Posts filed under ‘Animals (Other Than Us)’
Cute Thing Alert
Here’s a video supposedly showing a baby goat learning how to jump but that’s beside the point in my opinion. I don’t care what the goat’s doing, he’s so cute I can’t take my eyes off of him:
(Via.)
I Just Saw a Fox Catch a Rodent
I just saw the coolest thing, none of which I caught on camera because it all happened so fast, so I’ll have to explain it as best I can.
About an hour ago I was going east on Gillaspie Drive in South Boulder, Colorado, on my way to the vet.
This is a screenshot of east-bound Gillaspie via Google Street View:
I was driving up the hill when, at approximately the point where the car is parked on the right, a red fox crossed from right to left. On the left is a small hill at the bottom of which is a park and a small lake.
I thought, well, that’s cool. I just saw a fox.
When I got to the point where the fox entered the park area, I turned to my left and saw that the fox was right there, just off the road, in some tall grass, and this is what he was doing:
I though wow, how cool. I’ve seen lots of pictures of foxes doing that but I’ve never seen it in person.
I kept driving and when I looked in my rear view mirror, I saw this (screenshot via Google Street View of Gillaspie looking west),
and the fox running from right to left, back from where it came, with a rodent in its mouth. I couldn’t tell what kind of a rodent it was but it was about the size of a mole and I know moles live in that area.
Anyway, what a thrill!!!
Colorado Cop Pulls Over Car With Dog Crate Strapped to the Roof
OMG, this is great.
Police Stop Dogs Against Romney Protester for Having Dog Crate on Car Roof
This image says it all. A Dogs Against Romney Pack Member was stopped by the Littleton, Colorado police yesterday for having a dog crate on the roof of his car. The Pack Member, identified only as ”Oredigger,” was on his way to protest at a Mitt Romney event yesterday with the crate atop his car carrying a stuffed toy dog when the police officer, believing he was actually transporting a live dog on the roof of his car, stopped him. Says Oredigger, “I was pulled over for suspected animal abuse.”
This clearly illustrates how blatantly awful, incredibly dangerous, outrageously insensitive – and even illegal – Mitt Romney’s decision to transport his own dog on the roof of his car was.
But Romney still blows it off: The dog was “comfortable;” he “liked it.” Yo Mitt, that’s because the dog trusted you to take care of him and he had no idea of the danger he was in, you idiot. Geezus. Outrageously insensitive is right.
Oh, and P.S. Bravo to that cop.
Freeing a Humpback Whale
Wow, what a way to start the day. This video will bring tears of joy:
Michael Fishbach narrates his encounter with a humpback whale entangled in a fishing net. Gershon Cohen and he have founded The Great Whale Conservancy to protect whales. http://www.greatwhaleconservancy.org, is their website.
The Starting Lineup for the…Puppy Bowl!
I can hardly believe it but here is a serious-as-a-heart-attack article about the “starting lineup” of the Puppy Bowl:
Not into football? Check out the starting lineup of the 2012 Puppy Bowl! Animal Planet’s eighth annual event will be broadcast at 3 p.m. EST/PST on Super Bowl Sunday.
Who knew?! There’s a “Kitty Half-Time:”
And “piglets cheer on the pups:”
Check out the 28 accompanying photos at the link above.
(Now you know why I named this blog what I did.)
How Loving Owners Transport Their Dogs
Surely you’ve heard about the time when Mitt Romney and his family were on vacation and they strapped a crate containing their Irish setter, Seamus, to the to top of the car and then set off on a 12-hour trip from Boston to Canada.
Mitt Romney explained the incident to Fox’s Chris Wallace like this:
This is a completely air-tight kennel mounted on the top of our car. He climbed up there regularly, enjoyed himself. He was in a kennel at home a great deal of time as well. We loved the dog. It was where he was comfortable and we had five kids inside the car and my guess is he liked it a lot better in his kennel than he would have liked it inside.”
If it was an air-tight kennel, how could the dog breathe? Why did the dog “regularly” climb on top of the car? Whose dog does that? Why was he in a kennel a “great deal of the time” at home? Probably because he hadn’t been potty trained and/or trained not to tear stuff up.
Anyway, Mitt, this is how a loving owner transports their dog:
(Photo via.)
Ever Seen an Albino Ruby-Throated Hummingbird?
