Please don't feed the polar bears... your microphone

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A dog day Halloween

Sasha waits for her buddy Chato to join her on the way to the Halloween party.

Chato in his jockey costume.

An adorable toy poodle dressed as a lobster.

No clue.

Bumblebee

No costume, just adorable.

Sasha tucks herself in after a long day.

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Video: Labrador swimming with a dolphin

This is a really adorable video for animal lovers. I don't think that I've ever seen anything quite like it. Read More......

A kitten falls asleep

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Texting while cat

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Scientists accused of only studying cute furry things, and ignoring the ugly

NYT:

Conservation researchers argue that only by being aware of our aesthetic prejudices can we set them aside when deciding which species cry out to be studied and saved. Reporting recently in the journal Conservation Biology, Morgan J. Trimble, a research fellow at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and her colleagues examined the scientific literature for roughly 2,000 animal species in southern Africa, and uncovered evidence that scientists, like the rest of us, may be biased toward the beefcakes and beauty queens.

Assessing the publication database for the years 1994 through 2008, the researchers found 1,855 papers about chimpanzees, 1,241 on leopards and 562 about lions — but only 14 for that mammalian equivalent of the blobfish, the African manatee.

“The manatee was the least studied large mammal,” Ms. Trimble said. Speculating on a possible reason for the disparity, she said, “Most scientists are in it for the love of what they do, and a lot of them are interested in big, furry cute things.”

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Sasha meets Big Bird

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Poachers kill last female white rhino in Kruger Park

What a pity. When we were in South Africa they were facing a serious poaching problem related to abalone. Divers were even searching for them at night in the same area where tourists would go to visit great white sharks near Gansbaai. (I left Gansbaai with a very uncomfortable feeling about who was involved in the highly profitable poaching business.) Another similarity was that poachers were highly organized and selling to Asia for high margins. You have to wonder who in power is turning a blind eye to this problem. The poaching rates have increased enough where this should not be a problem that is suddenly an issue. As always, someone needs to follow the money.

Fears are growing for the survival of the rhinoceros as the last female in the popular Krugersdorp game reserve near Johannesburg was killed, bleeding to death after having its horn hacked off by poachers.

Wildlife officials say poaching for the prized horns has now reached an all-time high. "Last year, 129 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa. This year, we have already had 136 deaths," said chief game ranger Japie Mostert.

The gang used tranquilliser guns and a helicopter to bring down the nine-year-old rhino cow. Her distraught calf was moved to a nearby estate where it was introduced to two other orphaned white rhinos.

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Sasha tries to save the TV monkeys

I noticed that Sasha was paying a bit too much attention to the nature show I had on. A tiger was getting ready to pounce on a bunch of monkeys. Sasha's ears perked up. Then the tiger attacked, the monkeys fled, and Sasha flipped out. You have to go about a minute in before she flips out, but it's still fun to watch the first minute where you can see her paying more and more attention to the show.

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Air Tran stops plane over pet turtle

Give me a break.

A caged, 2-inch turtle traveling with a 10-year-old girl caused a crew to turn around a taxiing plane, take the girl and her sisters off the flight and tell them they couldn't bring their pet along.

The sisters threw the animal and cage in the trash and returned to their seats crying Tuesday after AirTran Airways employees on the jetway said they couldn't care for the turtle while their father drove to retrieve it. Two days later, however, Carley Helm was reunited with Neytiri even though at first the family thought the pet was emptied with the trash.

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If you like gorillas, you have to see this

Chris posted this video over on AMERICAblog Pets. It's pretty amazing.

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Here's a real soccer star

What a beauty. Read More......

End of an era in Spain?

I've never been to a bullfight and don't have any plans to work it into my schedule. Apparently others are feeling the same about these events as Catalonia, Spain moves to ban bullfights.

Ten years into the 21st century, it seems extraordinary that a phenomenon like this still has a place at the cultural heart of a modern European nation. There is no underestimating the staying power of a spectacle that some would say forms part of the Spanish national DNA. Yet even in this most tradition-addicted society, the tectonic plates of custom are gradually shifting, and public opinion over the corrida de toros is polarised as never before. On one hand, the Spanish anti-bullfight movement, virtually non-existent 20 years ago, has made huge inroads into a society for whom the notion of animal rights was until recently a puzzlingly alien concept. A proposal is currently going through the Catalan parliament which, if and when it is finally approved this summer, will abolish the corrida once and for all in the region. On the other hand, the news value of the corrida has taken a surprising leap in the past decade, thanks mainly to matador José Tomás – front-page news across the world when he was nearly gored to death in Mexico in April, requiring 17 pints of blood after a bull called Navegante ripped a 15cm hole in his thigh. Not for decades has a matador captured the imagination of bullfight fans like this enigmatic and reclusive man, acclaimed as the saviour of bullfighting for the new dose of glamour he has brought to this most controversial and, some say, anachronistic of sports.

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UK zoo captures chimps' response to other chimp's death

The similarities between humans and chimpanzees are amazing.

