Today’s World Animal Day, celebrated across the globe since a 1931 convention of ecologists in Florence, Italy, conceived of it as a way to highlight the plight of endangered species. They chose October 4 because it’s the Catholic Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals. Since then, people have used the
Beaver with a mouthful, Calgary, Canada (from John Cena video on YouTube) It has less than 8000 hits on YouTube so far, but this video of a beaver family in Canada mending their house of branches is heading for viral on Facebook for sure! If you’ve never known why these animals (Castor canadensis) are called
While most of the northern US was hit with a polar vortex and record cold earlier this month, Australia and New Zealand were hit with a polar opposite record heat wave (see what I did there?). How hot was it? Australian newspaper, the Star, started off its article with the words “Bats are dropping from
TreeHugger had an extremely disturbing piece on mass penguin deaths occurring year after year off the coast of Argentina recently. Every year, hundreds or thousands of penguins wash up on the shores of Argentina covered in oil. Most of the time, no one seems to have a clue as to how they got covered in oil. The only guesses people venture (often biologists) is that there was an oil spill somewhere.
But where? And why every single year?
You can’t be surprised, given that our Congress people seem completely mad (and not just because of NCAA basketball), but, yes, they really are attacking the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and a number of iconic animals.
Luckily, Earthjustice, a leading non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the Earth and its resources, is working hard to rally U.S. citizens and stop the assault. And it’s come up with a really innovative, fun way of doing so.
This Friday, check out these 10 photos of muskrat for 10 Friday Photos. I’ve heard some story that muskrats move near human houses and disturbed them, and even scare them! Well, maybe, but aren’t they so cute? Look at these photos and enjoy!
Too wild not to share: zebra/donkey hybrid (i.e. zedonk) was born in Georgia this week. A “zedonk” was just born in the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in north Georgia (the state, not the country). She’s got a donkey for a mother and a zebra stallion for a father. It is a rather rare animal and even
Animals Asia successfully rescued 13 Asian black bears (moon bears) from bile farms in the past month. This is a small step in a continuing fight, as an estimated 7,000-10,000 moon bears still suffer in bile farms across China.
[social_buttons] Fifteen-year-old Bostonian Jordan Star has emerged as the surprise driving force behind a bill to ban the cruel practice of ‘surgically silencing’ cats and dogs by removing their vocal cords. Star, a freshman at Needham High, decided to take action after coming across a dog that had been debarked and abandoned. “It was just
[social_buttons] A groundbreaking study has proved that man-made light sources can change natural light cycles, triggering abnormal animal behavior that often leads to injury and even death. The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, confirms that polarized light pollution can cause confusion in creatures that rely on light ‘cues’ to
Editor’s note: For the last few months, we have run a number of guest posts from students in Professor Simran Sethi’s “Media and the Environment” course at the University of Kansas. We’ve all been pretty impressed with the work these students have done, so we were delighted to agree to publish a small-group final project
