Animal ‘fled the scene’ after smashing hood and windshield, causing vehicle to roll onto its side and burst into flames
They probably don’t train people for this at the sheriff’s academy.
A patrol car was struck by a falling bear in northern California last weekend, causing the vehicle to crash and explode.
Continue reading...Giant bird estimated to have weighed about 7kg has been named Heracles inexpectatus
Fossils of the largest parrot ever recorded have been found in New Zealand. Estimated to have weighed about 7kg (1.1st), it would have been more than twice as heavy as the kākāpo, previously the largest known parrot.
Palaeontologists have named the new species Heracles inexpectatus to reflect its unusual size and strength and the unexpected nature of the discovery.
Continue reading...Mohammad Aljaleel looked after homeless cats during the aerial bombardment of Aleppo. He has since set up a dedicated sanctuary and veterinary clinic for stray felines
Continue reading...A Twitter user’s loaded question has been widely mocked, but there’s actually more to it than many have assumed
As the gun control debate rages in the US in the wake of a weekend of devastating mass shootings, calls for an assault weapons ban have resurfaced. While this has led many Americans to cite their second amendment rights, one man in Arkansas has asked a simple question: “How do I kill the 30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?”
It all began when Willam McNabb, who identifies as a libertarian, waded into a debate about assault weapons (high-powered rifles were reportedly used by the gunmen in both El Paso and Dayton).
Continue reading...Most of the animals at the Santa Cruz Foundation in San Antonio, Colombia, have been rescued from traffickers and circuses. The multimillion-dollar illegal wildlife trade is the fourth-largest in the country after drugs, guns and human trafficking
It’s neat, easy – and a staggering £2bn global market. But as plastic grass takes over our cities, some say that it’s green only in colour
If your attention during the Women’s World Cup was on the pitch rather than the players, you might have noticed that the matches were all played on real grass. That was a hard-won change, made after the US team complained to Fifa that they sustained more injuries on artificial turf.
In private gardens, however, the opposite trend is happening: British gardens are being dug up and replaced with plastic grass. But this isn’t the flaky, fading stuff on which oranges were once displayed at the greengrocer. Today’s artificial grass is nearly identical to the real thing.
Continue reading...Calls for Mexico to crackdown on use of illegal fishing nets after further decline of species
There are fewer than 19 vaquita porpoises thought to be left, according to a study.
In 2016, estimates of the vaquita population stood at just 30, but research published in Royal Society Open Science suggests the figure has fallen further.
Continue reading...A guide to species you might spot on Britain’s urban waterways
Canals are often seen as a kind of second-class version of a river. Perhaps that goes back to their industrial history, but from a wildlife point of view canals and rivers are more or less interchangeable.
Visit a city canal on a fine, sunny day in spring or summer, and you’ll see plenty of dragonflies and damselflies on the wing. Some, such as the red-eyed damselfly, banded demoiselle and scarce chaser, have a special preference for the slow-flowing water of a canal, sometimes perching on waterlilies in the sunshine.
Continue reading...An urban waterway is more than just a short cut through the city – it’s a testament to the power of nature over neglect
The roar of the road is receding with each step down and with it the light is changing; it is dancing, mirrored and then dappled in the ripples of the water. One layer down and the city has become an entirely different place.
I, like many, am using the canal as a quiet cut-through. It smells different down here; there’s the dankness of the water, for sure, but there’s a wealth of green filtering the fumes from above. And the soundscape changes – song birds, the curious grunt of a bank of geese eyeing me and the dog warily, the lap of the water’s edge and the groan of metal sidings that are there to repair the bridge.
Continue reading...Pair ate fur-covered dead animals in front of children in London despite pleas to stop
Two pro-meat protesters have been fined after eating raw squirrels at a food market.
Related: View to a cull: is grey squirrel the ultimate sustainable meat?
