Tracking a wild cougar and swapping its collar battery is all in a day’s work for the Olympic Cougar Project, a partnership between a coalition of Native American tribes, a renowned cougar expert and the Washington Department of Transportation
Continue reading...Category Archives: Animals
Finland, Sweden and Norway to cull wolf population
Conservation groups appeal to EU to take action against slaughter they allege flouts rules
Finland is joining Sweden and Norway in culling wolves this winter to control their population, as conservation groups appeal to the European Union to take action against the slaughter.
Hunters in Sweden have already shot dead most of their annual target of 27 wolves, while Finland is to authorise the killing of 20 wolves in its first “population management cull” for seven years.
Continue reading...‘They saw bigger things’: Richard Leakey, Edward O Wilson and Thomas Lovejoy remembered
Friends and colleagues pay tribute after the recent deaths of these groundbreaking naturalists, who shifted our understanding of the world and our future
Over Christmas and the new year, three of the world’s leading naturalists died. Thomas Lovejoy, a conservation biologist credited with popularising the term “biodiversity” and a passionate defender of the Amazon, died on 25 December. A day later, Edward O Wilson, known to many as the “modern-day Darwin”, died in Burlington, Massachusetts. On 2 January, Richard Leakey, a world-renowned Kenyan conservationist who helped establish Africa as the birthplace of humankind, died at his home in Nairobi.
From presidents to undergraduate students, thousands have paid tribute to the three men, whose achievements range from developing theories on forest and island ecosystems to reforming the Kenyan civil service and devising proposals to protect half the planet for nature. Alongside grand accomplishments, which were sometimes controversial, their passing has been a chance to reflect on the small and the mundane: fleeting interactions that inspired careers, kind words that propelled research projects, and generosity of spirit that has helped amplify the voices of those that practise and produce science.
Continue reading...Revisited: Could bringing back its love song save one of Australia’s rarest songbirds?
It wouldn’t be Guardian Australia ‘best of’ series without a bird episode! The regent honeyeater is an endangered native Australian songbird, with only a few hundred left in the wild. A few years ago scientists noticed something odd – they were mimicking other birds, and unable to sing their own song. Environment reporter Graham Readfearn and Dr Joy Tripovich explain how this species lost its song, and whether teaching it how to sing again could help save it from extinction
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Continue reading...Why pig-to-human heart transplant is for now only a last resort
Analysis: As doctors monitor world’s first human recipient of pig heart, safety and ethical concerns remain
The world’s first transplant of a genetically altered pig heart into an ailing human is a landmark for medical science, but the operation, and the approach more broadly, raise substantial safety and ethical concerns.
Surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center spent eight hours on Friday evening transplanting the heart from the pig into 57-year-old David Bennett, who had been in hospital for more than a month with terminal heart failure.
Continue reading...China: more than 80 ostriches filmed running through the streets of Chongzuo – video
Footage has emerged of a group of ostriches on the run through the streets of Chongzuo in China.
It is believed the ostriches escaped from a farm owing to the gate not being closed properly, according to local media.
No injuries were reported and the owner managed to recapture the majority of the ostriches with the help of the police.
The incident occurred in the early hours of Saturday and no injuries were reported
Continue reading...Hungry badger may have uncovered Roman coins in Spanish cave
The ‘exceptional find’ was discovered only feet from a badger’s den in the northern region of Asturias
A trove of 209 Roman coins in a cave in northern Spain – hailed by researchers as an “exceptional find” – is believed to have been uncovered by a badger desperately foraging for food.
The coins, dating from between the third and fifth century AD, were spotted in a cave in the municipality of Grado in the northern region of Asturias. They were found mere feet from the den of a badger, months after Storm Filomena dumped heavy snow across swaths of the country.
