Category Archives: Animals

‘We saved a giraffe’s life’: calf fitted with braces to correct bent legs

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Msituni was born with her front limb bending the wrong way, and her other front limb started to hyperextend

Over the past three decades Ara Mirzaian has fitted braces for everyone from Paralympians to children with scoliosis. But Msituni was a patient like none other: a newborn giraffe.

The calf was born 1 February at the San Diego zoo safari park in Escondido, north of San Diego, with her front limb bending the wrong way. Safari park staff feared she could die if they didn’t immediately correct the condition, which could prevent her from nursing and walking around the habitat.

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Pet dog’s barking leads rescuers to missing Texas woman with dementia

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Black labrador Max attracted volunteers who had been searching for Sherry Noppe, who had been missing for three days

A Texas woman who suffers from dementia and was missing for three days was found in the early hours of last Friday, bruised and dehydrated but safe, after her dog’s barking helped rescuers track her down.

Sherry Noppe, 63, left her home in Houston, Texas last week, to take her black labrador, Max, for a stroll. The pair never returned.

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Migrating turtles don’t really know where they’re going, study shows

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Hawksbill turtles often travel circuitous routes for short distances – one swam 1,306km to reach an island just 176km away

How migrating animals like sea turtles navigate hundreds to thousands of kilometres across the open ocean has intrigued biologists since Charles Darwin. But some sea turtles might not really know where they’re going, new research suggests.

Analysis by an international team of scientists has mapped the movements of hawksbill turtles as they swam from their nesting grounds in the Chagos Archipelago to foraging sites also in the Indian Ocean.

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Wild fox infiltrates flamingos’ pen at Washington’s National zoo and kills 25

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The birds’ wings are clipped to keep them from escaping their enclosure – leaving them unable to escape a predator

A wild fox in Washington DC, has chewed through a fence at the National zoo and killed 25 flamingos in the worst animal attack there in two decades.

On Tuesday, zoo officials announced that in addition to the 25 American flamingos that were killed early on Monday in their outdoor habitat, three more were injured. A northern pintail duck was also killed by the fox.

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Vaquita porpoise could survive … but only if illegal fishing stops immediately

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DNA study finds rarest cetacean, only found in Gulf of California, has enough genetic diversity to recover – if gillnet ban is enforced


Scientists studying the DNA of the world’s smallest cetacean and rarest marine mammal, the vaquita porpoise, have made a surprising and bittersweet discovery.

With a tiny population of fewer than 10 individuals left, the mammal was assumed by conservationists to be at a similar risk of harmful mutations and inbreeding as other species with small gene pools.

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Greens and animal welfare groups push for Labor to give timeline for live export ban

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Opposition says it will recommit to phasing out live sheep exports from Western Australia but has not indicated when it will do so

The Greens and animal welfare groups have called on Labor to commit to a timeline for phasing out live sheep exports, after the opposition said it still intended to ban the trade.

Labor told the Alliance for Animals that it will recommit to its policy of phasing out the live sheep export trade, which it announced in 2018 in response to whistleblower videos of a deadly voyage in which 2,400 sheep died.

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Canadian police fatally shoot polar bear that wandered into Quebec community

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Bear had wandered hundreds of kilometres south of species’ territory in incident experts say could become more common

Canadian police have shot and killed a polar bear that wandered into a Quebec community hundreds of kilometres south of the species’ normal territory, in an incident that experts warn could become more common as sea ice coverage becomes more unpredictable thanks to global heating.

The Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police service, warned residents this weekend that a polar bear had been spotted near the town of Madeleine-Centre – the first time the Arctic’s apex predator had been spotted in the community.

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Gator aid: Florida couple call for help after can-do alligator drinks Diet Cokes

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Uninvited guest surprised Naples homeowners when they opened door to garage after hearing a crash

A gregarious Florida alligator seemingly could not wait for a family’s birthday party to begin, so it slipped into a garage where supplies were being stored and chugged down a slab of Diet Coke.

The uninvited guest surprised Naples homeowners Karyn and Jamie Dobson when they opened the connecting door from their house after hearing a crash, WINK News reported.

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Three endangered Sumatran tigers found dead in traps in Indonesia

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Investigation underway to find cause of death of two female and one male tiger in East Aceh, caught in traps often used to catch wild boar

Three endangered Sumatran tigers have been found dead after being caught in traps on Indonesia’s Sumatra island.

One female tiger was found dead, her head almost severed and a snare still stuck in her leg, near a palm oil plantation in Indonesia’s East Aceh district on Sunday. Five hundred metres away, the bodies of a male and female tiger were also found, both with leg injuries, according to local police chief Hendra Sukmana.

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California family discovers five bears hibernating in crawlspace under home

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Bear League describes how family in Lake Tahoe heard ‘odd snoring-like noises’ but dismissed them before eventual discovery

A California family spent the winter dismissing odd noises that sounded a little like snoring, only to discover that five bears had spent the cold season hibernating under their house.

