Earth ChangesS


Wolf

Another toddler savaged: One-year-old boy attacked by Labrador at park in French Valley, California


Redlands Daily Facts
Sat, 15 Nov 2014 16:43 UTC
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The family of a 1-year-old boy who was attacked by a dog in Riverside County on Nov. 14, 2014, provided this photo. In it the boy is seen at a Riverside County hospital with his father.
A six-year-old Labrador mix was impounded from a residence in unincorporated French Valley today, in connection with a dog attack that left a one-year-old boy with severe injuries to his face, authorities said.

The boy, a month shy of his second birthday, remains hospitalized after being bitten as he played near his mother and a friend at Primrose Park on Cloche Drive, sometime after 3 p.m. Friday.

A witness initially reported the unattended dog might be a Rottweiler, but today the mother's friend pointed out the animal to Riverside County Animal Services Sgt. Lesley Huennekens, who is investigating the incident. The dog, Dexter, which was properly licensed, vaccinated for rabies, neutered and micro- chipped, was taken into custody about 3 p.m. from a home on Starkey Court, animal control officials said.
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Arrow Down

Yet another dog attack: Toddler mauled by family's bullmastif

Stephanie Linning
Daily Mail (UK)
Sun, 16 Nov 2014 15:18 UTC
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Ollie Cummings suffered bite marks and a deep cut across his face
A two-year-old boy suffered horrific facial injuries when he was mauled by a family's pet bullmastiff as he played in the kitchen of his mother's boyfriend's home.

Ollie Cummings was standing next to the dog as it was eating when it suddenly turned and began biting his head.

The toddler was left with a deep cut across his face and has undergone surgery to rebuild a section of his nose.

His mother, Natasha Wilson, 25, snatched her son from the dog's teeth before calling an ambulance to the Dundee home on Friday night.

The two-year-old was taken to Ninewells Hospital where he underwent a two-hour operation. He will need further surgery when he is nine or 10 years old.

Speaking from hospital, Ollie's grandmother, Debs Martin, 48, said: 'Ollie had been playing with some keys, walking from one door to another pretending to lock and unlock them.

Comment: Something strange seems to be happening in the animal kingdom as these reports of vicious attacks, often by family pets against their owners and family members seem to be occurring with increasing regularity. Perhaps the animal kingdom is reflecting the increase in bizarre behaviors that we are seeing in the human population. See:

SOTT EXCLUSIVE: Global canine insurrection? Another week of savage dog attack reports

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Arrow Down

2 mudslides kill four along Swiss-Italian border

Nina Larson
yahoo.com
Sun, 16 Nov 2014 16:01 UTC
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At least four people were killed as landslides triggered by torrential rain slammed into houses and buildings on either side of the Swiss Italian border Sunday, police and media said.

In the rain-drenched southern Ticino region of Switzerland, two people died and four were injured when a mudslide slammed into a small residential building, regional police said.

On the other side of the border, a pensioner and his granddaughter were killed when another landslide engulfed a house on the Italian shores of Lake Maggiore, local media reported. Three other family members survived.

Those landslides were the latest of many to recently have hit northern Italy and southern Switzerland amid incessant rainfall over recent weeks.
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Arrow Down

Landslide kills two as storm death toll reaches 11 in Italy


thelocal.it
Sun, 16 Nov 2014 15:40 UTC
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© AFPFlooding in Genoa.
A landslide triggered by torrential rain engulfed a house on the shores of Italy's Lake Maggiore on Sunday, killing a pensioner and his granddaughter in what a neighbour described as a "horrific" tragedy.

The 70-year-old man died after the house was partially buried in a "sea of mud" unleashed after the hill behind the building gave way as a result of the unprecedented volumes of rainfall experienced across swaths of northern Italy in the last two weeks.

Rescue workers managed to drag the 16-year-old granddaughter from the rubble after more than four hours of digging but she died later in hospital.

Her parents and grandmother survived. The family's small, two-storey villa was the only property affected in Cerro, a hamlet on the outskirts of Laveno Mombello, a popular holiday spot.
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Snowflake Cold

Meteorologists agree: Europe is in for a 'damned cold' winter

P Gosselin
No Tricks Zone
Fri, 31 Oct 2014 15:21 UTC
Grand froid en Europe centrale
© Euronews
When alarmist climate institutes roll out papers claiming global warming is going to cause severely cold winters, then you have to wonder if they know something is up and are acting preemptively to salvage their crumbling climate science, which not long ago predicted with high confidence balmy snowless winters.

A few reports have already come out indicating this winter could be a real doozy - at least for wide parts of North America. But now we are starting to see such reports popping up for Europe as well.
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Igloo

Record-breaking arctic cold temperatures, subzero expected in Northern Rockies, High Plains

Jon Erdman
Weather.com
Sat, 15 Nov 2014 06:53 UTC
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© Weather.com
Arctic air is now firmly entrenched over much of the nation's mid-section, Northwest and, finally Northeast, sending temperatures crashing to values you might expect in mid-winter in some areas.

