Animals
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Attention

Dead humpback whale found on beach at Crescent Head, Australia


www.9news.com.au
Thu, 28 Jun 2018 09:28 UTC
The dead humpback was spotted by fisherman last night.
The dead humpback was spotted by fisherman last night.
Fears were raised that the carcass of a humpback whale would explode after it washed up bloated on the New South Wales north coast.

The 13-metre, 18-tonne female washed up near Crescent Head before being spotted by a fisherman last night.

By midday today, the mammal had tripled in size while laying washed up on the sand at
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Alarm Clock

Deaths and dumping of nearly 100 baby hammerhead sharks being investigated in Honolulu


Yahoo! News
Wed, 27 Jun 2018 17:21 UTC
Dead baby hammerheads in Honolulu
© Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources
Hawaii authorities are investigating after dozens of baby hammerhead sharks were found dead near Keehi Lagoon in Honolulu.

The state Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement has opened an investigation following the discovery of 50 to 100 dead shark pups piled up near La Mariana Sailing Club on Tuesday morning.

The lagoon is a known birthing location for hammerhead sharks, but it not natural for shark pups to be found on shore in large numbers, state officials said.

The sharks may have been netted and dumped on land by a fisherman, said Andrew Rossiter, the director of the Waikiki Aquarium.
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Attention

Dead humpback whale found at Boatswain Point, South Australia


Coastal Leader
Wed, 27 Jun 2018 11:04 UTC
A Humpback Whale has washed up at Boatswain Point and has died on a reef about a 200m from the shore.
© High EdgeA Humpback Whale has washed up at Boatswain Point and has died on a reef about a 200m from the shore.
A whale has washed up at Boatswain Point and has died on a reef roughly 200m from the shore.

District Manager of the Lower South East, Ross Anderson from Natural Resources South East gave a comment on the current status of the whale and where it sits with NRSE.

"The animal is a Humpback whale and became stranded on the reef by itself," Mr Anderson said. "Any drag marks are likely to be as a result of tides and swell moving the animal in shallow water.

"The whale is now dead and we will be letting it decompose naturally."
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning bolt kills a dozen cows in Henryetta, Oklahoma

Wyatt Bechtel
AG WEB
Tue, 26 Jun 2018 10:24 UTC
cattle killed in a lightning strike
© Jason DonathanThe cattle killed in a lightning strike
A lightning strike on a ranch in Oklahoma was not only a tragedy for the owners, but it also turned into a reminder of the lack of knowledge most people have about livestock production.

Jason Donathan, a cattle rancher from Henryetta, OK shared a photo with KOTV Channel 6 in Tulsa showing approximately 12 dead cattle under a tree. The group of primarily cows was killed by a lightning strike.

KOTV meteorologist Lacey Swope shared the picture on her Facebook page on June 24.

In the post Swope writes, "A cattle rancher's worst nightmare took place in Henryetta, OK last night. Jason Donathan posted this pic showing the devastation after lightning likely struck the tree as the cows were standing under it."
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Attention

Signs and Portents: Mutant calf with two heads born on farm in Poland

Jordan Barnes
Daily Mail
Tue, 26 Jun 2018 20:33 UTC
A two-headed baby calf was born in the village of Kowalewo Pomorskie in Poland
A two-headed baby calf was born in the village of Kowalewo Pomorskie in Poland
A farm in Poland witnessed the birth of a mutant two-headed calf.

Local vet Karolina Szarowska was stunned as she described helping with the delivery in the village of Kowalewo Pomorskie.

After the unusual birth, Szarowska shared pictures of the newborn cow with two heads on social media.

She wrote: 'Two heads are better than on. To bring THIS out alive was a true miracle.'