Wow. I’ve never heard of an albino bird much less an albino ruby-throated hummingbird:
These shots of an extremely rare albino ruby-throated hummingbird were photographed by two Virginia teenagers and two preteens: Marlin Shank, 16, Shaphan Shank, 14, Darren Shank, 12 and Allen Shank, 9.
The Shank brothers spotted the rare bird with their father Kevin Shank, who runs Nature Friend Magazine with his wife Bethany.
The Shanks heard about sightings of the rare bird at a feeder at the home of Ed and Nancy Lawler of Staunton Virginia back in August.
“When we heard through a listserve that some birders were watching a rare albino ruby-throated hummingbird come to their feeders only 30 miles away, we took the drive,” Kevin Shank told Discovery News.
As he wrote on on his web site: “The thoughts rolling through my mind were several. For one, this might be the only day in our lives when the boys and I would have the opportunity to photograph an albino hummingbird. Obviously we would prefer the photos ‘turn out.’”
The Shanks set up cameras, including a Canon EOS1D Mark 4 with a 600ml F4 lens, in different spots. And each took turns shooting between August 12 and August 27. All of these shots were taken on August 26. More photos of the bird can be seen here.
More photos can be seen here too.
This is what a “normal” ruby-throated hummingbird looks like:
Photo: Jerry Green
A Heartbreaking but Gratifying Dog Rescue
What have human beings done to this poor dog?
Ah, This is the Life
Look at that face; those eyes:
Photo: Sergey Gorshkov
This bear looked the picture of contentment as he relaxed in what appeared to be a bath of bubbles.
The animal was caught on camera as he submerged himself in the foam that had been produced by a nearby waterfall.
Sergey Gorshkov risked life and limb to get up close and personal for the shot.
The photographer, from Moscow, Russia, spent seven years among the bears near Kamchatka, Russia.
He even braved a month living in a tent in order to be closer to the group of animals.
He said: ‘This is one of my favourite images of the bear.
What a beautiful animal.
There are 2,200 Species of Praying Mantises?
Take a three-minute break from politics folks. It’s going to be a long year. Let’s pace ourselves.
Did you know there are approximately 2,200 species of praying mantises? I didn’t. And man-oh-man, some of them are r-e-a-l-l-y strange:
Photo: Igor Siwanowicz
Photo: Igor Siwanowicz
As I’ve said before, Mother Nature knows sure knows how to mix and match colors! Wow.
Who needs a color consultant when you’ve got this kind of artistry?
See the slide show here.
Lil’ Drac the Baby Bat
Here is a darling story about a baby bat — Lil’ Drac — who was hand-raised after his mother rejected him:
Lil’ Drac is an orphaned short tailed fruit bat (Carollia perspicillata). His mother was yet another casualty from zoo closures which are occurring across the US. Sheis a young mother who was stressed from the conditions in which she was kept, combined with the additional trauma of being captured and transferred to a new and unfamiliar environment. Consequently, she abandoned Lil’ Drac after he was born. He was found on the padded floor of the indoor flight enclosure at Bat World Sanctuary, curled up in a little ball.
PART I:
PART II:
I love how he likes to rock himself.
Fun Family Vacation: Kill a Giraffe
Tourist trophy hunters are paying thousands of pounds to go and shoot giraffes with high-powered guns and bows.
The gentle giants are loved around the world for their comical appearance and gentle nature.
Just like character ‘Melman’ played by Friend’s-star David Schwimmer in Disney’s Madagascar, they are a hit with kids who love their long necks and eyelashes.
But shocking images show how scores of big-spending men and women – and even families – travel from across the globe, some even from Britain, to kill them for sport.
We humans are going insane I say as my heart breaks for the little girl in this picture. Look at those happy faces and her hand on the dead giraffe.
So cool huh?
Fight back: GiraffeConservation.org
1,100 Dogs Destined for the Dinner Table Rescued in China
As a dog lover/adorer, I can’t imagine seeing dogs as commodities like fish or artichokes.
What a bitter sweet story:
Call it a Chinese New Year miracle. Earlier this week more than 1,100 dogs destined for the slaughterhouse in Chongqing were saved from an ignoble ending by a pet-loving Good Samaritan.
The China Daily reported that 1,137 dogs were rescued on Monday from the back of a flatbed truck by a 40-year old blogger and volunteer at the Chongqing Small Animal Protection Association (CSAPA) surnamed Peng. Peng found the dogs crammed into tight cages that were stacked high atop each other.
