Wildlife

"A coyote puppy suffered what would have been a deadly encounter with a cholla cactus on Tuesday. Thankfully, three good Samaritans came to its rescue and their story is now going viral." - Kristin from Bookmarklet

"The pup then crawled onto the nearby Pebblebrook Golf Course, with Maxwell trailing behind and calling for help. A golf course maintenance worker, Jose Soto, and assistant superintendent Shawn Bordine came to the puppy's aid, the news site reports. According to CBS Atlanta, the pair used pliers to remove the cholla cactus spines, which AZ Central reports were embedded at least a... more... - Kristin

"The puppy's mother hovered close by the whole while but miraculously didn't interfere while the men were treating him. "She knew what was going on,” Maxwell told a local ABC affiliate, "They were trying to save her baby." The coyote was soon reunited with his mother and four siblings thanks to Soto and Bordine, who ABC reports also rescued a young hawk last year when it fell from its nest." - Kristin

"The majority of our species are suffering from habitat loss and climate change; species such as willow warbler, nightingale, wheatear and nightjar will be adversely affected by the massive catch in Egypt." - Halil from Bookmarklet

this isn't the 1st time Egypt has come under scrutiny for it's poor animal welfare news, last year there was a scandel with the ship full of cows, the AC had broken and the ship was also broke down off shore and the poor cows were suffocating and dying, then there was the slaughter house scandel. Either Egypt is particularly bad, or they are getting all the attention, while other nations go unnoticed. - Halil

:( - Kelli H. from Android

"Rather than search for changes in genes themselves, Pipes and her colleagues took an indirect approach, looking for differences in the activity of genes in the foxes’ brains. The team collected two brain parts, the prefrontal cortex and amygdala, from a dozen aggressive foxes and a dozen tame ones. The prefrontal cortex, an area at the front of the brain, is involved in decision making and in controlling social behavior, among other tasks. The amygdala, a pair of almond-size regions on either side of the brain, helps process emotional information. Pipes found that the activity of hundreds of genes in the two brain regions differed between the groups of affable and hostile foxes. For example, aggressive animals had increased activity of some genes for sensing dopamine. Pipes speculated that tame animals’ lower levels of dopamine sensors might make them less anxious." - Jessie from Bookmarklet

"In a different sort of analysis, Pipes discovered that all aggressive foxes carry one form of the GRM3 glutamate receptor gene, while a majority of the friendly foxes have a different variant of the gene. In people, genetic variants of GRM3 have been linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mood disorders. Other genes involved in transmitting glutamate signals, which help regulate mood, had increased activity in tame foxes, Pipes said." - Jessie

"Witnessing whales as they break water surfaces (aka breaching) is an enthralling experience in the wild. From a chin slap to a full-body aerial, this lunging behavior displays the impressive power and imposing size of these marine behemoths. Seasickness, extreme patience, luck, timing, balance — all factors in seizing moments to shoot exciting whale shots like the ones featured here. See more photos in the Whale Breaches gallery. Photos from Justin Hart, Lacewing!, EricOPhotos, evanffitzer, and Tom Clifton" - John (bird whisperer) from Bookmarklet

beautiful photoshoot ! http://bit.ly/LhxGQi - SchoolandUniversity.com

"You might not think it to look at them, but prairie dogs and humans actually share an important commonality -- and it's not just their complex social structures, or their habit of standing up on two feet (aww, like people). As it turns out, prairie dogs actually have one of the most sophisticated forms of vocal communication in the natural world, really not so unlike our own." - esther from Bookmarklet

After more than 25 years of studying the calls of prairie dog in the field, one researcher managed to decode just what these animals are saying. And the results show that praire dogs aren't only extremely effective communicators, they also pay close attention to detail. - esther

"A wolf cub yawns as it takes its first steps outside its den in Vienna Zoo. The cubs were born on April 27, in a natural den which was dug by the parent wolf in the semi-natural Arctic wolf enclosure in the zoo." - Jessie from Bookmarklet

please see for more details http://ff.im/1fs2eO - Halil from Bookmarklet

Unfortunately, there are no signs of any more birds so far returning from their migration to Ethiopia. The returning female, known as ‘Zenobia' was last year paired to ‘Odeinat', the last male. Odeinat was fitted with a small satellite tag that stopped transmitting in southern Saudi Arabia in July 2012 - Halil from Bookmarklet

My heart cries for the people suffering in Syria, I don't want you to think that this post is in someway trying to detract from the countries plight, which we are to a lesser or greater extent guilty of fueling via foreign policies. - Halil

