Animals
S


Attention

Baby melonhead whale found stranded near Yamba, Australia


The Daily Examiner
Tue, 07 Apr 2015 17:08 UTC
Image
This whale calf was found stranded near Yamba at the weekend
Staff from Dolphin Marine Magic were called to assist in the treatment and care of a stranded whale calf on a beach south of Yamba.

DMM staff travelled to the beach and worked with volunteers from ORRCA to stabilise the whale for several hours on Saturday until veterinary assistance arrived. Veterinary inspection of the whale revealed that it was an extremely young Melonhead Whale calf and therefore unable to be released back into the ocean.

"The size of the whale and its lack of developed teeth indicates that this was a young calf still highly dependent on its mother for survival," DMM Veterinarian Dr Duan March said.

"The animal was heavily emaciated and in very poor body condition which suggests it had been separated from its mother and had not been feeding for some time.
Read More...
Attention

Strange animal behaviour: Giraffe is gored to death by an antelope at Norwegian zoo

Sara Malm
Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 07 Apr 2015 16:46 UTC
Image
Tragedy: Melvin the giraffe was attacked by an antelope walking in the same enclosure at Kristiansand Zoo in southern Norway
Dozens of children witnessed a giraffe being gored to death by an antelope at a Norwegian zoo on Easter Monday.

Melvin the giraffe had got his head stuck in a fence when he was attacked by an eland antelope walking in the same enclosure at Kristiansand zoo, around 200 miles south of Oslo.

Zoo vets rushed to the scene, but were unable to save the five-year-old giraffe, who died in front of shocked families.

Around 30 people witnessed the unprovoked attack at Dyreparken Kristiansand on Monday.

Melvin was a firm favourite among young visitors, having been named in a readers' competition in a national newspaper when he was born at the zoo in 2010.
Read More...
Wolf

Aggressive coyote attacks man in Saddle River, New Jersey

Jim Norman
The Record
Mon, 06 Apr 2015 16:26 UTC
Image
© Stephen W. Oachs Coyote
A man working in his garden in the Twin Brooks area of the borough was attacked Monday by a coyote that was then hunted down and euthanized, authorities said.

The man, whose identity was not released, was taken to a hospital for treatment and then released for recovery at home, according to a report on the Saddle River Police Department's Facebook page.

The man was attacked from behind by the animal and managed to escape, the police report said.

Officers who investigated the incident learned that the same coyote had attacked a neighbor's dog last week, requiring the dog's owner to have it treated at a veterinarian's office, police said.

In addition, the police report said, workers in the area reported having seen the coyote several times on Monday, acting aggressively toward other dogs.
Read More...
Binoculars

Eurasian shorebird (wader) turns up far inland near Winslow, Indiana

Ryan Sabalow
Indianapolis Star
Tue, 07 Apr 2015 13:54 UTC
Image
© John KendallIndiana birdwatcher John Kendall took this photo of a black-tailed godwit on Saturday in Gibson County.
It was Friday morning, and Jeremy Ross needed to head to home to help with the kids.

But Ross, newly initiated into the world of bird watching, couldn't resist a few more minutes looking through his spotting scope.

He'd hoped to spot some of the long-beaked shorebirds that often stop in Indiana during their spring migration to feed in fields along Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge.

He was driving down a bumpy, muddy dirt road near Francisco in Gibson County when he spotted a bird that just didn't look right.

"I got the binoculars out and watched it land," Ross said. "It was real pretty. But with the black and white and orange, I thought 'That's just not normal. I don't know what this is, but it isn't normal.' "

Ross had spotted a black-tailed godwit, a gull-sized shorebird native to Europe and Asia. Ross' find has made the middle- and high-school arts teacher a celebrity of sorts among birdwatchers. After all, they might spend a lifetime tallying birds and never find one so rare.
Read More...
Binoculars

Rare sighting as 4 American ducks are blown off course to Standlake, UK


Witney Gazette
Mon, 06 Apr 2015 19:52 UTC
Image
Rare sighting as American ducks are blown off course to Standlake
Birdwatchers in Standlake Common were astonished at an "extremely rare" sighting of four birds from North America.

Keen twitcher Dave Doherty first spotted the four ring-necked ducks resting in pit 60 at the nature reserve at about 7am on Saturday.

Fellow birdwatcher 39-year-old Dave Morgan, 39, found out about the discovery and rushed to see them.

He said: "To see four of these birds together, so far inland, is extremely rare.

"I saw three of these birds together once before, but that was on the Isle of Scilly."

