Animals
S


Attention

Elephant kills its mahout and runs off into the jungle with tourist family still sitting on its back in Thailand

Sara Malm
Daily Mail, UK
Wed, 26 Aug 2015 11:57 UTC
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The elephant 'went berserk' during a guided tour in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and killed its handler before running off into the jungle with a family-of-three from China on its back (stock image)
Thailand's use of elephants as tourist attractions has come under fire yet again after an animal killed its keeper and ran off with a family still on its back during a jungle tour in Chiang Mai.

The elephant reportedly 'went berserk', during a group ride on Wednesday, attacking and killing its rider and taking off into the jungle with three terrified Chinese tourists, police said

The Chinese family, two parents and their young child, were rescued soon after as other elephant keepers came to the rescue.

'The mahout [elephant keeper] who was killed was not familiar with the elephant. They (the tourists) are safe now,' Colonel Thawatchai Thepboon, police commander of Mae Wang district in Chiang Mai province said.

Police said the incident took place at 9.30am local time as a Chinese family of three - a father, mother and a young child - took a ride on the back of a male elephant.

Comment: See also these reports from last year: Elephant kills mahout in India

Get off my back! Elephant tramples another mahout to death in India - third killing in less than a week

Elephant gores owner to death in Kerala, India - 4th mahout from the region to die in a fortnight

Second mahout to be killed by elephant within 5 days in Kerala, India

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Attention

Dead humpback whale winched out of water near Stegna, Poland


thenews.pl
Tue, 25 Aug 2015 18:07 UTC
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© PAP/Piotr WittmanThe whale was winched out on Tuesday.
A 20 ton whale which was beached on the Baltic coast in northern Poland was lifted out of the water on Tuesday afternoon.

The first crane brought in on Tuesday morning turned out to be too weak to lift the dead aquatic mammal.

However, the second machine completed the task. It was no easy feat however, as gases which had accumulated inside the animal over the last couple of warm days posed a risk of the whale exploding.

Marine biologists from the station on Hel Peninsula were called out on Saturday to deal with the dead whale washed up on one of the sandbanks near the locality of Stegna, eastwards of Gdańsk.

It is suspected that this might be the humpback seen some months ago in the Gulf of Gdańsk.

The conditions in the partly shallow gulf are far too difficult for whales, and this one probably couldn't find its way out on to the open water.
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Wolf

Wolf pack seen in California for the first time in 100 years


BBC
Fri, 21 Aug 2015 16:11 UTC
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A pack of wolves has been spotted in Northern California for the first time in nearly 100 years.
The appearance of the five grey wolf pups and two adults could signal a return of the animals, which have not been found in the state since 1924.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife first discovered the pack this month in Siskiyou County near the Oregon border using a remote camera.

The wolves have been named the "Shasta Pack" after a nearby mountain.

"This news is exciting for California," Charlton Bonham of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said on Thursday. "We knew wolves would eventually return home to the state and it appears now is the time."
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Attention

Hundreds of seabirds wash up either dead or dying along the Oregon and Southwest Washington Coast


kgw.com
Tue, 25 Aug 2015 20:16 UTC
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© Keely Chalmers/KGWHundreds of these birds are washing up ashore on Oregon beaches, the result of unusually warm ocean conditions.
Hundreds of birds are washing ashore either dead or dying along the Oregon and Southwest Washington Coast.

The majority of them are common murres, which are a type of large auk bird.

Researchers say that the die-off started about three weeks ago.

Since then the Wildlife Center of the North Coast, which helps rehabilitate sick or injured sea-birds, has been getting calls daily about the problem. Right now - they are caring for close to a hundred birds- with about ten common murres coming in daily. Almost all of them are starving.

"They're totally emaciated, sometimes there's injuries, other times there's not," said Laurel Berblinger, a volunteer at the center.

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Attention

Elephant tramples curio seller to death in Zimbabwe


news24.com
Tue, 25 Aug 2015 20:06 UTC
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© Conservation Action Trust
A Zimbabwean man has been trampled to death by an elephant in the top resort town of Victoria Falls, the authorities announced on Tuesday.

The 32-year-old man was a curio seller in the town. The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority said in a statement that he was killed on Sunday.

The man, who was with a friend, came face-to-face with a female elephant with a calf.

"It is reported that the elephant charged at them and the two tried to escape, [but] unfortunately one was attacked and killed," said the parks authority.