Volunteers in Chongqing work to rescue over 1,100 dogs that were destined for slaughter. Photo: Netease
The rescued dogs soon became a sensation in this central Chinese metropolis and hundreds of volunteers and donations began flooding in. One man donated nearly 1,000 square feet of warehouse space to house the dogs for free while there is now enough food to feed the dogs for the next 20-30 days.
But the biggest immediate concern right now is finding enough professional volunteers to help take care of the dogs during the busy Chinese New Year holiday when most people empty out of the big cities and head back to their hometowns.
Long term, many people are wondering how they will find homes for so many dogs. The CSAPA predicts about 20 percent of the dogs will eventually be adopted, but the majority of them will likely never be claimed. The association is now considering whether to solicit donations to build dog houses for the remaining animals.
More photos here.
Go Broncos
I admit I’m a fair weather friend but…
go Broncos!
Oy.
I’m waiting for the halo over the stadium.
@10:25 p.m. ET: Denver 7, New England 42.
Oops. God must be busy. Maybe she’s thinking about the Thousands of Horses Abandoned by Owners Last Year:
Thousands of horses are being abandoned or tied up and left to starve, many by desperate owners unable to afford the costs of keeping them. A national crisis has seen Britain’s biggest horse charities under unprecedented pressure from the sheer number of animals needing their help.
Redwings – Britain’s biggest charity for abandoned horses – says the situation has reached breaking point. It has seen the number of cases soar from 160 horses in 2009 to 450 last year. So far this month it has taken in up to 10 a day. The charity, which can house 1,200 animals, is now full.
Final score: Denver 10, Patriots, 42.
@11:28 p.m. ET: The game “was over at halftime.”
Now I watch for days while Denver’s “liberal media” turn Tebow into a saint despite this loss…
On to next season!
How Fido Keeps His Feet From Freezing
It’s break time (mostly for dog lovers — sorry kitty people).
As you can tell from the picture above, I’m a dog lover. (That would be Mr. Albert or “Al,” our now four-year-old English Setter when he was a pup, immediately after he swallowed a mouthful of mud.) And, being a dog lover, this explains something I’ve wondered about over the years:
Domestic dogs' paws are well suited to the cold
[...]
Arctic foxes and wolves are well known for their adaptations that help them to regulate a constant body temperature in cold conditions.
revious studies showed that the canines can keep the tissue in their feet from freezing even in temperatures of -35C.
Dr Hiroyoshi Ninomiya and his team at the Yamazaki Gakuen University in Tokyo, Japan, set out to discover if this ability was also common to domestic dogs.
Using electron microscopes, the researchers were able to examine the internal structure of dogs’ paws.
They found that the very close proximity of the arteries to the veins in the footpad meant that heat was conducted from one blood vessel to another.
So when blood in the paw’s veins cooled on contact with the air or ground, warm blood pumping from the heart – through the neighbouring artery – transferred its heat.
The blood was therefore “warmed up” before it returned to the body – preventing the dog’s body from cooling down, whilst also keeping the paws at a constant temperature.
[...]
“When we found that dogs also have such an excellent system in their paws, we were excited.”
Anatomist Dr Sarah Williams from the Royal Veterinary College says the evidence could be a revelation for dog experts.
“Up until now, it was not considered necessary for domestic species to posses such a specialisation.
“This discovery has interesting evolutionary implications, and may suggest that the ancestors of the domestic dog lived in cold climates [in order] to bring about such an adaptation.”
Cool interesting.
The Animal Planet Stuffs Your Dead American Pet Into an Oven
The promo for the new AnimalPlanet show, “American Stuffers,”
billed as a show about “pet preservation,” opens with this: “Do you want to eat anything that came out of that oven? You keep your dead animals and all of their parts out of my kitchen!”
Later you see fat bubbling over the edge of an oven pan.
When you think about Animal Planet, this is it, right? A voyeuristic, pseudo-animal cruelty kind of “entertainment.”
Yeah. Me too.
See the promo here.
Polar Bear Pelts Selling for $11,000
Oh geeze, I wish I hadn’t seen this. It’s enough to send me to bed in a fit of depression:
Northwest Territories, Jan. 4 (UPI) — Canada’s Northwest Territories has quadrupled the price it pays hunters for pelts of near-endangered polar bears, the National Post reported Wednesday.