"Foxes rely on non-evaporative heat loss for dissipating heat, and can increase conductance by behavioral or morphological mechanisms. When ambient temperatures rise above the thermal neutral zone, small canids employ evaporative cooling by panting. Small desert canids can be independent of drinking water if evaporative water loss can be restricted. Low basal metabolic rate, a wide thermal neutral zone, seasonal change in fur density and body fat, and active heat dissipation by a change in skin vasoconstriction are additional mechanisms to avoid heat load without the need to evaporate water." - Jessie from Bookmarklet

"Foxes are capable of maintaining water balance for an indefinite time with water input from the diet alone. All 5 fox species in the Saharo-Arabian region include fruit and vegetative material, a water-rich food component in their diet. However, kit and swift foxes feed almost exclusively on rodents. Foxes are able to produce concentrated urine, although not at the levels known in... more... - Jessie

My office has crappy air conditioning so I will be trying several of these this summer. - Jessie

John's post made me look up some figures about how many are actually left in the world and found this which makes me both sad and happy, but mainly sad that the human race is still so ignorant, i don't mean that in a rude way, but seriously, we are failing to educate people, i know ancient traditions are hard to deal with, but it's 2013 for goodness sakes :'( - Halil from Bookmarklet

Also so strange that the Northern White Rhino and the Sourthern White Rhino are not sub-categories of the White Rhino species but that the Northern White Rhino is a species of it's own separated genetically for over a million years. I have had the privilege of being up close and personal with the less at risk Southern White Rhino and they are just amazing and wonderful creatures. It makes me so sad whenever I hear about any poaching of any type of these creatures. :( - Rachel Lea Fox

Reading the comments on the article/image is awesome. "I would pet the shit out of that beautiful rhino." "He looks so epic and full of wisdom." "fuck humans, that he NEEDS to be guarded." - Hookuh Tinypants

Issued by the DEA on 30 April 2013. - Halil from Bookmarklet

"Here we use a 30-year time series of wolf, coyote, and fox relative abundance from the state of Minnesota, USA, to show that wolves suppress coyote populations, which in turn releases foxes from top-down control by coyotes. In contrast to mesopredator release theory, which has often considered the consequence of top predator removal in a three-species interaction chain (e.g., coyote–fox–prey), the presence of the top predator releases the smaller predator in a four-species interaction chain. Thus, heavy predation by abundant small predators might be more similar to the historical ecosystem before top-predator extirpation. The restructuring of predator communities due to the loss or restoration of top predators is likely to alter the size spectrum of heavily consumed prey with important implications for biodiversity and human health." - Jessie from Bookmarklet

"A recently published study on fawn survival at Fort Rucker showed there was hardly any survival to speak of. At Fort Rucker and in other recent studies in the Southeast, fawn survival ranged from 20 and 23 percent, and that is translating to low recruitment rates of 0.2 to 0.25 fawns per doe. Recruitment rate is the number of surviving fawns per adult doe in the pre-hunt population. In a healthy deer herd, recruitment rates should be 0.6 to 0.8., and the fawn survival rates should be at about 50 percent. A decade ago, you’d have been scoffed at for saying coyotes kill a significant number of fawns in the Southeast, but it’s a fact backed by the latest research. Now, there is growing evidence coyotes are actually limiting deer populations. Even more shocking is that fawn-eating coyotes, when combined with overharvest of female deer, may be causing a deer-management black hole called a predator pit." - Jessie from Bookmarklet

"In the predator-pit scenario, if a deer population is reduced past a certain point by hunter harvest, it will then get hammered even more by coyotes to a point the population is so low the coyotes won’t let the deer herd recover." - Jessie

"The sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) is a small, omnivorous, arboreal gliding possum belonging to the marsupial infraclass. The common name refers to its preference for sugary nectarous foods and ability to glide through the air, much like a flying squirrel.[5] Due to convergent evolution, they have very similar appearance and habits to the flying squirrel, but are not closely related.[6] The scientific name, Petaurus breviceps, translates from Latin as "short-headed rope-dancer", a reference to their canopy acrobatics.[7]" - Jessie from Bookmarklet

If I had a nickel for everytime I've been called a "short-headed rope dancer"...... - Jkram|ɯɐɹʞſ

"The reintroduction of gray wolves (Canis lupus) to Yellowstone National Park (NP) in 1995 [15] provides a research opportunity for comparing the response of an ecosystem to climate change in scenarios with and without direct human alteration of species composition. Wolf restoration is already realizing a change on the Yellowstone ecosystem by altering the quantity and timing of carrion availability to scavengers. Ravens (Corvus corax), bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos), magpies (Pica pica), coyotes (Canis latrans), grizzly bears (Ursus arctos), and black bears (Ursus americanus) are each frequent visitors at wolf kills and are highly reliant on winter carrion for survival and reproductive success." - Jessie from Bookmarklet

