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At year’s end the American Kennel Club recognized five very good dogs in its annual Humane Fund Awards for Canine Excellence. The categories include Exemplary Companion, Search and Rescue, Service Dog, Therapy Dog, and Uniformed Service K-9.
“Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prick-ear'd cur of Iceland!” Thusly Shakespeare described the Icelandic sheepdog more than 400 years ago (Henry V, Act II). Now the UK’s Kennel Club will formally recognize the breed, and it’s high time. Long before Shakespeare, the dog was celebrated in the Icelandic Sagas a thousand years ago.
A resident of Orange County, New York noticed something odd poking through the topsoil in his backyard. Upon closer examination – and after calling in some experts – it turned out to be the fossilized remains of a mastodon.
In Arlington, Virginia, a wild barred owl flew into a home through the chimney and shocked the family inside, first by flying around the living room, then by perching atop the Christmas tree.
This week the Los Angeles Zoo announced the birth of two baby perentie lizards, the first of the species to be bred there.
It’s been five years since the dreaded “murder hornet” was first spotted in the Pacific Northwest. Ever since, teams of assassins from the US and Washington State departments of agriculture have tracked down and killed the invasive species; this week the agencies declared the killer hornet dead and gone.
Lawmakers have passed a bill to formally designate the bald eagle as the national bird of the United States. When President Biden signs off on the bill – which breezed through the Senate and House – it will be official.
The winner of the UK’s ugliest dog contest is Muppet, a 12-year-old Chinese crested pooch from Peterborough. Bev Nicholson, the dog’s proud owner, says Muppet is a “wonky little rescue dog” that is “beautiful inside and out.”
Photographer Milko Marchetti happened upon a squirrel in a public park in Ravenna, Italy, so he snapped a shot of the rodent halfway in (or out) of a hole in a tree. “This photo had an effect on me and made me smile a lot in that moment that I clicked the button,” he says. “I knew I had to enter it into the competition.”
The new animated film “Flow,” about a cat and a motley group of diverse species pitted against the elements, is a visual feast and a surprisingly emotional ride. Surprising because Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis manages to evoke a lot of feeling without anthropomorphizing (or even naming) his cast of characters.
We usually think of pollinators – the yentas of the animal kingdom that “marry” male and female plants by transmitting pollen between them – as flying insects, birds, sometimes bats. Biologists have now identified another unusual matchmaker in the field, the Ethiopian wolf.
The day will come when the albatross named Wisdom, the oldest wild bird in the world (by a staggering amount) no longer completes her annual migration to Midway Atoll, never again takes a mate, builds a nest, or starts a family. Today is not that day.
Last week a retired police dog, a 12-year-old German shepherd named Bear, was out for his first long walk following surgery when was forced out of retirement. Bear had stumbled upon a missing person, alone and in distress in dense undergrowth.
Humane Society International is celebrating a south-of-the-border success this week, as Mexico announces it has enshrined animal protection as a fundamental value in its constitution.
It’s been nearly 40 years since killer whales off the west coast of North America were spotted wearing dead salmon on their heads. No one knows why this whacky trend began or why it ended, but we do know it’s back.
US zoos have paid millions to China for the privilege of housing pandas, with the expectation that China invests the money in panda conservation. A New York Times investigation reveals that the funding has been spent on projects unrelated to pandas, while American zookeepers look the other way.
Five years ago a bottlenose dolphin strayed far from his usual habitat and ended up in the chilly waters off the Danish coast. He hung around, the locals named him Delle, and marine biologists at the University of Southern Denmark began studying the 17-year-old loner.
Last week a 34-year-old Asian elephant named Shanti concluded her 21-month pregnancy and 19-hours of labor with a 314-pound bundle of joy: a baby girl. In announcing the birth the Houston Zoo said the baby elephant, named Kirby, is “a trunk-load to be thankful for.”