The mother survived the difficult birth and both heads of the male calf had the sucking reflex.
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Binoculars

Wrong place, wrong time: Thousands of miles from its normal range a Crested Caracara turns up in Bella Coola, British Columbia

Caitlin Thompson
Coast Mountain News
Mon, 25 Jun 2018 18:31 UTC
The Northern Crested Caracara was spotted many times hunting in a field up on Hammer Road
© Michael WigleThe Northern Crested Caracara was spotted many times hunting in a field up on Hammer Road
The Northern Crested Caracara was spotted galavanting around Bella Coola for several weeks

It was thousands of miles from it's home base of the southern United States and Mexico but the Northern Crested Caracara was spotted galavanting around Bella Coola for several weeks earlier this month, delighting local bird watchers who managed to snap dozens of photos of it.

The Crested Caracara looks like a hawk with its sharp beak and talons, behaves like a vulture, and is technically a large tropical black-and-white falcon. It is instantly recognizable standing tall on long yellow-orange legs with a sharp black cap set against a white neck and yellow-orange face.

The Crested Caracara is a bird of open country and reaches only a few states in the southern U.S. It flies low on flat wings, and routinely walks on the ground.

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Binoculars

Wrong place, wrong time: Ultra rare bird which normally summers at eastern-most end of Asia turns up in Sri Lanka


The Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)
Sun, 24 Jun 2018 20:47 UTC
A spoon-billed sandpiper
Spoon-billed Sandpiper found in Sri Lanka!

The last record of a sighting in Sri Lanka was 40 years ago in 1978 and for many years, birdwatchers in the country have been on the look-out for it here.

As afternoon was slowly fading into evening, around 5 p.m. on June 6, an Executive in a finance company, Ravi Darshana, was returning home after work in Mannar, through the Vankalai Sanctuary when he saw an interesting sight.

At a water body, just 25 metres from the road, he saw a flock of 250-300 'loitering' shorebirds. This was not the time of year for the sanctuary to hold multitudes of migrant waterbirds, for they had left two months before, most returning home far to the north of Sri Lanka, from where they had flown here to avoid the winter.
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Horse

Horses know when something's amiss

Andrew Masterson
Cosmos Magazine
Sun, 24 Jun 2018 18:54 UTC
Putin with his horse
© Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/Getty ImagesVladimir Putin talking to his favourite horse. The animals are able to detect a disconnect between word and deed, research suggests.
Horses, it seems, may have a sense of the incongruous.

Research led by cognitive scientist Kosuke Nakamura from the University of Tokyo in Japan examines the reaction of horses to visual and audio cues when the emotion expressed in one does not match that of the other.

The results, published in the journal Scientific Reports, is believed to be the first time this type of cognition has been tested in horses - a remarkable thing, given that the species was domesticated around 5000 years ago and has lived in close proximity to humans ever since.

To conduct their research, Nakamura and colleagues recruited 19 horses from their own institution and the nearby Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology.
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Attention

Over 3,000 people have been stung by jellyfish on Florida beaches in the past two weeks

Pam Wright
The Weather Channel
Fri, 22 Jun 2018 14:16 UTC
jellyfish
If you're planning a trip to the Atlantic Coast of central Florida in the near future, be warned that thousands of beachgoers have been stung by jellyfish over the past two weeks.

More than 3,000 people have been stung on area beaches since June 8, Volusia County beach safety officials told WFLA Thursday.

On Monday alone, 347 people were stung and treated. No one was seriously injured.

Mary Lane, an instructor with the Jimmy Lane Surfing Academy in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, told the station she found herself wrapped in the tentacles of a jellyfish that she had to pull off her torso.

"This has probably been the worst summer in a long time," she said.

Purple flags warning of dangerous marine life in the waters continue to fly on the county's beaches.
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Cloud Lightning

No bull: Lightning kills bull in Telangana, India


The Hans India
Sat, 23 Jun 2018 10:20 UTC
Lightning kills bull
Lightning kills bull
A bull was killed by lightning, while a farmer was tilling his field in Vemula village of Midjil mandal on Friday.

According to farmer Doddau Venkataiah, while he was tilling his field, he left the plough tied with the bull in the field and came out to take shelter from the sudden thunder showers.

However, as soon as he came out of the field, sudden lightning struck the bull, killing it on the spot.

Venkatiah has lost his bull worth Rs. 50,000 and he is helpless to carry out his farming without the bull.
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