Category Archives: Animals

German police dogs sent off duty after ban on ‘pulling collars’

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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.

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‘A real miracle’: dog saves injured hiker stranded in Croatian mountains

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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.

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Bear caught on camera stealing kill from wolves in Yellowstone park – video

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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

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What’s new, pussycat? How feline film stars are trained to perform

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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.”

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UK zoo helps lost Mexican fish live to see another Tequila sunrise

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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.

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Plastic beads could make nets more visible to cetaceans, scientists say

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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.

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Japan’s whaling town struggles to keep 400 years of tradition alive

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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.

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California officials close beaches after man dies in shark attack

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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.

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French zoo closes after pack of nine wolves escapes

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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.

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The dog who got me through 2021: Leo the Peke made my blood pressure drop and my heart swell

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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.

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‘The fight goes on’: the struggle to save Europe’s songbirds

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Campaigners help close the loophole allowing glue-trapping in France, but the battle to save endangered bird species goes on

“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.

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Rhik Samadder tries … mushing: ‘I’ve never known animal joy like it!’

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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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New York has a huge rat problem. These vigilantes with dogs think they can fix it

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Rats, a group that has been hunting rats with dogs in New York since 1995, is summoned to infested neighborhoods

This will come as no surprise to anyone but New York City has a rat problem.

Two million rats call the city home, thriving on the streets, in sewers, in both abandoned and un-abandoned buildings, in the parks, in the subways, in shoe stores and in restaurants.

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Rhino deaths in South Africa from poaching reach 24 in December

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Carcasses found in four provinces, including one pregnant female, with nine arrests made

Poachers have killed 24 rhinos in South Africa during the first two weeks of December after a lull in killings during the Covid pandemic.

On Tuesday, the South African environment ministry said carcasses had been discovered in four provinces across the country since the beginning of the month, with seven rhinos found dead in Kruger national park, six in KwaZulu-Natal and seven in Mpumalanga. Four, including a pregnant female, were shot dead by poachers at a game reserve in the Western Cape last week while a fifth is being treated for gunshot wounds.

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Six dead giraffes: Kenya drought horror captured in single picture

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Aerial shot shows devastating effect of drought that has left people and animals without water

Six dead giraffes lie in a spiral on the dry earth, their bodies emaciated and interwoven. The aerial shot, taken by the photojournalist Ed Ram, shows the devastation of Kenya’s drought, which has left people and animals struggling for food and water.

Already weak, the animals had died after they got stuck in the mud, according to Getty Images. They were trying to reach a nearby reservoir, although it had almost dried up, the agency reported.

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‘I could be a bee in a hive’: the real-life Beekeeper of Aleppo on life in Yorkshire

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Ryad Alsous, whose story helped inspire the bestselling book, says life is sweet caring for his hives in Huddersfield

In 2013, Syrian beekeeper Ryad Alsous drank his last cup of mint tea on the balcony of his flat in Damascus. He was about to leave the city where he had spent his whole life and move to Britain. Eight years later, he is again drinking mint tea made in the same flask but this time in Huddersfield. The flask is the only item he still has from his home in Syria. He is talking about the moment he left. “It was very difficult. And also full of hope,” he says.

His block of flats had been bombed twice, and explosions in the eastern part of the city were happening daily. On the day he left, a loud bang nearby caused the doves perched on his balcony to briefly flutter into the air. He had been feeding the birds for years and realised they would have no one to look after them once he left.

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From hippos to hamsters: how Covid is affecting creatures great and small

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Scientists are racing to assess the spread of the virus in wild and domestic animals, and the threat it could pose to us

A year ago humanity embarked on a project to vaccinate every person against Covid-19. But in recent months a shadow vaccination campaign has also been taking place. From giraffes to snow leopards, gorillas to sea lions, zoos around the world have been inoculating their animals with an experimental Covid vaccine as an insurance policy against what they fear could be a similarly fatal illness for certain mammals.

Meanwhile, veterinary scientists have been scrambling to understand the scale of Covid-19 infection in our furry household companions, and what the consequences could be for their health – and our own.

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Woman admits abusing pet marmoset she offered cocaine and flushed toilet on

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Vicki Holland, from Newport, south Wales, pleads guilty to animal cruelty charges after videos found on phone

  • Warning: this article includes graphic images some readers may find disturbing

A woman has pleaded guilty to abusing her pet marmoset, including offering cocaine to the primate and attempting to flush it down the toilet.

A court heard how Vicki Holland was aggressive towards the primate, which is native to tropical forests in Central and South America. The monkey’s treatment was shown to the RSPCA after videos were discovered on Holland’s phone by Gwent police after a drug raid at her home.

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Scientists use ostrich cells to make glowing Covid detection masks

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Japanese researchers use bird antibodies to detect virus under ultraviolet light

Japanese researchers have developed masks that use ostrich antibodies to detect Covid-19 by glowing under ultraviolet light.

The discovery, by Yasuhiro Tsukamoto and his team at Kyoto Prefectural University in western Japan, could provide for low-cost testing of the virus at home.

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