The territory runs the only authorized retail source for the pelts, Genuine Mackenzie Valley Furs, which previously paid $400 per bearskin.
That has been upped to $1,750, which University of Alberta biologist Andrew Derocher told the Post reflected growing global demand from burgeoning economies in Russia and China.
In April, a Canadian auction company sold a polar bear pelt for a record $11,000, the report said.
Various international animal and scientific groups have designated polar bears as a vulnerable species, one step short of being classed as endangered as their pack ice habitat is shrinking.
Only indigenous Inuit hunters are allowed to kill the bears, although various regional laws throughout Canada’s north allow Inuits to “guide” visiting hunters.
This is just terrible news. Polar bears are already endangered. I have a feeling this will do them in altogether.
Can you imagine wearing a coat or jacket made of the skin (pelt is too benign a word) of a polar bear?
Really. This is so upsetting.
Magic Animals
Look at that face!
It’s just too tempting, isn’t it? You see an unattended camera and before you know it, you’re snapping away. Possibly that was what was going through this cheeky macaque’s mind as he posed for this hilarious self-portrait in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, after photographer David Slater left his camera for a few minutes.
Trekking Wolf 10 Miles North of California Border
This is a cool story:
B-300, the mother of OR7, gets used to its new radio collar after it was attached in northeast Oregon in July 2009. Like her son OR7, which may become California's first wild wolf in nearly a century, B-300 is something of a pioneer. In 2008, she became the first wolf to return to Oregon, migrating there from Idaho. Photo: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
The wandering wolf that crossed the entire state of Oregon this fall is on the move again – and now even closer to California.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on Wednesday reported that the wolf known as OR7 is now south of Keno, Ore., a town less than 10 miles from the California border along Highway 97. If OR7 keeps moving south, he could become the first gray wolf confirmed in California in more than 90 years.
“There is no way to predict if OR7 will actually cross into California,” Michelle Dennehy, a spokeswoman for the Oregon wildlife agency, said via email. “He could very well turn around and go right back to where he has been spending time in Klamath and Jackson counties the last month or so, or even back to northeast Oregon.”
The 2-year-old male wolf migrated 730 miles across Oregon over two months beginning in September. He had spent the past month in an area of the Siskiyou National Forest, northeast of Medford.
Given the mother’s history (see photo caption), OR7 seems to come from an exceptional family. I wish him luck and continued cunning and I hope he lives a long, happy life. Fingers crossed.
Favorite Things
I’m thinking about my favorite things.
This is one of them: The best dog ever: 4-year-old Mr. Albert:
My thoughts are with all the dogs I’ve had in my life: Pippy, Sir Stafford of Flagstaff, Trash, O’Douglas, Isis, O’Douglas II, Julia Sweet Blue Child and Miss Tillie O’Joy (who’s still with us).
I love you all and I always will.
But as for Al, there’s something about him — the soulfulness in his eyes and the energy in his warm, waggy, always-happy self — that touches me like no other dog has.
♥
Dingoes: “Unbelievable Intelligence”
This is fascinating:
Various feats by two dogs, which were untrained, were recorded at the Dingo Discovery Sanctuary and Research Centre near Melbourne.
In one video the dog moves a kennel for use as a look-out. In another, several dingoes were kept in a small enclosure with an envelope containing food placed out of reach. When the dingoes were left alone, they made several attempts to reach the food and then one, named Sterling, dragged a table to use as a step-ladder.
In a paper in the journal Behavoural Processes, a team of three researchers said the feats were evidence of “high-order” or “intelligent” animal behaviour.
Watch a video at the link above.
As a dog lover (as if you couldn’t tell from the header), I know dogs are far smarter than they’re given credit for so thanks to Sterling and his friends for helping to prove that.
Loukanikos — Greece’s Protest Dog
Break time!
Meet Loukanikos, Greece’s “protest dog:”
Aris Messinis / AFP / Getty Images
Loukanikos — the word means sausage in Greek — has showed up for numerous demonstrations in Athens over the last few years. Here, he barks at riot police in December 2010.
Giorgos Moutafis / Anzenberger
Loukanikos avoids police and fire, February, 2011.
Here it looks like Loukanikos is trying to grab that tear gas canister and move it out of the way:
Giorgos Moutafis / Anzenberger
A can of tear gas lands near Loukanikos and protesters, February 2011.
