Fay calls "the signal wildlife experience" of his 14 years in Africa. The ruckus the apes raise begins with threats and distress calls, but some of them seem to let out the hoots that chimps use to greet one another. I would like to think these chimps have the capacity to welcome the apelike aliens into their forest...