"Prior to wolf reintroduction, winter mortality of elk (Cervus elaphus), the most abundant ungulate in Yellowstone, was largely dependent on snow depth (SDTH) [23]. Deep snows lead to increased metabolic activity [24] and decreased access to food resources, thereby causing elk to weaken and die [25]. In the absence of wolves, carrion was plentiful both during severe winters and at the... more... - Jessie

"As we demonstrate here, climate change serves to sharply reduce the amount of late-winter carrion available to Yellowstone's scavengers (see Figure 4). According to our statistical and dynamic models, however, this reduction is much less pronounced in the presence of wolves. In our statistical model, for instance, we found an 11% reduction with wolves versus a 66% reduction without... more... - Jessie

I'm assuming it's now recently declared extinct cousin the Formosan clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa brachyura) was similar in appearance to a lesser or greater extent :( see Jessie's post here: http://ff.im/1ffg2G - Halil from Bookmarklet

Indeed! - ᏓᏰ #team Monique from iPhone

been seeing these in my garden lately, never seen them before and wondered what they were, but now i do, thanks John! :-) - Halil from Bookmarklet

on a side note, i don't see the burrowing bees anymore :( - Halil

"台灣雲豹即將正式宣告滅絕！根據台灣和美國生態學者組成的研究團隊，歷經13年，動用400台相機，在1500處紅外線感應拍攝點，把全台灣雲豹可能出沒的地點，大規模的追蹤分析，卻得到令人感傷的調查報告，雲豹已經在台灣滅絕！主要原因就是人類獵捕和過度開發！" - Jessie from Bookmarklet

I think they suspected it was extinct about 100 years ago, but then around 1990 a couple of fresh pelts surfaced (probably from aboriginal hunters) so they launched this project to see if there were any live ones left. So I don't know what the status would be, since no one's seen a live one in a hundred years or so. - Jessie

Wildlife Crime Officer PC Emerson Buckingham said: "This bird was most probably alive when it was attacked and may have starved to death as it would have been unable to drink or eat with its beak bound. We continue to work with the RSPB to investigate the cause of the buzzard's death. Any member of the public who finds dead birds of prey should contact police and are advised not to touch them." - Halil from Bookmarklet

I'm speechless :( - Halil

"After a final sighting in 1991, the Madagascar pochard was thought to have vanished for good. But this diving duck was rediscovered in 2006 when a flock of 22 individuals was found on Lake Matsaborimena in northern Madagascar by conservationists during an expedition. Soon after Madagascar pochard eggs were taken and incubated in a joint captive breeding program by Durrell, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), the Peregrine Fund, Asity Madagascar, and Madagascar government, which recently announced that the population—both captive and wild—has nearly quadrupled." - John (bird whisperer) from Bookmarklet

"Since the commencement of the breeding program in 2009, the world's population of the Madagascar pochard has increased nearly four-fold with the successful rearing of 38 ducklings. To date, the population stands at almost 80 individuals. With the second breeding season around the corner, the number of enclosures at the breeding center in rural Madagascar has increased, allowing the... more... - John (bird whisperer)

the grouper points its nose toward the concealed prey and starts to shake its body from side to side. This signal is the equivalent of ringing a dinner bell—food is here! That’s when the interspecies killing team goes to work. The wrasse is the strongman, smashing into the reef and breaking it apart—forcing its prey to flee or get pulverized. “[Wrasse] have a very powerful jaw, and they can destroy holes that aren’t well constructed,” said study co-author Redouan Bshary, a behavioral ecologist at the Université de Neuchâtel in Switzerland. “They can break coral.” “Prey will evacuate holes just to avoid getting smashed together with their hiding place,” added Bshary, who observed the behavior during scuba diving research trips to the Red Sea. While less destructive, morays are no less deadly. Their slim bodies allow them to squeeze into the crevasse to track the prey within. If the fish manages to escape both both wrasse and moray, then the grouper gets one more shot at a meal. (Also... more... - Halil from Bookmarklet

:o - Halil

"Brian Hare, an anthropologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had previously shown that dogs are more likely than undomesticated animals - even chimps - to be able to communicate in this way with humans. But was this social sophistication something that was specifically bred for during their domestication, or was it a by-product? An opportunity to find out came from the Siberian foxes, which have been bred for friendliness but have had limited contact with humans. The project was set up in 1959 by Dmitry K. Belyaev of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk to examine the genetics of domestication. Each fox is tested at the age of seven months to see whether they approach humans (and whether they bite). The 'friendlier' foxes are bred, and a separate, control, population is bred randomly." - Jessie from Bookmarklet

"Hare and his team studied fox kits that had spent "probably a grand total of 20 minutes" with humans, according to Hare, so they could not have learned how to interact with them. Introduced into a room with two hiding places for food and a human pointing and gazing intently at the one spot that actually concealed food, the 'tame' foxes took the hint and found it, whereas the 'wild' ones were flummoxed. The researchers report their results in Current Biology1. " - Jessie