Continue reading...With fewer than 20 left in the South American country’s Gran Chaco forest – the big cats could be classed as a ‘non-human person’
Argentina’s supreme court has been asked to recognize the legal rights of the South American jaguar, of which fewer than 20 individuals remain alive in the country’s Gran Chaco region.
The largest cat in the Americas once roamed the continent as far north as the Grand Canyon, but is now in decline across the entire western hemisphere.
Continue reading...Ancient bird’s foot is so distinctive palaeontologists declare it a new species
The fossilised remains of a bizarre, ancient bird that had middle toes longer than its lower legs have been found in a lump of amber from Myanmar.
The elongated toe resembles those seen on lemurs and tree-climbing lizards, and suggests an unusual lifestyle for some of the earliest birds that lived alongside the dinosaurs, researchers said.
Continue reading...Segenhoe, Bedfordshire: The birds are stacked in the air above a shallow trench, taking turns to skim insects from it
A flying congregation had assembled by the church gate. We approached on foot, coming on the coffin route, a straight path through fields along which pall bearers had once carried the dead from the nearby village of Ridgmont.
Mourners might have walked through this meadow after the hay had been cut, as we did, and looked down at the grass laid out in strips to dry where it fell. Did a passage from the Bible come to mind? “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall.”
Continue reading...Tourists warned not to feed the animals after plastic waste found in stomachs of several dead deer
Authorities in Japan’s ancient capital Nara are warning visitors not to feed the city’s wild deer – a major tourist attraction – after several of the animals died after swallowing plastic bags.
Large amounts of plastic waste were found in the stomachs of nine of 14 deer to have died since March, according to a local wildlife conservation group.
Continue reading...In Namibia a country of meat-lovers, vital expertise is needed to stop livestock spreading diseases
Wreathed in barbecue smoke, Vetjaera Haakuria gestures at the men butchering meat and cooking it over hot coals behind his back. “What have you learned about the risks of eating this?” he asks his young audience, spotless in their white lab coats. “It might contain drug residues, right? And what about diseases?”
It’s nearly noon in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, and the market is preparing grilled meat – known locally as kapana – for the lunchtime rush. Everyone comes here, from construction workers to members of parliament. Namibians love to eat meat, and he is no exception: his tribe, the Herero, traditionally eat nothing else.
Continue reading...A sulphur-crested cockatoo named Snowball garnered YouTube fame and headlines a decade ago for his uncanny ability to dance to the beat of the Backstreet Boys. Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology are back with evidence that Snowball is not limited in his dance moves. Despite a lack of dance training, videos show, Snowball responds to music with diverse and spontaneous movements using various parts of his body
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of visitors attend the fiesta in Pamplona, Spain, many participating in the highlight event – the running of the bulls, or encierro
Continue reading...More police on duty as tourists descend on Spanish town to watch bulls and party
One man was gored and two sustained head injuries during the first run of the week-long San Fermín running of the bulls festival in Pamplona, northern Spain, on Saturday. The injuries were not life-threatening.
During the festival the population of the small city in Navarra swells tenfold as more than a million people come from around the world. Only about 20,000 over the course of the week dress up in the traditional red and white to pursue and be pursued by the bulls along Pamplona’s cobbled streets.
Continue reading...More than 1 million people are expected to attend the nine-day San Fermin event in the northern Spanish city
Partygoers and bull-running fans packed the main square in Pamplona on Saturday to cheer the launch of a firecracker which marks the start of the northern Spanish city’s annual San Fermin festival.
Decked out in white T-shirts and trousers stained pink by wine, the crowd danced and waved traditional red handkerchiefs bearing the image of the local patron saint, Fermin.
Continue reading...All eight of the circus’s tigers were impounded by police after tamer Ettore Weber was mauled to death
Four tigers have mauled to death their tamer in southern Italy, fuelling calls for a ban on the use of animals in circuses as parliament debates the issue.
Police said the 61-year-old tamer, Ettore Weber, was attacked by the tigers on Thursday during a training session in Triggiano, a small town in the Puglia region.
Continue reading...