Disorders and Diseases of Hamsters
White Tailed Deer are polyestrous, which means females can be in heat more than once per year. In the most northern reaches of the whitetail range (United States into Canada), females go into heat during November and lasts over 24-hour cycles. However, the whole whitetail mating season is from October to December.
A 9-year-old child was attacked by a coyote that snagged a sock off the youngster who was playing a game of hide-and-seek in Oregon, according to authorities.
The 9-year-old and a 3-year-old were “playing hide-and-seek in their yard” when a wayward coyote approached them and chomped on the older child’s foot last week in Alameda, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department said in a press release.
The coyote then chased the 9-year-old until the child’s father, who was on the front porch, yelled at the rogue animal and scared it off, authorities said. //
Dave Keiter, a district wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, told KATU the attack was a “very unusual incident.”
“The vast majority of encounters with coyotes are entirely benign,” Keiter told the outlet.
Alameda residents have been “strongly encouraged” to supervise their young children playing outside and to scare away coyotes by yelling, using airhorns, and creating other loud noises.
In May 2025, the European Parliament changed the status of wolves in the EU from “strictly protected” to “protected,” which opened the way for its member states to allow hunting under certain conditions, such as protecting livestock. One of the arguments behind this change was that the “tolerance of modern society towards wolves” led to the emergence of “fearless wolves” that are no longer afraid of people.
“Regulators made it clear, though, that there is no scientific evidence to back this up,” says Michael Clinchy, a zoologist at Western University in London, Canada. “So we did the first-of-its-kind study to find out if wolves have really lost their fear of humans. We proved there is no such thing as a fearless wolf.” //
To figure out if wolves really were no longer afraid of humans, Zanette, Clinchy, and their colleagues set up 24 camera traps in the Tuchola Forest. //
When sensors in the traps detected an animal nearby, the system took a photo and played one of three sounds, chosen at random.
The first sound was chirping birds, which the team used as a control. “We chose birds because this is a typical part of forest soundscape and we assumed wolves would not find this threatening,” Clinchy says. The next sound was barking dogs. The team picked this one because a dog is another large carnivore living in the same ecosystem, so it was expected to scare wolves. The third sound was just people talking calmly in Polish. Zanette, Clinchy, and their colleagues quantified the level of fear each sound caused in wolves by measuring how quickly they vacated the area upon hearing it. //
Compared to the control sound of birds, hearing people was twice as likely to make wolves run, and it made them run twice as fast. Comparison to dogs also ended up in our favor: The wolves found humans roughly 20 percent more threatening. The same pattern held true for deer and wild boars, typical prey of wolves, which also got caught in the camera traps.
“These results track with basically the same experiment we did in Africa, where we tested the entire savannah mammal community,” Clinchy says. In that work, Clinchy and Zanette found that leopards, hyenas, and many other animals feared humans more than lions. //
The question, though, is whether we really have reasons to fear such encounters just as much as wolves fear them. “There have been no fatal wolf attacks in Europe in the last 40 years or so,” Clinchy says. In Poland, a wolf bit an 8-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy playing outside in 2018, and a pack of wolves circled two forest workers for about 20 minutes in 2021 without attacking them. That’s about all there is in the Polish big bad wolf files. //
nooneofconsequence Smack-Fu Master, in training
11y
66
Subscriptor
It's 10 year old data but USDA says vultures kill more calves than wolves do. Purdue data says over 2% die in feedlots before slaughter. Last year in Colorado lightning killed more cattle than wolves. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/colorado-cattle-death-lightning-jackson-county-b2552447.html //
rhavenn Ars Tribunus Militum
23y
1,721
Subscriptor++
Moose kill more people yearly, but because they're "delicious", not "scary", and don't predate on farm animals no one gives a shit. Bears and wolves want nothing to do with you, the human. 90%+ of the time you won't even know they're there unless they want you to if you're out hiking or they don't care.
My grandfather used to quote what he claimed was an old Indian saying: "A tree fell in the woods. The eagle saw it. The deer heard it. The bear smelled it." So if you live in bear country, think on that, and handle food accordingly. //
If you're interested in learning more about bear attacks, I recommend the Stephen Herrero book "Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance." It's an excellent work by a Professor of Environmental Science and Biology at the University of Calgary (Canada), who has made a lifelong study of bears and their behavior. In that book, the author notes that black bears are actually more likely to attack humans with predatory intent than grizzlies. A grizzly may rush you because you got too close, or because you're near its cubs, near a carcass it has claimed, or because it's just having a bad day. A black bear is more inclined to try to eat you. The prevalent wisdom with griz is to avoid any show of aggression, but to a black bear, make yourself look big, make a lot of noise, and if it attacks, fight. //
Dr. Dealgood
2 hours ago
If they want to eat us, then we should return the courtesy.
Bear meat is tasty, but must be thoroughly cooked as they are rife with parasites.
By the 1990s, federal thinking had changed. That's because without wolves atop the food chain, park wildlife drifted out of balance.
Coyotes were all over the place, killing everything in sight, even if it wasn’t diseased and slow. They sharply reduced the beaver population, whose dams made the ponds that caused delicious vegetation and aspen to flourish, which sheltered and fed abundant wildlife and held stream banks in place, especially during spring floods.