"Hare believes that his results have implications for the oft-debated origins of human social intelligence. Perhaps humans found it favourable to be less aggressive and fearful, and to be more tolerant and cooperative, and these changes brought along with them a boost in cognitive skills. "Selection for being smart might not have been the first step," suggests Hare. "First you need to have a change in how you view your social world, so we had a platform from which these new abilities can evolve." " - Jessie

for more info about this plant, please see http://ff.im/1feVv0 - Halil from Bookmarklet

Ophioglossum (adder's-tongue) is a genus of about 25-30 species of Ophioglossales in the family Ophioglossaceae, with a cosmopolitan but primarily tropical and subtropical distribution. The name Ophioglossum comes from the Greek, and means "snake-tongue". -- extra info: Chromosome evolution in the genus Ophioglossum L. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi... - Halil from Bookmarklet

There is little info available on the internet about the genus, and the red list doesn't have a full evalution of all the species, so difficult to establish what risks the genus is actually facing. - Halil

"Federal authorities intend to remove endangered species protections for all gray wolves in the Lower 48 states, carving out an a exception for a small pocket of about 75 Mexican wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico, according to a draft document obtained by The Times. The sweeping rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would eliminate protection for wolves 18 years after the government reestablished the predators in the West, where they had been hunted to extinction. Their reintroduction was a success, with the population growing to the thousands. But their presence has always drawn protests across the Intermountain West from state officials, hunters and ranchers who lost livestock to the wolves. They have lobbied to remove the gray wolf from the endangered list." - Jessie from Bookmarklet

Yeah, it sounds like this decision was heavily political. - Jessie

"The rediscovery of a mystery animal in a museum's underground storeroom proves that a non-native 'big cat' prowled the British countryside at the turn of the last century. The animal's skeleton and mounted skin was analysed by a multi-disciplinary team of Durham University scientists and fellow researchers at Bristol, Southampton and Aberystwyth universities and found to be a Canadian lynx -- a carnivorous predator more than twice the size of a domestic cat." - Jessie from Bookmarklet

LOLOL no worries Halil, I should have copied you on the original post. This popped up in a science blog yesterday and I thought it was a really interesting story. - Jessie

More than 1,000 seabirds have been washed up dead on the south coast of England, thought killed by a chemical released from ships. Wildlife experts have been scouring the beaches of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset in case any of the affected guillemots, puffins and other bird species have survived. An RSPCA birdlife centre has been treating hundreds of birds which have been found close to death and exhausted after their feathers became coated in a thick, sticky sludge. The birds have been coated with polyisobutene (PIB) which is thought to be released into the seas when ships carrying it wash out their tanks. Although the substance is not toxic, it reacts with seawater to create a sticky substance that coats the birds' plumage. Several thousand birds are thought to have starved as their feathers have become saturated with the sludge and they been unable to fly or catch fish. - Halil from Bookmarklet

In some areas, entire colonies of guillemots are feared to have been destroyed on a coast where flocks are relatively isolated. Grahame Madge, a spokesman for the RSPB, said: "Some local populations could have been completely wiped out. - Halil

This story has been around for a few months, so why isn't anything being done? - Halil

"Our relationship with, treatment of and scientific understanding about the wolf (formally, the gray wolf, Canis lupus) have always been a reflection of humankind’s beliefs about our own place in the universe. From at least the 18 th century until the first part of the 20 th century, western civilization, in particular the United States, based its perspective of the earth and of its natural resources, forests, wildlife, rivers and oceans on viewpoints developed in that period of human history known as the Enlightenment." - Jessie from Bookmarklet

"Elimination of the wolf in this country and elsewhere was based on certain expected cultural biases in addition to a philosophical view of the wild that anointed humans as conquerors. European-Americans viewed the very existence of what was once the most widely ranging land mammal on the planet as incompatible with their way of life. Yet, historical attacks on humans by rabid wolves... more... - Jessie

"Thus, a comprehensive discussion of the social and ecological benefits of restored wolf populations necessitates, as precursor, an evaluation of what is meant by benefit and answers precisely the question of who or what, exactly, is benefiting. A new discussion is justified now, too, for other reasons. First, recent research indicates that our immense effort devoted to lethal control... more... - Jessie

"Vietnamese police say they have seized 53 king cobras from a car in Hanoi and arrested the driver. Officer Dang Van Hanh said Monday the live snakes were taken to a wildlife rescue center near the capital where they treated before being released into the wild. King cobras are the world's longest venomous snake, and grow up to 5.5 meters (18) feet. The meat of the king cobras is considered a delicacy by some in Vietnam, where hunting and trading the snakes is banned. The snakes are also sometimes preserved in traditional medicines." - Jessie from Bookmarklet