Pansy, a female who died of old age at Blair Drummond Safari Park at the end of 2008, was one of four chimpanzees being filmed by Anderson's group. When she became ill, vets paid regular visits to give treatment, while her companions – her daughter, a male and another female – looked on from a distance.

When Pansy lay down in a nest that one of the other apes had made, the rest gathered around her and began grooming and caressing her. Shortly before she died, all three crouched down and inspected her face very closely. They then began to shake her gently. "It is difficult to avoid thinking that they were checking for signs of life," said Anderson.

"After a time, it seemed that the chimpanzees arrived at a collective decision that she had gone. Two left immediately, but one, the other adult female, stayed and held her hand," said Anderson. "That evening, her daughter came back and stayed with her mother all night long. She was trying to sleep, but was clearly very disturbed. All three of them were."

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Controversy surrounds death of jaguar caught in Arizona

I didn't even know there were jaguars in the United States. And, now there's one less. It doesn't sound like the animal should have been captured in the first place:

The curious case of Macho B, the jaguar captured in southern Arizona, has quickly descended into finger pointing and official investigations.

There are questions about whether the jaguar was euthanized too quickly, as well as accusations he was captured on purpose, not accidentally, as the Arizona Game and Fish Department has stated.

On Thursday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said its law-enforcement division had begun a criminal investigation into all aspects of the capture and death of the animal.

It began its investigation after a request from U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva and because Game and Fish asked for an outside agency to look into what happened.

Already, the complicated legacy of the jaguar's capture and death stands in stark contrast to the simplicity of his life, when he roamed northern Mexico and southern Arizona for 15 years.

He'd probably still be roaming, absent the involvement of Arizona's Game and Fish department. Read More......

Dog returns home after being snatched by bird

Unfortunately no video embed.

Dog lovers will understand why Elizabeth Todd cradles her chihuahua "Poppy" like a baby.

"Poppy's just my heart," said Elizabeth. "They become part of your family, part of your life."

Her 9-year-old son Tim was there. He remembers hearing something awful.

"It was a terrible yelp," said Tim. "Real loud and we heard wings flapping and we looked back and Poppy was flying right up there."

Some kind of large bird had picked up the three-pound chihuahua.

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Research shows that dogs make our lives better

Here's a break from the steady flow of negative news.

We know from the pet photos that there a lot of pet lovers here in the AMERICAblog community. For all those dog lovers out there, this story won't come as a complete surprise, but the results are quite astonishing:

New research from the University of Missouri has found that people who walk dogs are more consistent about regular exercise and show more improvement in fitness than people who walk with a human companion. In a 12-week study of 54 older adults at an assisted living home, 35 people were assigned to a walking program for five days a week, while the remaining 19 served as a control group. Among the walkers, 23 selected a friend or spouse to serve as a regular walking partner along a trail laid out near the home. Another 12 participants took a bus daily to a local animal shelter where they were assigned a dog to walk.

To the surprise of the researchers, the dog walkers showed a big improvement in fitness, while the human walkers began making excuses to skip the workout. Walking speed among the dog walkers increased by 28 percent, compared with just a 4 percent increase among the human walkers.

“What happened was nothing short of remarkable,” said Rebecca A. Johnson, a nursing professor and director of the Research Center for Human Animal Interaction at the University of Missouri’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

That's because dogs are remarkable. Read that whole post. It's quite inspiring.

I know a certain AMERICAblog writer who was more than a bit overweight back in early 2000, before he got Boomer, the predecessor to Petey. But, walking Boomer three or four times a day helped start the weight loss. Now, that same writer runs marathons. Read More......

Monkeys can recognize their friends in photos

Very cool finding, though perhaps not a complete surprise.

In the study, the monkeys looked at four photos, including one of a monkey they knew. They also looked at another four monkey photos, including one of a monkey they didn't know.

"This required monkeys to look at similar-looking faces and use their personal knowledge of group mates to solve the task," lead researcher Jennifer Pokorny, said in a university news release. "They readily performed the task and continued to do well when shown new pictures in color and in grayscale, as well as when presented with individuals they had never before seen in pictures, though with whom they were personally familiar."

According to the researchers, previously, there hasn't been evidence that nonhuman primates can look at two-dimensional images and understand they represent things and animals from real life.

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When Petey met Riley

We (and by we, I mean Petey and I) have been noticing a lot of cat pictures on AMERICAblog lately -- and not so many dog pictures. So, tonight, we get a double dose. When we were in Maine a couple weeks ago, Petey met my parent's new dog, Riley. Like Petey, Riley is a rescue. He arrived in Maine from Louisiana via the Chihuahua and Pound Puppy Rescue of Louisiana. Those amazing people rescue dogs from shelters in Louisiana, where euthanasia is almost a certainty and arrange adoptions in Maine through the Golden Retriever Rescue Lifeline. When Riley made the trek north, there were 29 other dogs and two humans traveling with him. The people who do that work are saints. Like Petey, he's a bit of a knucklehead. They had a lot of fun together.



My mother's neighor, Mary Ann, took the pictures for us. Read More......

The seals get a reprieve

We wrote the other day about the San Diego seals who were being evicted. They just got a reprieve. Read More......