Without the threat of wolves culling their weak members, elk had taken over some valleys, consuming trees and plants that other species needed. //
For acclimation, the Canadian creatures were kept first in a large fenced area with minimal human interaction, though some mornings the four-legged prisoners found road-kill strewn around.
After a few months, the team of biologists and naturalists left the gates open.
Strangely, nothing happened for days.
Then, the humans grasped the wolves’ message: The wily animals didn’t trust human gates. So, the men cut a hole in the fence. And just like that, the wolves were sprinting into their new lives in a new territory. //
Ten years after No. 7 and friends arrived from Canada, the park had nearly 150 wolves. They’d become top of the food chain. The coyote population dwindled, as did other sick or weak wildlife. Elk changed their grazing locations and let lowlands recover. Sometimes, lucky tourists would create minor traffic jams as they stopped to watch the wolves at a distance, lounging in the sun or loping into the shade.
An international team led by researchers at Colorado State University has found that human contact with wild armadillos — including eating the meat — has contributed to extremely high infection rates of a pathogen that can cause leprosy in Pará, Brazil.
Mycobacterium leprae can cause leprosy, a chronic disease characterized by lesions of the skin and nerve damage, in humans. Other researchers have previously documented transmission of M. leprae to humans by nine-banded armadillos in the southern United States.
The findings from this new research have implications for public health education programs related to these mammals and zoonotic transmission, or the spread of infection between animals and people. //
But the most startling finding was in people who ate armadillo meat frequently — more than once a month and, in some cases, twice a week. The strength of the antibody in these individuals was 50 percent higher than the other groups. //
Spencer recommends wearing gloves when cleaning the carcass, and make sure to cook the meat until it is well-done.
“Your risk of picking up the disease from eating well-cooked meat is almost zero,” he said.
A female pygmy hippopotamus calf was born at the Metro Richmond Zoo in early December, marking the third calf of the endangered species to be born at the zoo in the last five years, officials said.
The mother hippo Iris gave birth to the yet-to-be-named calf on Dec. 9 and the zoo is currently holding a contest to name the new calf. //
The new baby had a neonatal exam and weighed in at 15 pounds, a mere fraction of the 600 pounds officials say fully grown pygmy hippos can boast. //
When the hippo was declared endangered in 2015, there were only about 2,500 mature ones left, and even then officials were pulling that from a 1993 population estimate, according to the Zoological Society of London.
Now, in a revelation that's eggz-traordinary, we learn that the world's oldest known wild bird - yes, a 74-year-old Gooney bird named "Wisdom" - has laid what observers think is its 60th egg, which has to be some kind of a record. //
Wisdom is a veritable Methuselah among birds, but reports are that she is healthy, and therefore not a birden on her new mate, who has clearly fowlen in love with the elderly gooney. And this sp-egg-tacular feat or reproduction will surely land Wisdom and her new tweet-heart in the record books.
Albatrosses are known as a good-luck sign among seafarers, although woe be to any nautical type who harms one. They are impressive fliers, wielding a wingspan that can approach eight feet. They can sleep on the wing, which allows them to stay at sea for extended periods, and they roam the North Pacific from America to Asia, from Hawaii to the Aleutians, seeking the squid, fish, and crustaceans that make up their diet. They are reported to live up to 60 years in the wild, although Wisdom has surpassed not only the typical gooney lifespan but also the traditional human threescore and ten. She seems determined to hang around, and it's good to set gulls for oneself. //
7againstthebes
an hour ago
Here is something for you to think about. An Laysan Albatross flies about 50,000 miles per year. So this particular bird has flown nearly four million miles in her lifetime.
“There have been no squirrel to human rabies transmission ever documented in this country,” said Rensimer, a Texas infectious disease specialist who has been studying rabies for decades.
“I can’t imagine, frankly, what their thinking was, if they knew anything about this area,” he added.
The social-media famous pet squirrel and Fred — a young raccoon kit being nursed back to strength — were euthanized by the Department of Environmental Conservation in October just hours after they were seized from the upstate home of caretaker Mark Longo, who runs an animal sanctuary on his property. //
“Some animals almost never get rabies,” the New York Department of Health states on its rabies fact sheet — specifically naming “small rodents such as squirrels” as only ever catching it under “rare circumstances.”
And while raccoons are generally agreed to be more prevalent carriers, the actual number of confirmed cases appears to be extremely low, according to data collected by New York state. There were just 35 lab-confirmed cases of rabies in raccoons in the 17 years since records were first kept in 2007, the data show. //
While the exact timeline for rabies infections in raccoons and squirrels is not entirely known, Rensimer said similarly sized animals like cats, dogs, and ferrets will almost always show symptoms within 10 days.
As Fred had been in Longo’s care for well more than 10 days, and P’Nut had been living with him for seven years — facts readily available due to Longo’s widely viewed social media — there was ample evidence to suggest the animals were rabies-free. //
And even if the DEC agent was especially worried about rabies — which is typically fatal in humans once it reaches the brain — Rensimer said a bite to the hand from an infected animal would take about 45 days or longer to transmit to the brain. //
Test results later showed that neither P’Nut nor Fred had rabies.