Continue reading...‘I kept saying – don’t worry Luma, we see you’: Andrea Arnold on her four years filming a cow
The Oscar-winning director’s new documentary explores warmth, joy and anger through the eyes of a farmyard animal. She reveals what it taught her about life
Andrea Arnold’s films are known for their spare dialogue, and in her first documentary it is more pared-backed than ever: Cow consists of 94 minutes of moos, with the odd off-camera interjection from farmhands. It is hardly a thriller (though the ending is pure Tarantino). But it is one of the most beautifully crafted and tender portraits of a life you are likely to see.
Arnold, who started her professional life as a rollerskating TV presenter on the children’s Saturday show No 73, began thinking about documenting an animal’s life nine years ago. Eventually she settled on a cow. “I thought a cow would be interesting because they work so hard, getting pregnant and giving milk their entire lives. It’s a huge job they do.” She chose Luma because she was told she had a big personality and was feisty. Arnold and her team spent four years, on and off, filming her. Why did she make Cow? “I wanted to show a non-human consciousness. I was intrigued as to whether we would be able to see her consciousness if we followed her long enough.”
Continue reading...German police dogs sent off duty after ban on ‘pulling collars’
Method used to control dogs while making arrests illegal under new animal rights law
Berlin police dogs trained to attack perpetrators have been put on an enforced break, along with their handlers, over contradictions between the methods used to control them and a new law to prevent cruelty to dogs.
The use of pulling collars to channel a police dog’s aggression towards an agitator or potential criminal contravenes the law, introduced by the former agriculture minister, which came into force on 1 January.
Continue reading...‘A real miracle’: dog saves injured hiker stranded in Croatian mountains
Dog kept man warm and safe until rescuers found him
A dog saved a hiker injured in the Croatian mountains by lying on top of him for 13 hours until they were rescued, according to local media.
The dog, called North, kept Grga Brkic warm after he fell while out hiking and was unable to move. The other two hikers with him were unable to reach them, so they raised the alarm.
Continue reading...Bear caught on camera stealing kill from wolves in Yellowstone park – video
Wildlife officials in Yellowstone national park captured the unusual sight of a cheeky grizzly bear tagging along with a pack of hunting wolves, then making off with their kill.
The enthralling video, posted to the National Parks Service Facebook page, shows the October incident in which the wolves from the Junction Butte pack in northern Yellowstone were joined by a lumbering grizzly as they hunted a herd of elk
Continue reading...What’s new, pussycat? How feline film stars are trained to perform
From Stuart Little and Pet Sematary to new movie The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, cats can be scene-stealers. But how do you get such fickle and independent creatures to behave on camera?
Cats have been effortlessly stealing scenes from their human co-stars for decades. Who could forget Audrey Hepburn’s adorable marmalade tabby in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Or Jinx, the toilet-flushing Himalayan in Meet the Parents? Behind every famous film cat, there is a dedicated trainer patiently teaching them to obey a command, making sure they’re happy on set, and grooming them fastidiously to maintain their fluffy good looks.
The film-makers behind The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, a British period biopic about the Edwardian artist and illustrator who became famous for his surreal portraits of cats, were adamant they didn’t want to use CGI for the shoot, so animal trainer Charlotte Wilde was brought in with 40 feisty felines. “It was organised chaos,” she says. “They had their own green room and were treated like royalty.”
Continue reading...UK zoo helps lost Mexican fish live to see another Tequila sunrise
Declared extinct in the wild in 2003, species has been reintroduced to its native river after being bred in Chester
A “charismatic little fish” declared extinct in the wild has been reintroduced to its native Mexico after being bred in an aquarium at Chester zoo.
The tequila fish (Zoogoneticus tequila), which grows to no bigger than 70mm long, disappeared from the wild in 2003 owing to the introduction of invasive, exotic fish species and water pollution.
Continue reading...Plastic beads could make nets more visible to cetaceans, scientists say
Beads add hardly any extra weight to fishing gear and could save thousands of lives, it is claimed
Simple plastic beads could save the lives of some of the thousands of porpoises and other cetaceans that get caught in fishing nets each year, scientists say.
Harbour porpoises use echolocation to find their prey and for orientation. However, their acoustic signals cannot pick up the mesh of a gillnet, and as a result they often become trapped.
