Animals
S


Hardhat

Magpies culled in Canberra, Australia because they are 'stealing food and attacking people'

Jennifer Russell and Emily Crane
Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 04 Sep 2015 16:29 UTC
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Magpies have been terrorising visitors by stealing their food and attacking people - even children- in Gungahlin, Canberra, that authorities have begun culling the birds
Magpies are set to be culled in Canberra after they began terrorising visitors by stealing their food and swooping on people - even children.

According to ACT Parks and Conservation director Daniel Iglesias, between 25 and 30 magpies lived near Yerrabi Pond in Gungahlin, with some being trapped by rangers and euthanised on Thursday.

Speaking to ABC News, Mr Iglesias said the culling is needed because the number of incidents involving the swooping birds has dramatically increased.

'We have one story, where a magpie stood on a child's head, leant over the child's head, put it's beak in its mouth to get food out of its mouth,' Mr Iglesias told ABC News.

'We've had other incidents where there have been other near-misses with eyes.'

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Black Cat 2

Polish Wonder: Rademenes, the nurse cat who comforts sick animals


Sputnik News
Sat, 12 Sep 2015 18:59 UTC
Rademenes The 'Nurse cat'
© YouTube/Cool PandaRademenes, the 'nurse cat' lends a paw to veterinarians at Polish animal shelter in Bydgoszczy.
Black cats are usually considered unlucky, especially when they are crossing someone's path, which in some countries, including Russia, is a bad omen; however, this Polish feline is one-of-a-kind: he is a full-time nurse to the ailing inhabitants of a veterinary center and a true symbol of the clinic.

Rademenes was brought to a veterinary clinic in Bydgoszcz, Poland with one purpose — to end his suffering, Izabella Szolginia, the director of the center told Sputnik.

He was in such bad shape that the staff at the shelter would not let him near the other animals.

But when veterinarian Krystyna Kuziel-Zawalich took him in her arms and heard him purr, she decided to help him fight for his life.

It took him half a year to come back to life, Szolginia says. However, after a while the personnel noticed something unusual in his behavior.

The staff were amazed to watch him lying with the shelter's furry patients. He paid particularly close attention to those which were recovering from surgery.
Rademenes The 'Nurse cat'_1
© YouTube/Cool Panda
It seemed that Rademenes took it upon himself to assume the role of a full-time nurse.
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Attention

Second bear attack this week for New Mexico; 7th for the year

Staci Matlock
The New Mexican
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 15:52 UTC
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© New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.A female black bear and her cub were recorded at a watering hole in northeastern New Mexico shortly before the bear attacked a hunter.
State Game and Fish Department officers are searching for a black bear that attacked a 60-year-old man from Missouri who was elk hunting west of Wagon Mound, the second bear attack on a person in two days in Northern New Mexico, officials said Friday.

The hunter received bite injuries to his foot through his boot as he climbed a tree to try to escape the bear. He was taken to Alta Vista Hospital in Las Vegas, N.M., where he was treated and released.

The attack, which occurred Thursday near the tiny village of Ocate, marked the seventh time a black bear has attacked a human in the state this year, the highest number in the past 16 years, according to Lance Cherry, a spokesman for the Game and Fish Department. It was the fourth attack this year resulting in an injury. None of the attacks was fatal.
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Brick Wall

It's a well aard-vark! Anteater stands up and refuses to move out of the way of Jeep

Simon Tomlinson
Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 04 Sep 2015 13:38 UTC
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Try and pass if you dare
This aardvark lived up to its name when it rose up and puffed out its chest to confront an oncoming car.

The anteater bravely stepped out in front of the Jeep when it approached on a dirt track in Brazil.

Photographer Luciano Candisani said the animal was making itself look 'bigger' and 'stronger' after spotting the vehicle.

Mr Candisani, 44, was running a photography workshop at the time and was taking them through the Pantanal wetlands in Brazil.

The wildlife photographer said: 'It was very early in the morning. I was leading a photography workshop in Pantanal when the anteater entered the dirt road in front of our jeep and stopped in front of the car.
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Fish

Rare shoal of 500 bluefin tuna appears off coast of Cornwall, UK

Lucy Clarke-Billings
The Telegraph, UK
Sat, 22 Aug 2015 12:28 UTC
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© ALAMY
A bluefin tuna shoal
A shoal of bluefin tuna potentially worth millions of pounds has appeared off the coast of Cornwall - but local fishermen will not be able to touch a single fish.

The record price for a single tuna on the Japanese market is about £1 million, and the shoal, of around 500 fish, is believed to be the largest sighted off the county in over a century.

Duncan and Hannah Jones, the owners of a tourist cruise company in Penzance who discovered the fish, said it was as though the sea was "exploding".

But EU fishing regulations prevent British boats from catching bluefin tuna. Protection rules mean that only eight countries, including Greece, France and Spain, can land tuna, and even they are restricted to a short season of fishing.
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Question

The strange and unexplained phenomenon of raining objects

April Holloway
Ancient Origins
Sat, 12 Sep 2015 00:31 UTC
Raining Stones
© Trevor Victor Harvey GalleryRaining stones by Mackenzie Thorpe.
Throughout history, there have been numerous recorded instances of strange objects falling from the sky - fish, frogs, candy, jellyfish, beans, nuts, seeds, and all manner of bizarre and unlikely objects.