The DEC did not respond to request for comment on the agency’s employee immunization practices, and have still not provided any documentation that P’Nut bit anyone during the raid.
But all of the DEC’s explanations about squirrel bites and rabies fears were cast into doubt after The Post reported officials were plotting to euthanize P’Nut and Fred at least seven days before the supposed bite — and P’Nut’s caretaker has now filed claim to sue the state to find some answers.
A younger rival may have learned how to sabotage those showers by disrupting water flow.
"Ants are able to diagnose a wound, see if it's infected... and treat it accordingly." //
“When we're talking about amputation behavior, this is literally the only case in which a sophisticated and systematic amputation of an individual by another member of its species occurs in the animal kingdom,” said co-author Erik Frank, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Würzburg in Germany. “The fact that the ants are able to diagnose a wound, see if it's infected or sterile, and treat it accordingly over long periods of time by other individuals—the only medical system that can rival that would be the human one."
The animals seem to respond more actively to calls that include their "name." //
On Monday, researchers reported what may be the first instance of a human-like language ability in another species. They have evidence that suggests that elephants refer to each other by individual names, and the elephant being referred to recognizes when it's being mentioned. The work could benefit from replication with a larger population and number of calls, but the finding is consistent with what we know about the sophisticated social interactions of these creatures.
Some hippos are a little smaller — and lighter — than others, including the endangered West African Pygmy Hippopotamus, which is found mostly in Liberia. The status of that animal makes it all the more interesting that the Attica Zoological Park in Athens, Greece, has recently had a pygmy hippo born in captivity.
Animal crossing for Utah wildlife is 'working'
Animal crossing for Utah wildlife is 'working'
An overpass built especially for wildlife in Utah is proving to be a success, according to officials.
The bridge was constructed to help animals cross between two mountains, while avoiding potentially dangerous traffic on the highway below.
Deer, bears and moose are among the "long list" of creatures that have been spotted using the connection since it opened two years ago.
all the tags from https://b.plas.ml
1st-amendment 2nd-amendment 4th-amendment 5th-amendment 9/11 a8 abortion acl adhd afghanistan africa a/i air-conditioning amateur-radio amazon america american android animals anti-americanism antifa anti-semitism antiv antivirus aoip apollo apple appliances archaeology architecture archive art astronomy audio automation avatar aviation backup bash batteries belleville bible biden bill-of-rights biology bookmarks books borg bush business calibre camping capitalism cellphone censorship chemistry children china christianity church cia clinton cloud coldwar communication communist composed computers congress conservatives constitution construction cooking copyleft copyright corruption cosmology counseling creation crime cron crypto culture culture-of-death cummins data database ddt dd-wrt defense democrats depression desantis development diagrams diamonds disinformation diy dns documentation dokuwiki domains dprk drm drm-tpm drugs dvd dysautonomia earth ebay ebola ebook economics education efficiency electricity electronics elements elwa email energy engineering english environment environmentalism epa ethernet ethics europe euthanasia evolution faa facebook family fbi fcc feminism finance firewall flightsim flowers fonts français france fraud freebsd free-speech fun games gardening genealogy generation generators geography geology gifts git global-warming google gop government gpl gps graphics green-energy grounding hdd-test healthcare help history hollywood homeschool hormones hosting houses hp html humor hunting hvac hymns hyper-v imap immigration india infosec infotech insects instruments interesting internet investing ip-addressing iran iraq irs islam israel itec j6 journalism jumpcloud justice kindle kodi language ldap leadership leftist leftists legal lego lgbt liberia liberty linguistics linux literature locks make malaria malware management maps markdown marriage mars math media medical meshcentral metatek metric microbit microsoft mikrotik military minecraft minidisc missions moon morality mothers motorola movies mp3 museum music mythtv names nasa nature navigation navy network news nextcloud ntp nuclear obama ocean omega opensource organizing ortlip osmc oxygen paint palemoon paper parents passwords patents patriotism pdf petroleum pets pews photography photo-mgmt physics piano picasa plesk podcast poetry police politics pollution pornography pots prayer pregnancy presentations press printers privacy programming progressive progressives prolife psychology purchasing python quotes rabbits rabies racism radiation radio railroad reagan recipes recording recycling reference regulations religion renewables republicans resume riots rockets r-pi russia russiagate safety samba satellites sbe science sci-fi scotus secularism security servers shipping ships shooting shortwave signal sjw slavery sleep snakes socialism social-media software solar space spacex spam spf spideroak sports ssh statistics steampowered streaming supplement surveillance sync tarsnap taxes tck tds technology telephones television terrorism tesla theology thorium thumbnail thunderbird time tls tools toyota trains transformers travel trump tsa twitter typography ukraine unions united.nations unix ups usa vaccinations vangelis vehicles veracrypt video virtualbox virus vitamin vivaldi vlc voting vpn w3w war water weather web whatsapp who wifi wikipedia windows wordpress wuflu ww2 xigmanas xkcd youtube zfs