The state-run Chronicle newspaper identified the dead man as Member Ncube.
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Attention

Bowhead whale found dead, beached near Tuktoyaktuk, Canada


cbc.ca
Tue, 25 Aug 2015 19:22 UTC
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© Fisheries and Oceans CanadaThis photo, taken from a helicopter on Aug. 21, shows a dead bowhead whale on its back on a beach north of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T. Its tail is submerged in water.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada is investigating after a bowhead whale was found dead on the Northwest Territories' Arctic coastline.

The cause of the whale's death is so far undetermined but there is no reason to link it to 30 dead whales found this summer in Alaska and six found off British Columbia, said a spokesperson for the department in an email.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada received a report of a beached bowhead whale near Toker Point, about 25 kilometres north of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., last Thursday.

The spokesperson says beachcast bowheads are not uncommon in the area, with 24 events on record between 1987 and 2014. ‎
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Attention

Minke whale washes ashore in County Clare, Ireland

Andrew Hamilton
Irish Examiner
Tue, 25 Aug 2015 19:14 UTC
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A Minke whale, washed ashore in north Clare 13 days ago, will be allowed to decompose naturally rather than being removed by the authorities.

The mature whale was roughly six metres long and was estimated to weigh in excess of six tonnes.

The female mammal came in with the tide on August 12, at an area known as Hayes Hole between Doolin and Liscannor. Located at a difficult-to-reach spot, it is close to a popular bathing area at Clahane. The county council said it would be impossible to remove an animal of that size from an inaccessible location.

Experts from the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) have examined the whale and advised that the carcass did not currently pose a risk to public health.
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Bizarro Earth

Death of 30 whales off Alaskan coast baffles scientists, could be linked to toxic bloom


RT
Tue, 25 Aug 2015 16:34 UTC
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© Ruptly
The death of 30 whales off the coast of Alaska may be linked to a rapid growth of toxic phytoplankton in the local marine environment that can paralyze as well as kill, a University of Alaska scientist told RT.

While a federal investigation has been opened into the giant mammals' mysterious demise - a situation that's been labeled an "unusual mortality event" - one of the leading theories is that an algal bloom is to blame, as they have been the cause of many similar events in the past.

"It's a bloom of phytoplankton in the ocean that actually releases toxins," Dr. Bree Witteveen, a marine mammal specialist at the University of Alaska, told RT. "Those get accumulated into various preys and it works its way up the food chain, and can cause paralysis and death."

She added that these whales were not beaching themselves, but had died at sea and were washed ashore. It's not exactly surprising for dead whales to wash ashore, but the number of instances recorded this year is particularly unusual.


Comment: There has been a spate of whale deaths recently. Something is certainly up in the oceans;

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Attention

Dead whale washes up on beach in Angourie, Australia

Tim Howard
The Daily Examiner
Tue, 25 Aug 2015 20:35 UTC
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Sharks have partially devoured the carcass of a whale washed up on Back Beach at Angourie over the weekend.
Local authorities will leave the stinking carcass of a whale washed up on Back Beach at Angourie to the ghost crabs and other organisms.

Media officer for the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage Lawrence Orel said National Parks and Wildlife Service rangers investigating the scene had decided to let nature take its course.

The dead whale, which has been partially eaten by sharks, washed up on the beach on Saturday.

Mr Orel said the ghost crabs and other beach organisms would quickly finish what the sharks had started.

"It's already partially buried by the natural action on the beach," he said.

"There's only two or three square metres of it still visible."

Mr Orel said the evidence of shark activity on the whale's body had to be expected.
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Attention

Whale washes up on southern Iranian coast


Press TV
Mon, 24 Aug 2015 20:27 UTC
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The photo shows the decomposing body of a 13-meter-long whale washed up on a beach in the southern Iranian province of Bushehr.
The decomposing body of a whale is washed up on a beach in southern Iran, with experts providing conflicting accounts on why the giant creature has died.

Iranian media said Monday that the animal was spotted a few days ago on a beach near the port city of Dayyer in southwestern province of Bushehr, a first such incidence in decades in the gas-rich area.

Experts have begun assessing how the animal had actually died while people were also pondering what would be the best way to dispose of the large beast.

The head of the local environment department said biometric and sampling tests have been carried out on the carcass of the whale, showing that the animal died after hitting a big vessel.

Abdullah Najafi did not elaborate whether there were broken bones or hemorrhaging visible on the body of the whale which could prove a ship strike. He said the animal is 13.30 meter long (43.6 feet) and has a weight of around 8 tons.
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