Mr Morgan added the birds were about two or three years old and could have been blown off course in recent storms.
Read More...
Cow

Police chase down escaped buffalo in Round Rock, Texas

Ben Hooper
upi.com
Fri, 03 Apr 2015 19:49 UTC
Image
© Round Rock Police Department Facebook pagePolice chase down escaped buffalo
A Texas police department shared video of squad cars trying to chase down an escaped buffalo seen wandering the streets Friday morning.

The Round Rock Police Department shared a video on their Facebook page Friday showing squad cars chasing the loose North American bison, commonly called a buffalo, down a city street.

"We have been able to get the loose livestock back to its owners. Yes, that is a buffalo our officers and Animal Control secured near Timothy Dr. and Forest Ridge. Thankfully, no one was injured while it was out," police said in the post.

Police said officers and an Animal Control unit responded at 7:37 a.m. Friday to a "loose livestock" report and they were able to lure the bison to a secure area.

Read More...
Wolf

3,000 dog bite cases reported in 3 months in Hyderabad, India


The New Indian Express
Sat, 04 Apr 2015 17:59 UTC
Image
Street dogs
With rising temperatures, stray dogs are creating mayhem in different parts of the city.

Gopi of Malkajgiri, who met with an accident came to Gandhi Hospital for treatment, was attacked by street dogs on Friday.

Many dog bite cases have been reported from Rahmatnagar, Sri Krishna Nagar and Karmanghat and other parts of the city. In the last three months, nearly 3,000 dog bites cases have been reported in Greater Hyderabad limits.

In view of prevailing heat, dog bite cases are likely to increase as stray dogs go wild in summer due to dehydration.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has not been able to tackle the increasing menace of stray dogs, owing to uproar from animal welfare organisations.
Read More...
Wolf

5-year-old girl mauled by stray dogs dies in Mumbai, India

George Mendonca
The Times of India
Wed, 01 Apr 2015 17:44 UTC
Image
Stray dogs
A five-year-old girl from Khutari village in Panvel taluka died after been attacked by four stray dogs on Sunday around 7am. The dogs bit the minor girl with such severity that a nerve of her neck was damaged causing her death within 30 minutes after being admitted to the hospital.

Pratiksha Sharu accompanied by her sibling Meena (7) had gone to answer nature's call in the open near her house, when the four stray dogs started barking at her. The dogs chased her, after she panicked and started running away, and soon pounced upon her and bit her all over the body. However, her elder sister managed to escape.

The victim's father Dol Bahadur Sharu (35), who works as a delivery van driver for a private printing press said, "We came to know about the incident only when Meena came home running and told that dogs have bitten Pratiksha. We rushed to the spot behind the parked van and found my daughter lying in a pool of blood. We rushed her to MGM hospital in Kamothe. The doctors declared her dead half an hour after admitting her to the hospital."
Read More...
Attention

Strayed wild elephant gores man to death in Bengal, India


indileak.com
Sat, 04 Apr 2015 14:27 UTC
Image
Some irate Asian elephants
In a sad incident, a young man was gored and killed by a wild elephant herd in Bankura district of West Bengal on Saturday.

According to information, the incident occurred in Kuchkunda village under Barjora forest range of the district in the early hours of Saturday while the 25-year-old man was sleeping outside his house.

A senior forest official said that the village in which the incident occurred is situated on the periphery of a heavily forested tract.

He said that a herd of four elephants had strayed into the village in search of food and water. "The victim was sleeping outside his house when he was unfortunately attacked by one of the four elephants."
Read More...
Question

Common murre (guillemot) die-off along the waterfront in Seward, Alaska

Heidi Zemach
Seward City News
Sat, 04 Apr 2015 19:37 UTC
Image
© Heidi ZemachCommon murre carcass found Sunday at Lowell Point beach.
If you've walked Seward waterfronts lately, you might have come across the carcasses of common murres or you might have spotted bald eagles feasting on them. There's been a lot of the carcasses spotted, and people are calling in, said Dr. Carrie Goertz, a staff veterinarian at Alaska SeaLife Center who also helps manage the stranding program and disaster response. Most of the murres are very thin and emaciated, indicating starvation, she said.

The phenomenon is apparently a murre die-off, or "wreck," and is probably caused by these small marine birds having exhausted their nutritional reserves, with the sudden bouts of cold temperatures and waves of poor weather in mid to late March pushing them over the edge to their deaths. Also, the fish biomass may not have coincided with when they were in the area, plus in a weakened state they're easier prey for predators, or to get hit by cars, the latter two of which she saw examples of in the bird carcasses brought in to ASLC, Goertz said.

The center vets did some cursory examinations of the murres they found, but are sending them to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological Survey for more in-depth examinations.
Read More...