Read more (more photos too) here.
I wonder what ol’ Loukanikos thinks about us humans.
They’re Slaughtering Dolphins in Japan Again
This retweeted tweet just landed in my box:
So, they’re slaughtering dolphins in Taiji, Japan again.
The green things on the beach in this photo are the tarps.
If you’ve seen the movie “The Cove,” you know what this is all about. It’s about a dolphin slaughter that takes place annually in a little town in Japan called Taiji. Taiji is on a small cove. The “fishermen” drive the dolphins into the cove, trap them and then slaughter them.
Learn more here.
This is one of those things that almost hurts physically to think about.
Capturing the Spirit of Christmas
Take a look at the Christmas card the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico and his family sent out this year:
(Via.)
According to the mayor, he used the taxidermied animals to show support for a local wildlife museum.
Riiiiiiight.
A Spider With a Smiley Face on Its Back
You gotta love Mother Nature:
Found only on the islands of Oahu, Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii, the happy face spider, such as this one guarding its eggs on a leaf in Maui, is known for the unique patterns that decorate its pale abdomen. Scientists believe Theridion grallator may have developed its distinctive markings to discourage birds from eating it.
(Via.)
Do Rats Feel Empathy?
Do rats have the ability to feel empathy? Here’s evidence that they might. When placed in a controlled environment, one rat concentrated on freeing a trapped friend, while ignoring chocolate.
That says something!
Once rats learned to free their trapped and agitated partners, they did so almost immediately in trial after trial. The behavior was clearly deliberate. When the restrainer was empty, rats ignored it. When stuffed rats were restrained, the rats ignored them. “It’s compelling evidence that it’s the distress of the trapped cagemate motivating this helping behavior,” said Mason. “It is a huge leap up to use emotional contagion to actually do something, to actually help another individual.
To make sure the rats weren’t responding to some immediate social reward — a rat version of a thank-you hug — the researchers tweaked the apparatus so that trapped rats were released into a separate cage. Again, the rats freed each other. When given the opportunity to eat chocolate treats first, rats were as likely to release their companions first, and even shared the chocolate with them.
[...]However, the researchers stopped short of ascribing the results to a conclusive display of empathy. It’s possible the rats were less concerned with alleviating the suffering of brethren than soothing their own upset feelings. Perhaps the trapped rats’ distress calls were simply loud and annoying, and the free rats wanted to quiet them. One potentially important experimental condition — the opportunity for free rats to simply leave — wasn’t tested.
“The reservation I have is that it’s very difficult to demonstrate empathy. You have to show that the animal is putting itself in another’s shoes, and I’m not sure that’s demonstrated here,” said Joshua Plotnik, an Emory University psychologist and collaborator with de Waal. But Plotnik still called the observations “very exciting.”
Compelling. And I love the joy they seem to express the first time the one rat lets the other out of its tube/cage. They look like they’re hugging.
One thing I know for sure: We don’t give animals enough respect, and we give ourselves (also animals) too much.
Climate Change is a Hoax?
Put this in your pipe and smoke it, climate change deniers:
An adult polar bear is seen dragging the body of a cub that it has just killed across the Arctic sea ice.
Photo: Jenny E. Ross
Polar bears normally hunt seals but if these are not available, the big predators will seek out other sources of food – even their own kind.
The picture was taken by environmental photojournalist Jenny Ross in Olgastretet, a stretch of water in the Svalbard archipelago.
“This type of intraspecific predation has always occurred to some extent,” she told BBC News.
“However, there are increasing numbers of observations of it occurring, particularly on land where polar bears are trapped ashore, completely food-deprived for extended periods of time due to the loss of sea ice as a result of climate change.
[...]
And without their customary platform on which to hunt seals [sea ice], bears have gone looking for alternative sources of food, says Ross.
“On land, they’re looking for human garbage and human foods; they’re starting to prey on seabirds and their eggs.
“None of those alternative foods can support them, but they are seeking them out.
“Predating another bear is a way to get food; it’s probably a relatively easy way for a big adult male. And it seems that because of the circumstances of the loss of sea ice – that kind of behaviour may be becoming more common.”
Polar bears are already endangered, a situation that will accelerate if adults begin killing and eating younger generations.
Way to go humans!
Savor the Moment
It’s break time!
I could learn a thing or two from Casper here about savoring every single moment:
Enjoy.
(Via.)
