Archive for the ‘animal behavior’ category

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Did National Zoo Animals Anticipate Earthquake?

August 26, 2011

 – – While Washington’s humans continued to yammer into their cell phones prior to the August 23rd earthquake, those of the furry persuasion at the National Zoo may have known what was coming.  Zoo staff reported that before the 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit, lemurs were seen to have sounded an alarm, apes abandoned their food, flamingos rushed into a huddle, and a gorilla let out a shriek.  Even ducks and beavers interrupted feeding and other activities to jump into  water.  The zoo’s giant pandas, however, did not appear to respond to the earthquake.

Similar agitated behaviors have long been reported from captive animal populations prior to earthquakes elsewhere…

Categories: animal behavior, animals, furry
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Real Roadrunners…

August 14, 2011

 – – I love the Warner Bros. Roadrunner cartoons as much as anyone, although I venerate the coyote and like the roadrunner, and if involved would probably negotiate, and try to find Wile E. something else to eat that he might be happy with, maybe order him up a pizza and share a slice with him, canine-to-canine.   In reality, however, roadrunners are not tall, skinny birds that can travel in a blur of motion, make “meep-meep” sounds, and defeat Acme-supplied coyote geniuses. 

They are, however, tough and resourceful birds who are more likely to be doing the murdering than running from would-be murderers.  They are almost exclusively carnivorous, and will eat rattlesnakes, sinking their beaks into the snake and repeatedly smashing it into the ground until the snake is both dead and tenderized in a technique aptly named, the Centrifugal Slam; the snake is then swallowed whole, bit by bit!   Roadrunners will also eat tarantula hawks (an insect), horned lizards, and other birds…all in all, a bird who would rather fight than flee!

Just a reminder that cartoons are rarely accurate sources for aspiring ornithologists or zoologists, and an animal’s lethality should not be judged by its appearance!

Categories: animal behavior, animals, feathered friends
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Wash and Wear Kitty…

August 4, 2011

 – – Sometimes even being cute isn’t enough to save you from being put through the ringer, or at least the washer.  Maybe it was one royal wedding too many, but something drove Princess, an eight-week-old kitten in the UK city of Aberdeen, into a washing machine where undetected, she survived a one hour washing cycle. 

The kitten was found after the wash cycle concluded, clinging for dear life to a pair of jeans. Rushed to a vet following her ordeal, the kitten was shaken, shivering,  and had  a nose bleed and sore eyes but suffered from no lasting damage.  Cats like to hide in small, dark, and sometimes warm places such as washers and dryers, and such appliances should accordingly be checked by feline owners for occupants prior to use …

Categories: animal behavior, animals, strange happenings
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Scorpion on a Plane!

July 4, 2011

 – – It sounds like a sequel to the forgettable action flick Snakes on a Plane, but the scorpion on a plane was all too real, and it stung a Portland-area man flying from Seattle to Anchorage during a June 17th Alaska Airlines flight.

The male victim felt something crawling inside one of his sleeves while trying to sleep on the flight, and thought it was a small bug.  When it turned out to be a scorpion, the man at least had some fun out of the experience by gathering the arachnid up in a napkin, and showing it to his girlfriend!  Predictably, she freaked.   By this time, the man’s elbow was burning from the sting, and two doctors on board checked the guy out while the flight crew called for medics to meet the plane at the airport in Anchorage.  The girlfriend kept her feet on the seat for the rest of the flight, refusing to put them on the floor.

The arachnid is felt to have been a striped bark scorpion common to Texas where the flight originated.  An Alaska Airlines spokesperson said the airline has never had a poisonous creature like the scorpion on one of their flights before.

Politicians, lawyers, and my ex-supervisors apparently have never flown Alaska Airlines…

Categories: animal behavior, animal occurrences, animals, Invertebrates, strange happenings
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Chimp Attack Victim Gets New Face

June 12, 2011

 – – We had posted here following the incident of the horrendous chimp attack in 2009 that left Charla Nash blind, disfigured, and handless.  In a 20-hour transplant operation last month, a 30-member surgical team performed  a full face and double hand transplant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a medical first in the United States.

While the donor hands failed to thrive due to impaired blood flow from pneumonia and were subsequently removed, the full facial transplant, only the third to be performed in the United States, appears promising.  The donated tissue is expected to conform to Nash’s underlying bone structure, allowing her in time to look somewhat like she did before the attack...

Categories: animal behavior, medical incredibles, science
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Coyote Attacks and Fear of Foxes

May 23, 2011

 – – Red foxes at times have an image problem; you know, that whole “crazy as a fox” thing and the business about leaving a fox to guard the henhouse.  In the minds of some people, foxes have also been tainted because of being incorrectly associated with coyotes, our larger canine cousins who can do some nasty things.  There were some coyote attacks in the state of New York last year.  Outweighing us handily, coyotes will also prey on foxes, and push us further into suburban subdivisions; they’re well supplied by Acme.

For the record, foxes don’t want to eat the  kids or pets of suburbanites; we do have our standards, after all!  Fox kits are born in late winter to early spring, when they come out of their dens to frolic ( lurking doesn’t come until much later with advanced training).  Because of the unpleasantness with coyotes, some people wig out when they discover fox families non grata in their yards.  Foxes adapt to suburbia quite well, and can find cover in hedges, under sheds, and in old woodchuck holes; we’ll even use more than one den.  Small rodents are a food source, although we’ll eat lots of other stuff as well. 