Here are some cold notables so far:
- Burlington, Colorado, on the eastern Plains near the Kansas border, dipped to -10 Thursday, setting a new record low for the month of November.

- Casper, Wyoming, dipped to -27 at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night, shattering their all-time November record low of -21 on Nov. 23, 1985 (records date to 1939). The temperature stayed at -27 at midnight Thursday, making it the new record low for Nov. 13 as well. Previously, the soonest Casper plunged to -27 was on Dec. 5, 1972. Casper's high of 6 on Nov. 11 was the record earliest single-digit or colder high temperature there. (On Nov. 15, 1955, the high was only -3 degrees). Wednesday, Casper only managed a high of 3 degrees!

- Denver's high of 6 on Nov. 12 was the coldest daily high so early in the season. Only three other November days had daily high temperatures colder in Denver, dating to 1872. Early Thursday morning, Denver chalked up a bone-chilling -14 degrees, easily the coldest temperature so early in the season. (Nov. 17, 1880 was the previous earliest such cold reading in Denver.)

- Livingston, Montana, dipped to -21 Wednesday, their coldest so early in the season. That said, they once dipped to -31 degrees just one day later in the calendar, on November 13, 1959.

- Riverton, Wyoming had a daytime high of 0 degrees Thursday.

- In the Southern Plains, Amarillo (21), Lubbock (27), Childress (29) and Goodland (14) all set their coldest daily high temperatures on record for so early in the season on Wednesday.
Next, we'll hit some cold highlights in both forecast highs and lows, then ask how long this will last.
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Attention

Sled dogs clash with muskox again near Nome, Alaska

Francesca Fenzi
knom.org
Mon, 03 Nov 2014 21:52 UTC
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© Bering Land Bridge National Preserve“Muskox family.”
In yet another clash between canine and ungulate, two dogs were injured last weekend by a muskox near a biking trail in Nome.

The dogs, which belong to musher Kirsten Bey, were flown to Anchorage for veterinary care and are now recovering. This latest incident comes after a series of muskox attacks throughout the summer and fall.

In late July, a dog belonging to Mitch Erickson was killed by a muskox in Icy View. Earlier that month, Nome resident Diana Adams was cited for taking a muskox out of season when it charged one of her dogs on the same lot.

A third dog was gored in an attack by a muskox on Anvil Mountain in early August. And a dog owner shot and killed a muskox near Wales later that month.

Comment: See also: One dog killed after another muskox attack in Nome, Alaska

Strange animal behaviour: Muskox repeatedly charged dog despite warning shots in Wales, Alaska - other similar incidents reported

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Fish

Deep ocean sunfish found on beach in North Queensferry, Scotland


BBC
Fri, 07 Nov 2014 21:35 UTC
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The sunfish can grow to 4m in length and weigh more than a tonne
An oceanic fish which normally lives up to 600m (1,968ft) below the surface has been washed up on a beach near Deep Sea World in North Queensferry.

The sunfish was discovered by a member of the public at East Bay beach who contacted the nearby aquarium.

Aquarists retrieved the stranded fish, which was around a metre long, however, it later died.

Deep Sea World's Chris Smith said: "This is the first sunfish stranding I have seen in the local area."
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Black Cat

Odd puma behaviour? Vancouver Island woman slams door on curious cougar

Katherine Dedyna
The Vancouver Sun
Fri, 14 Nov 2014 21:03 UTC
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Cougar at Carmanah Lighthouse station on the West Coast Trail. A Vancouver Island woman was alarmed to find a cougar staring straight at her — separated by only a screen door — on Thursday afternoon.
A Vancouver Island woman was alarmed to find a cougar staring straight at her - separated by only a screen door - on Thursday afternoon.

"I ran toward the glass door and slammed it shut, and he turned away and ran," said Riley Nicholson from her Creekside Glen townhouse on Atkins Road, which backs onto a ravine.

"What if he had just jumped through the screen?" she said. "That was scary - I think people need to know."

Nicholson was packing up to move when she saw the big cat on her patio about 4:45 p.m., and she wondered whether it was attracted by residual cooking odours caused by having her oven set on "clean," or by her cat, which had been outside playing a short time earlier
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Eye 2

Symbolic? Brown tree snake discovered dead still biting its neck, Australia

Emily Crane
Daily Mail, UK
Thu, 13 Nov 2014 20:40 UTC
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This dead snake was found home at Earville, just south-west of Cairns, on Saturday still plunging its fangs into its own neck
Did this snake kill itself using its own venom?

It certainly looked that way when Matt Hagan from Cairns Snake Catchers found the dead snake on Saturday still plunging its fangs into its own neck.

He was called to a home at Earville, just south-west of Cairns, after a woman found the 1.5 metre Brown Tree snake on her doorstep.
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