Ernie Pinches was a councillor in the old Mt Roskill borough from 1956 to 1989 and acting mayor in 1987. He was also a pro wrestler and held the New Zealand light heavyweight title for six years in the mid-1950s.
Counting scat in the name of science
Spanish researchers have determined that rabbits can differentiate between the poo of predators that have eaten rabbits and those that haven't. From the New Scientist: "The researchers ran an experiment on three plots of land. One plot was sprayed daily with the smelly essence extracted from the scat of ferrets on a beef-based diet. Another plot was sprayed with the scat odour from ferrets on a rabbit-based diet. The third was sprayed with water as a control. Every few days, the team counted the rabbit pellets left behind on the plots. There were fewer pellets in the plots sprayed with rabbit-based scat odour than in those sprayed with the beef-based scat odour, suggesting the rabbits were avoiding places where it appeared other rabbits were being eaten."
Diet names not new
Considering the food system is a major driver of climate change, it may be time to become a flexitarian - a diet which is predominantly but not strictly vegetarian. Dietary terms like flexitarian are far from new. According to the Oxford Dictionaries blog: "Vegetarian dates back to the 1830s, which has served as a model for fruitarian (1890s, one whose diet based on fruit), insectarian (1890s, insects), lacto-vegetarian (1900s, milk and vegetables), lacto-ovo-vegetarian (1940s, dairy, eggs, and vegetables), nutarian (1900s, nuts), and pescatarian (1990s, include fish but not meat). Other more fanciful formations identified include pastarian, pizzatarian, and pollotarian (chicken)."