Continue reading...Japan’s whaling town struggles to keep 400 years of tradition alive
The resumption of killing whales for profit for the first time in over 30 years is offering little cause for celebration
You don’t have to look far to find evidence of Wada’s centuries-old connection to whaling. Visitors to the town on Japan’s Pacific coast are greeted by a replica skeleton of a blue whale before entering a museum devoted to the behemoths of the ocean.
At a local restaurant, diners eat deep-fried whale cutlet and buy cetacean-themed gifts at a neighbouring gift shop. At the edge of the water stands a wooden deck where harpooned whales are butchered before being sold to wholesalers and restaurants.
Continue reading...California officials close beaches after man dies in shark attack
Thirty-one-year-old man, who appeared to be a bodyboarder, pronounced dead in San Luis Obispo county
California authorities have closed some beaches in San Luis Obispo County after a 31-year-old man was pronounced dead following an encounter with a shark on Friday.
The fatality marked the first death in a shark attack in 18 years in the area, which lies roughly midway between Los Angeles and Jan Jose.
Continue reading...French zoo closes after pack of nine wolves escapes
Four wolves were shot dead by park workers and five anaesthetised by officials at scene
Authorities in the south of France have temporarily shut down a zoo after a pack of nine wolves escaped from an enclosure during visiting hours, officials have said.
No humans were injured in the incident last weekend at the Trois Vallées zoo in Montredon-Labessonnié in the south-west Tarn region but four of the wolves were shot dead by park workers and five were anaesthetised by local officials on the scene, Fabien Chollet, a local official, told AFP on Friday.
Continue reading...The dog who got me through 2021: Leo the Peke made my blood pressure drop and my heart swell
He is not a big name among dogfluencers, but whenever I felt stressed, something about this pekingese Instagram pup calmed me
On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog, went the New Yorker cartoon. Nearly 30 years later, it says so in your profile.
My Instagram feed is full of dogs, or people posting as their dogs from their own accounts. Some I know well, like my sister’s sweet but vacant pug Margot.
Continue reading...‘The fight goes on’: the struggle to save Europe’s songbirds
Campaigners help close the loophole allowing glue-trapping in France, but the battle to save endangered bird species goes on
- ECJ orders France to ban glue-trap hunting of songbirds
- Read more in our series Biodiversity: what happened next?
“Chasse à la glu has ended, but the fight to save other birds is not over,” says campaigner Yves Verilhac. “We are now battling to stop other cruel hunting methods that lead to the killing of skylarks, lapwings, golden plovers, thrushes and blackbirds.”
Two years ago, Verilhac, of France’s Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO), was fighting to stop the French tradition of chasse à la glu – hunting songbirds with twigs and branches covered in adhesive.
Continue reading...Rhik Samadder tries … mushing: ‘I’ve never known animal joy like it!’
What a ride! The huskies and I were travelling as one – who knew such magical transport existed? More than anything I’ve tried, this experience has stayed with me
I have a dream: that dream is to ride a dog like a horse. That isn’t possible. But I’ve heard the next best thing is possible, which is why I’m freezing in a field in Tewkesbury. Gloucestershire may not be Lapland but it’s where you can try mushing, organised by Arctic Quest. Single-handedly charioteering a sled powered by huskies? Sounds like a Christmas miracle to me. I gape in awe, as countless lupine beasts emerge from a trailer, yelping with excitement. It’s a few weeks before Omicron gathers strength, and I’m here for one last shot at feeling free.
Vickie Pullin – a superb candidate for nominative determinism – set up Arctic Quest, and is a former world champion dog-sledder in four divisions, an achievement never equalled. (You have to be driven to get into husky sledding, ironically.) She has 36 dogs in total, all smaller than I imagined, total cuties with names like Azera, Frappe, Mocha and Cino. It would sound like a sitcom premise, were it not for Pullin’s no-nonsense demeanour. “The blue-eyed, fluffy husky thing? Hollywood PR,” she snorts.
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