– – While engaged in a conservation project to determine how to help turtles cross the road safely, a Clemson University student inadvertently discovered a disturbing fact: some drivers deliberately swerve on the road, not to miss turtles, but to intentionally hit them.
The student put a realistic rubber turtle in the middle of a lane on a busy road near his campus, and then watched over the next hour as seven drivers swerved and deliberately ran over the rubber animal; several other drivers apparently tried to hit it, but missed. When the student sought to replicate his study using a different location road in a more residential area, the second of 50 cars to pass by that day swerved over the center line to intentionally hit the plastic reptile.
The number of box turtles is in slow decline, and a major reason is that many wind up as roadkill while attempting to cross the road for food or breeding purposes. Turtle underpasses are seen as one possible solution to the problem…
– – Have you ever seen anything look this sad and cute at the same time?–Don’t you just want to take it home with you?–Well, you may not want to, because it’s a venomous primate, a type of slow loris species called Nycticebus kayan newly discovered in Borneo.
– – Hundreds of Humboldt squid beached themselves this past weekend near Santa Cruz, California. Attempts to save the squid by placing them back into the water were futile; the squid simply swam back onto the shore!
– – Too often, fish are regarded as dumber than a sack of hammers. This may not be true of all of our finned friends, however. In France, researchers at the University of Toulouse have observed catfish hunting pigeons as prey in a development scientists are calling evidence of adaptive behavior. 
– – A tragedy occurred at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium late Sunday morning when a young boy visiting the zoo with his mother and friends fell off an observation deck rail into the pit of an exhibit housing 11 African painted dogs.
– – We had earlier posted on how a Beluga whale had learned to imitate human speech, and now we may add the Asian elephant to the list of species capable of mimicking speech…in Korean, yet! 
– – Wild boars are attacking!–And please note that we are talking about the animal spelled “boar,” not “bore,” although lord knows we have an abundance of such creatures. Anyways, while Americans have been battling with Hurricane Sandy, China and Germany have been hit with wild boar attacks. In Berlin, Germany, a wild boar appeared out of the woods, and attacked four individuals before eventually being shot by a police officer. Then in Shantou, China, a boar broke into an office, in the process breaking down a glass window, smashing a water pipe, and attempting to get at a cook. The Chinese boar eventually escaped, and has yet to be found by investigators.
– – We all know that parrots and mynah birds can mimic human speech. A memorable Far Side cartoon depicted a carload of cows driving past a field of wandering humans, one cow leaning out the window and mocking the “yackety-yack” speech of people. Well, it seems that we can add another species to the short list of those now know to be capable of speech mimicry..the beluga whale!
FOXSYLVANIA 
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