Hartford Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature

Just got back from a great vacation in New Hampshire: lakefront cabin, lots of seafood, booze, golf….(you get the picture). So there I was, out on the dock, Heineken in my left hand and a fishing pole in the right. I fancy myself a bass-master, so I’m going after big game. Well, not really. Its just that they stock this lake heartily, so catching edible fish shouldn’t be a problem. But the only things I’m catching are little sunnies, some of which aren’t much bigger than the worm that I’m using. And even here my younger niece is proving herself a more proficient angler.

Then I see this massive bass float under the dock. All I need to do is catch that fish, I tell myself. If I can, then this vestigial, cave-man desire to put food on the table without first dropping a twenty at Stop n Shop gets satisfied.

I don’t catch the bass of course. But even if I had, I’m not allowed to eat it and appease my inner cave man. Why? Because this particular bass is protected by a “gentleman’s-fishing” ordinance. According to my father’s mental lexicon (Wittgenstein never gets started on the (anti) private-language-argument if he knows my father), this means that I have to throw the fish back should I catch it. Ok, so why is this fish privileged? Because this fish has a name: Bruno. Bruno, it turns out, is my father’s “lake-pet”.

Lake-pet?

On the ride home from NH I contemplated the following membership conditions for the category lake-pet:

(1) The pet must in some important sense still be in the wild. For instance, if Bruno is captured and forced to live in a bathtub, then he is no longer a lake-pet.
(2) The pet must be an animal that is by nature resistant to domestication. For example, if there is cat that hangs around the lake its high potential for domestication disqualifies it as a lake-pet.
(3) The pet must be aware of, and reasonably accepting of, the pet-owner’s presence. That is, the owner and/or the owner’s possessions (e.g., dock) must be sources of information in the animal’s local environment such that the pet doesn’t get freaked out by their presence.
(4) The owner must have some degree of affection for the pet. This affection typically manifests in the owner’s expectation of pet-sightings/interactions during daily routine and also a protective attitude towards the pet.

Note that this schema (admittedly crude) is perfectly general. Lakes are one place where these conditions are sometimes met. Urban locations are another. Perhaps there’s a bunch more.

I wonder, then, about the status of the Hartford-pet – the Hartford domesticus. Are there any? Where are they found? Do their owners scorn those who would eat them for dinner?

For starters, there’s a guy in my apartment building that has built a relationship with a flight of pigeons (they’re all fat because he feeds them all day). Indeed, the pigeon/lonely-man dynamic is likely the best exemplar of the Hartford domesticus. Then there are those plump rats that have grown comfortable roaming down Sisson Ave. However, I am sceptical that they satisfy condition (4). Further research is required.