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All in Animal Welfare
When the US government came within a few hours of shutting down last weekend, alarmed citizens across the republic wondered if the shutdown would cancel a crucial government function: Fat Bear Week.
The mighty bald eagle, which had not been seen in Gotham for about a hundred years, has found purchase on Staten Island, where at least four adults and a dozen offspring now call home.
A research team in southern Thailand has discovered a new species of tarantula with a dazzling feature they describe as “a blue-violet hue resembling the color of electrical sparks.”
Researchers from the University of Tokyo think they can decipher the emotional states of chickens based on the birds’ vocalizations. It sounds borderline silly, but the scientists are quite serious.
The Clydesdale horse – featured in Budweiser commercials since forever – will no longer have their tails lopped off, according to the brewer. The move to discontinue “tail docking” comes as the company faced pressure from animal-rights activists and veterinary groups to end the cruel practice.
It’s been a year since African cheetahs were brought to India in an attempt to reintroduce the species that had been extinct on the subcontinent for 70 years. So far the project is going … not great.
In 1996 severe flooding around Brisbane, Australia swept six young bull sharks into a landlocked (mostly) freshwater lake on a golf course. The floodwaters receded but the sharks were trapped in the 51-acre lake off the 14th hole. Incredibly, the sharks lived there for 17 years.
The ferruginous pygmy owl, found in the American Southwest and northern Mexico, once again enjoys the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Last month the US Fish and Wildlife Service restored the status of the little hooters after it lost those protections 17 years ago.
The bulldog breed known as the American bully XL could be exiled forever from the UK, after a number of attacks, including the fatal mauling of a 10-year-old boy. Home Secretary Suella Braverman says she is seeking “urgent advice” on whether to ban the breed.
While the damage wrought by Hurricane Idalia is still being assessed, one pleasant consequence of the storm has been the extensive dispersal of the American flamingo. The big pink birds are being spotted throughout much of the Eastern Seaboard this week, no worse for wear.
A fifteen-year-old lion named Ruben lived in solitary misery for years in an abandoned zoo in Armenia. The “world’s loneliest lion” has found freedom at last in a South Africa sanctuary. After the private zoo in Armenia shut down, all its animals found new homes except for one, according to the animal-rescue group Animal Defenders International. Ruben spent five years in a small concrete cell, alone, as his health deteriorated due to malnutrition and lack of exercise.
Yellow police tape surrounds Victor Crowell Park in Middlesex Borough, New Jersey, as an escaped 4-foot alligator continues to evade capture. In the past week, the escapee has been spotted at least a half dozen times in Ambrose Brook, a conduit between Lake Creighton and the Raritan River.
Wolverines will likely soon find a home in Colorado – again – as policymakers in the state sort out exactly how they will reintroduce these rare mammals. Much depends on whether the US Fish and Wildlife Service determines that the species will be protected under the Endangered Species Act, a decision it is expected to make in the coming months.
Aerial surveys of the North Sea show that some seals practice social distancing, probably for the same reason that humans do – to keep disease from spreading. The research appears in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
Every year the London Zoo takes on the Herculean task of weighing every one of its 14,000 residents. The zookeepers look like they’re having a blast.
Brights Zoo in East Tennessee has announced the birth of a spotless giraffe, the only one of its kind in the world. Now a month and a half old, the baby girl is six feet tall, healthy, and a very fetching tawny brown.
Police in Pinellas County, Florida are asking residents to please, do not call them if you happen to see manatees flopping around in the water en masse, they’re just having an orgy.
The La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles has been trapping hapless wildlife in its sticky, deadly asphalt for tens of thousands of years. The latest victims are a flock of Canada geese that got sucked in; most of the birds perished, but two are clinging to life.
A rare two-headed snake took two years to recover from its self-induced injury, but he’s (they’re?) finally back in his exhibit at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas.
Devastating fires on Maui are still burning and, at latest count, 80 people have been killed in the disaster and hundreds of houses and other buildings are destroyed. The death toll will no doubt rise as the destruction is evaluated and communication can be restored on the island.