The Bear League group, which works to preserve bear habitat and help bears in distress largely around the Lake Tahoe basin region in the state, recounted the family’s astonishing episode last week.

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Scientists find dingoes genetically different from domestic dogs after decoding genome

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The canine is an intermediary between wolves and domestic dog breeds, research shows

Dingoes are genetically distinct from domestic dogs and their evolution has been shaped by Australia’s environment, scientists who have fully decoded the dingo genome have said.

An international team of researchers have analysed the genetic makeup of a pure desert dingo called Sandy Maliki, finding that dingoes are an intermediary between wolves and domestic dog breeds.

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Bear famous for Italian bakery break-in reappears after attempt to rewild him

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Bear walks 150km ‘home’ to Abruzzo town three weeks after being returned to natural habitat

An errant bear has reappeared in his favourite Italian town after a failed attempt to rewild him.

The two-year-old Marsican brown bear, affectionately known as Juan Carrito, walked 150km “home” to Roccaraso, a small mountain town in the Abruzzo region, bypassing several other towns along the way.

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Koala IVF could help save species from extinction

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University of Newcastle scientists suggest frozen sperm could be used to impregnate females in breed-for-release programs

Freezing koala sperm could become a key part of a strategy to save koalas from extinction by 2050.

University of Newcastle scientists Lachlan Howell and Ryan Witt say koala “biobanking”, could be harnessed with IVF technology to help the endangered species reproduce.

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The ants go rafting: invasive fire ants take to Australian flood waters to colonise new areas

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Dangerous pests forming floating rafts with their bodies to survive in Queensland after floods

Invasive fire ants have used recent flooding in Queensland to expand their Australian invasion, teaming up and forming floating rafts with their bodies to allow them to survive for weeks at a time.

Eradication officers in Queensland have captured photos of the dangerous ants forming the rafts in flood waters.

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Six new wētā species found in New Zealand, as their habitat slowly disappears

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Global heating speeding up their decline as terrain of newly discovered alpine species disappears

Six new alpine species of New Zealand’s most unusual and beloved insect – the wētā – have been discovered, but it is a bittersweet victory, with another piece of research describing the threat global heating poses for their snowy mountain habitat.

Wētā belong to the same group of insects as crickets and grasshoppers, and there are between 70 and 100 species of wētā endemic to New Zealand. They are wingless and nocturnal, and some, including the wētāpunga, are among the heaviest insects in the world – comparable to the weight of a sparrow.

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US zoo fears teen gorilla’s exposure to phones is behind anti-social behavior

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Visitors to the Chicago zoo showing the 415lb Amare pictures and videos through the glass wall has made him dismissive to other male gorillas

A teenage gorilla in a Chicago zoo has been getting too much screen time, according to zoo officials.

Amare, a 415-pound gorilla at Chicago’s Lincoln Park zoo, has been staring a little too frequently at the screens of cellphones from visitors who show him pictures and videos through the glass wall – including selfies, family photos, pet videos and even footage of Amare himself.

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Wiltshire hunt supporters fined after admitting clashing with saboteurs

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William Renny, Callum Lewis and Evan Lorne pleaded guilty to public order offences at December hunt in Lacock

Three hunt supporters have been fined for public order offences after admitting clashing with saboteurs at a post-Christmas meet in Wiltshire.

William Renny, 30, Callum Lewis, 26, and Evan Lorne, 18, pleaded guilty to using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause unlawful violence.

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Bird populations in Panama rainforest in severe decline, study finds

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Of 57 species sampled, 35 decreased in number by 50% over four decades, with climate crisis likely factor

Bird populations in a Central American tropical rainforest are suffering severe declines, with likely factors including climate breakdown and habitat loss.

Scientists from the University of Illinois tracked species of birds in a protected forest reserve in central Panama to determine if and how populations had changed from 1977 to 2020.

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National Trust acquires Dorset ‘speed-dating’ caves for bats

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Colonies mix annually at Winspit caves near Swanage, a hibernation site for rare greater horseshoe bats

Three sea caves hewn into the rocky coastline of Dorset that are the bat equivalent of a speed-dating site, attracting crowds of the flying mammals from as far as 40 miles away, have been acquired by the National Trust.

The bats gather at Winspit caves near Swanage in the late summer and early autumn, dart around the cliffs and, if all goes well, find a mate from a different colony.

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Australian scientists solve mystery of moment monotremes migrated

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Fossil analysis is shedding new light on the origins of egg-laying mammals and their arrival on the continent

Researchers have pinpointed exactly how and when echidnas likely arrived in Australia as part of a fossil analysis shedding new light on the origins of egg-laying mammals.

The platypus and four species of echidna are the only remaining living monotremes – mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young. New analysis of every monotreme fossil discovered to date has recast the earliest history of the animals.

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