People needn’t panic, however; we’ll disperse if given a grace period or made uncomfortable; putting a chair or wheelbarrow near the current home might do the trick.  A State Department of Wildlife Conservation biologist suggests placing a radio near a fox den if you don’t want them about. 

Elevator music would send me packing in short order!

Categories: animal behavior, animals, environmental, furry
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Wrath of the Feline…

May 21, 2011

 – – Within even your common domestic house cat there continues to reside something  feral, something so awesome that we trifle with it at our own risk…and at least one man taken to the hospital might now tend to agree with me…

…while the details of the case are not well presented, it would appear that a man in Cleveland, Texas got into an altercation with a 20-pound feral cat that he found sitting in the living room of his house upon returning to it.   Scared, police said, the man grabbed a knife to try and protect himself from the cat, who seconds later is reported to have attacked the man in the bathroom.  Things got nasty then, with the 40-year-old man admitting that he stabbed the cat multiple times and the cat apparently giving back as good as she got, perhaps exploiting the man’s ineptitude with the knife and reportedly getting his pinkie really well; a claw and chaw operation!  When medics arrived, the man was bleeding profusely, and was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.  The cat was also in bad shape, but undaunted (“–Gonna mess you up bad!,” said the cat, “Bring it on,  pinkie!- -You blink, you bleed!- -Is that the best you got, suckah?- -You ain’t worth my time!”).

The feral cat was taken by animal control officers, tested for rabies, and was then euthanized…some say that as the lethal chemicals dripped into her veins, the cat seemed to be enjoying herself…she died a warrior, having fought bravely and well against another life form armed with a weapon who was about ten times her size!

“It is a far better thing that I do than I have ever done,” thought the cat as sleep took her, “it is a far better rest that I go to than I have ever known!”

“Welcome to paradise!,” roared Tatiana the tiger in greeting…

Categories: animal behavior, animal occurrences, animals, furry
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A Goat Walked Into a Music Store…

April 20, 2011

 – – It sounds like a set-up line for a really bad joke, but it actually happened at a piano store in the southeastern Idaho town of Ammon!  The goat is reported to have followed a woman and her child into the Piano Gallery on Monday.  The staff corralled the goat in a bathroom until animal control arrived.

Dubbed “Beethoven” for its apparent love of music, the goat is being held at the Idaho Falls Animal Shelter;  if it isn’t claimed, someone is ready to adopt it.

We would suspect that the goat was just looking for some sheeeet music for his kids…


Categories: animal behavior, animal occurrences, animals, creature features, furry, strange happenings
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Stun Gun Hunting?

April 14, 2011

– – As technology continues to advance, it can lead us into ethical considerations previously unconsidered and perhaps unexplored that were in the past gray areas at best.  One such area is that posed by the possibility of the stun gun hunting of animals...

The value of Tasers and other electronic stun devices has been well established in police work and security applications as a non-lethal way of subduing and controlling non-compliant suspects.  Likewise, one can readily see the potential value of a Taser Wildlife Electronic Control Device such as has also been developed as a non-lethal way of immobilizing wildlife that has perhaps blundered into a human habitation area where its presence poses potential danger both to the animal itself as well as to humans present.  This non-lethal weapon can temporarily incapacitate moose, bears, and other large animals, and could be helpful to park rangers and wildlife officials; it’s a heavy-duty device which packs quite a wallop and costs about $2,000.

A disturbing question that has arisen is whether such a weapon might be used deliberately by private individuals seeking to practice “catch-and-release” hunting.  While it is unclear whether stun guns have already been used for this purpose, the potential for such abuse is real.  While stunning an animal without need is preferable to shooting it, such an action could easily be considered cruelty.  Human test subjects who have experienced stun guns almost universally describe the experience as painful and unpleasant, and the United Nations considers stun guns instruments of torture as they inflict pain.

The state of Alaska is accordingly moving to proactively outlaw the use of stun guns to zap wild animals for “catch and release” hunting in the state.  The weapon may still be used defensively, in emergency situations, or for purposes of further research by trained professionals.  State biologists have been using electronic animal control devices in Alaska since 2005.  Additionally,  while wild animals usually flee when hit with the current, there is no guarantee that they will do so…and one does not want to severely aggravate a grizzly!


Categories: animal behavior, animals, controversial, environmental, furry, trends
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To Be Young, Elusive, and Serpentine…

April 1, 2011

– – She’s young, beautiful, quite deadly, and on the lam; the Bronx Zoo Egyptian cobra, that is!  A mere 3 ounces and just twenty inches long, the missing adolescent cobra has more than 135,000 followers on Twitter, some of whom suggest possible hideouts for her or relate supposed communications.

Staffers at the zoo believe that the elusive snake is still holed up in some warm spot at the Reptile House such as a heating duct or under a large appliance.  Unless discovered, the missing reptile could spend months in hiding before eventually emerging for water or something to nosh.

The snake’s toxins can cause respiratory failure, and is probably the type of asp that Cleopatra used to commit suicide; the venom is lethal to humans in 15 minutes.   Snakes tend to seek out confined spaces where they feel safe, where I rather imagine that she’s listening to some White Snake…

Addendum:   The Egyptian cobra has now been located by zoo staff coiled in a dark corner of the Reptile House during a sweep of the premises.  She is in good condition, but her Twittering days may be over…

Categories: animal behavior, animal occurrences, animals, scalies
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