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A proposal to build an enormous monkey-breeding warehouse in Bainbridge, Georgia has prompted animal-welfare groups to launch an opposition to the plan. A company called Safer Human Medicine wants to build the country’s largest facility of this type, which would hold up to 30,000 cynomolgus, or long-tailed, macaques bred for experimentation.
Last August there were some very special passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines flight from Atlanta to Seattle: six rare Chilean flamingo eggs. When the eggs’ courier – a zoo official delivering the precious cargo to Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo – had a problem with the incubator, he summoned for help.
It took amateur photographer Nimi Sarikhani three days of searching for polar bears, but he finally happened upon the perfect shot: a young male bear catching a few zees atop a small iceberg, illuminated in northern Norway’s midnight sun.
Last week scientists and researchers from the Khamai Foundation announced their discovery of five new species of eyelash vipers in the jungles and cloud forests of Colombia and Ecuador.
A stingray at the Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO in Hendersonville, North Carolina is expecting, though we’re not sure exactly how or even with what – there are no males in her tank.
Conditions at Central Park, a humble city-run zoo in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, were not ideal for at least one resident, a 4-year-giraffe named Benito. The young male had only about a half acre to wander within a small enclosure, very few trees to nibble on, and within a climate no giraffe is accustomed to – brutal heat in the summer and freezing cold in winter.
Animal welfare group PETA UK is asking Katie Price to cease and desist owning animals because the “media personality” has had a horrible track record with her pets. The org is offering Price £5,000 ($6,300) if she’ll sign a legally binding agreement promising never to acquire another animal.
Coffee shops around Japan have fully embraced the concept of the animal cafe. First came pet-friendly spots, then cat and dog cafes, then all manner of creature-themed stops, including the latest craze: the pig cafe.
A 55-year-old Asian elephant named Nidia had chronic foot problems: painful fissures on her foot pads, cracked and ingrown toenails, persistent abscesses. She had no appetite and was losing weight. “The veterinarian in charge of Nidia’s care at a wildlife park in Mexico, was desperate,” reports the New York Times.
Last week scientists in Berlin announced they had successfully transferred a northern white rhinoceros embryo into a surrogate mom, the first successful use of a method that they say could save the nearly extinct rhino subspecies.
When the temperature dropped to 18° F in Beaumont, Texas last week, a few alligators got caught in the big freeze, locked solid in the ice. They’ll be fine though, as long as their snouts stay above water.
After Buffalo Bills’ kicker Tyler Bass missed a game-tying field goal in last weekend’s playoff game, he was bombarded with so much hate from disgruntled fans he deactivated his social media accounts. But then a favorite charity of Bass’s – cat-adoption center Ten Lives Club in Blasdell, New York – came to his defense.
Researchers have been probing the thermal vents off the west coast of Costa Rica, using a remotely operated vehicle miles below the surface. Two expeditions by the Schmidt Ocean Institute team in 2023 have yielded a wondrous find: four new species of octopus.
This spring, Americans living in the Southeast and Midwest will be subject to a very loud, somewhat stinky, and possibly delicious phenomenon: the emergence of two ginormous cicada populations. The cicada groups, known as Brood XIX and Brood XIII (also called the Great Southern Brood and Northern Illinois Brood, respectively) are on schedule to appear at the same time in a “dual emergence” that happens only once every 221 years.
Last year we noted the longevity of Bobi, both at his incredible 31st birthday, and at his passing in October. Now the arbiter of such things, Guinness World Records, is investigating Bobi’s advanced age, which has been questioned by veterinarians.
What if we could synthesize rhinoceros horn, would that squeeze out the illegal trade of the real thing? Three companies have been working on such a scheme for over ten years, but nothing has come of it; all three are either out of business or about to be.
A zoo in the Czech Republic has announced the birth of an adorable pygmy hippopotamus, a wee male named Mikolas. The baby boy was born in December but unveiled to the public this week at the Dvur Kralove Zoo, about 75 miles east of Prague.
Last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was heavy on artificial intelligence, including new thinking machines programmed to care for your pets when you cannot. Among the new products is the Oro Dog Companion Robot, an AI-powered droid from Ogmen Robotics.
On the second Sunday in February, while most of America watches the Super Bowl, there is another football contest called the Puppy Bowl, a mock game between dogs to raise awareness on pet adoption and rescue. This year Puppy Bowl turns 20, and will feature among the canine contestants a half dozen special-needs dogs.
According to a Humane Society of the United States investigation, a petting zoo in Hauppauge, Long Island has been abusing its sloths. Disturbing video footage taken at Sloth Encounters Long Island shows staff members hitting sloths, sloths kept in crowded conditions, sloths fighting each other, and other abuses.