A popular theory explains these events as being caused by strong winds that whisk things up from the ground or water and hurl them towards an unsuspecting town many miles away.

But can this theory also explain showers of heavy stones that have been known to damage houses and even kill people and livestock?

A Long History of Raining Objects

One of the first recorded instances of "raining" objects comes from the writings of Roman philosopher and naturalist Pliny the Elder, who documented storms of frogs and fish in the 1st century A.D. in what is now Italy. In the 3rd century A.D., ancient Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus wrote in his work The Deipnosophists (Book VIII):
In Paeonia and Dardania it has, they say, before now rained frogs; and so great has been the number of these frogs that the houses and the roads have been full of them; and at first, for some days, the inhabitants, endeavoring to kill them, and shutting up their houses, endured the pest; but when they did no good, but found that all their vessels were filled with them, and the frogs were found to be boiled up and roasted with everything they ate, and when besides all this, they could not make use of any water, nor put their feet on the ground for the heaps of frogs that were everywhere, and were annoyed also by the smell of those that died, they fled the country.
Since then, numerous other unusual instances have been documented, including a storm in Italy in 1840 that deposited thousands of partially germinated Judas Tree seeds native to Central Africa; a dusting of sugar crystals in 1857 in Lake County, Calif.; a rain of hazelnuts over Dublin, Ireland, in 1867; live pond mussels in Paderborn, Germany, in 1892; and jellyfish in Bath, England, in 1894.
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Attention

Rare leatherback turtle washes up on Lolland, Denmark


thelocal.dk
Tue, 11 Aug 2015 19:09 UTC
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© US Fish and Wildlife Service/FlickrOnly four or five leatherback turtles have been spotted in Denmark in the past 100 years.
For the third time in just over one month, an animal not normally found in this part of the world has shown up in Danish waters.

An enormous leatherback turtle weighing several hundred kilos washed up on shore on the island of Lolland over the weekend.

The leatherback sea turtle is the world's largest marine turtle. Its global population is considered vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature but many subpopulations are critically endangered. According to the World Wildlife Fund, leatherbacks have been spotted as far north as the US state of Alaska and as far south as Africa's Cape of Good Hope. It is extremely rare, however, to see one near Denmark.
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Wolf

Huge spike in dog attacks in Cambridgeshire, UK

Raymond Brown
Cambridge News
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 17:06 UTC
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Biting Dog.
Disturbing figures reveal the number of dogs reported to police for being "out of control" in public causing injury in Cambridgeshire has doubled in two years.

The shock data comers amid an increase in the number of hospital admissions nationally for dog bites and attacks with children under 10 most likely to be the victims, according to official statistics.

From 2005 to 2012 the reports numbered from 51 to a high of 74 in each year. But in 2013 the number increased to 101 and last year, latest figures show, it hit 120, according to data released using freedom of information laws.

A total of 46 police cautions were handed out to owners, 35 were charged, 79 were involved in a community resolution, 125 were issued summons, 11 were given a conditional caution and 219 were "filed".

In 47 cases the suspect was not identified, there was 39 cases of insufficient evidence, victims in 32 cases did not want further action and 71 cases were closed as well as five that were not followed up as they were deemed "not in the public interest".
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Attention

Sharks prowl in record numbers on East Coast


The New Zealand Herald
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 16:50 UTC
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© APResearchers captured or tagged a record 2835 sharks from Florida to North Carolina in April and May.
A newly released United States federal study shows a record number of sharks swimming off the coast from Florida to North Carolina.

The Virginian-Pilot reports the increase comes as North Carolina set a record for shark attacks this northern summer.

Eight people have been attacked along the North Carolina coast this year, the most since a Florida group began counting attacks 80 years ago.

The new study shows researchers captured or tagged 2835 sharks from Florida to North Carolina in April and May. That compares with 1831 sharks tagged in the most recent survey in 2012. The largest captured was a 3.8m tiger shark.

Source: AP
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Attention

Black bear attacks man near Los Alamos, New Mexico

Staci Matlock
The New Mexican
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 16:10 UTC
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© New Mexican file photoA female black bear that onlookers named Guadalupe hangs out along the Santa Fe River last September before state Game and Fish Department officials tranquilized and relocated her.
A black bear attacked a man running on a trail near Los Alamos this week, marking the third bear attack on a person this year in New Mexico, the state Department of Game and Fish said Thursday.

Officials said 2015 has seen the most bear attacks on humans in 16 years.

The Canyon de Valle Trail north of Los Alamos, where the attack occurred Wednesday, has been closed until further notice, and officers are looking for the adult female bear.

The 56-year-old Los Alamos man suffered deep flesh wounds and scratches to his head, chest and hands from fending off the bear, but he was able to walk 2.5 miles to his car, Game and Fish officials said. The man flagged down a motorist, who drove him to Los Alamos Medical Center. He was later transported to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center for treatment.

The man, who was not identified, told officials that he had been running on the trail at about 7 p.m. Wednesday when he came across the female bear and her cub. The cub ran up a tree, and he tried to scare the mother bear away by making noise, the man said. But the bear charged and knocked him into a streambed. The mother bear then began biting and clawing at his head, according to a Game and Fish Department report.

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