Eww, Smells Like (Tiger) Poo!

Posted March 12, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal behavior, animals, research, science
Tags: ,

– – Smells like teen spirit?–No, it might smell like tiger poo, at least if you want to use an odor to repel pests…

A team from the University of Queensland made the discovery as they researched non-lethal ways to keep herbivores such as goats and kangaroos away from certain plants.  Now animal repellents are typically based on other offensive smells such as rotten eggs, blood, or bone.  Using tiger feces as a repellent came from the logical notion that if you could smell a predator nearby, you’d probably want to go elsewhere!  Tiger poo was found to be a more effective repellent than the feces of other predators, and it was found to be especially effective if the tiger feces collected were from a tiger who had been fed the animal being targeted.

An offended tiger offered the comment, “Hey, whadya expect?–It don’t smell like roses!“

Researchers also found that old goat carcasses also proved effective in warding away goats, but the smell was so bad that it made the scientists feel sick…

…and you thought that you had a bad job!

 

Comments: 2 Comments

Oh, the Fishies!

Posted March 9, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal behavior, animals, aquatic, environmental, unexplained
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– – Once again, another mass fish-kill has occurred, this one in Redondo Beach, California.  The fish are mostly sardines and other small fish, thought to number in the hundreds of thousands; so massive are their numbers that the carcasses are about a foot deep on the surface!

Biologists have tentatively concluded that the fish died of oxygen deprivation after being driven by a storm into a closed-off pier area, basically swimming in the wrong direction and ending up in an area with insufficient free-flowing oxygen in it.  There is no sign of oil, chemicals, or illegal activity.

Seals and other fish are gorging themselves, while humans are using buckets and nets to remove the approximate one million deceased fish, which will be taken to a landfill specializing in organic materials…

Comments: 2 Comments

Thumb Fun, Eh?

Posted March 6, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal oddities, animals, anomalies, cool things, furry
Tags: , ,

– – Jimmy the cat is a polydactyl cat, sometimes referred to as a Hemingway cat because the writer Ernest Hemingway grew to love them after being given a six-toed cat.  Extra digits are a fairly common physical anomaly that’s sometimes caused by a genetic defect.  With an extra toe, Jimmy the cat can give the famous thumbs-up gesture made famous by the Henry Winkler super-cool character Fonzie on the 1970’s show “Happy Days.” He’s currently enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame on youtube.

The official Guinness World Record holder for the cat with the most digits is Jake, a Canadian cat with 27 digits.  A 29-toed cat from Hoboken in the U.S. named Bandit is in the process of applying for recognition…

Comments: 5 Comments

Of Mice, Men, and Pizzas…

Posted March 4, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, furry, strange happenings, things humans do
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– – Some people bug their competition, while others inflict rodent infestations on them…or so it was in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania where a pizzeria owner with mice problems that he blamed on competitors tried to level the playing field by planting mice in two rival shops, presumably to drive them out of business.

Police authorities say that a man requested to use the bathroom in one pizzeria, taking the opportunity while in there to tuck a bag of three mice inside the drop ceiling.  He then walked across the street to another pizzeria, putting a bag of five live and one deceased mouse inside a trash can within that establishment!

The offending pizza-maker is facing charges of disorderly conduct, harassment, and animal cruelty, police said.  “We have never had anything like this where mice have been used as an instrument of crime,” said the police Superintendent.

The mice, evidently purchased the day of the crime at a nearby pet store, were turned over to animal control officers…

Comments: 2 Comments

The Feline-Human Bond…

Posted March 2, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal behavior, animals, furry, science
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– – Cats are often given a bad rep by those who don’t share life with them; they’re reputed to be cold and aloof, wanting only food from their owners.–Well, in research to be published in the journal Behavioral Processes, scientists observed the interactions between 41 felines and their human families during lengthy four-part periods. Researchers also observed all behaviors of both cats and humans, and assessed their personalities as well as their influence over one another.

 

What was seen was a mutual social interaction in which both both cats and humans signaled to one another when they wanted to socially interact by petting or being petted.  Reciprocity was also in evidence, with the cats more likely to respond to owner-initiated contact if the owners had previously responded to theirs…they accordingly remember and respond to kindness, and are not cold fish (so to speak)…

Comments: 3 Comments

Outfoxed!

Posted February 28, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal occurrences, furry, furry heroes, furry stories
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– – Sadly, fox hunting is popular in the farming region of Belarus that borders Poland.  It came to pass there in January that a hunter shot a poor fox from a distance, and then approached planning to bludgeon the fox to death with the butt of his rifle…swell “sport,” huh?

The fox, however, fiercely resisted these plans, scuffling although wounded with the mighty hunter and managing to pull the trigger on the hunter’s gun with his paw, shooting the 40-year-old man in the leg!   The fox then made good his escape, and the hunter wound up in the hospital.

Now that’s wily, and what I call poetic justice!




Comments: 2 Comments

Scotland Invaded!

Posted February 26, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal occurrences, animals, environmental, furry
Tags: ,

– – Scotland has been overrun by vicious invaders, and their goal is to kill them all!  Once the invaders are driven out of Scotland, plans are to drive them out of the whole of Britain.

Now this isn’t a William Wallace thing and Mel Gibson is nowhere to be seen,  but it’s rather a campaign against American minks brought to Britain in the 1950’s to be farmed for fur coats.  Now running wild by the tens of thousands, the minks are wrecking havoc on other native species, including birds, fish, frogs, and the beloved water vole!   About 95% of the water voles are gone, thanks in large measure to the minks.   Scottish novelist Kenneth Grahame used a water vole named Ratty as a main character in his children’s book, The Wind in the Willows.

Considered an invasive species, the minks are usually trapped and then shot.  While this sounds cruel, the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says the process is humane and necessary in order to protect Scotland’s ecosystem.  To quote Ratty the water vole, “It’s my world.  I don’t want any other.”



Comments: 1 Comment

The Domestic Fox…

Posted February 24, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, furry, strange happenings
Tags:

– – I always try to advise people that foxes make lousy pets; we sleep in too late, eat entirely too much junk food, and lounge around in our underwear, scratching.  Besides that, foxes are wild animals, as anyone who has seen us at conventions can testify!

That having been said, however, there have been a few rare cases when people have successfully made pets of foxes, although we would prefer to think that we have made pets of the humans;  you won’t catch me cleaning up after them, no sir-ee-bob!   As a case in point let me introduce you to Miss Snooks, a comely vixen in East Sussex, England who was taken in seven years ago as an abandoned cub by a couple.  She lives in her own one bedroom flat above the couple’s pet shop,

Reared by hand and used to people, Miss Snooks dozes on a sofa, plays hide-and-seek in a den of blankets, goes for evening walks, and enjoys her favorite meals of roast chicken cooked in honey.  Her custodians describe Miss Snooks as beautiful and very affectionate…but again, her case is an unusual one and a violation of the natural order.

Comments: 2 Comments

–Hey, It’s “Hood!”

Posted February 22, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: furry, movies
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– – Everyone loves a werewolf, and I’ll certainly be rooting for him in Red Riding Hood, a Gothic imagining of the classic fairy tale in which a young woman is confronted by a wolf, this time with a teenage love triangle at its center.   If elements of this sound familiar, it should be…it’s by the director of the popular Twilight series.

Only loosely based on the fairy tale, they’ve tacked some years onto the title heroine’s age so as to make her eye candy, and in general sexualized the story…but selling tickets is the name of the game!   Several trailer/previews are to be found on the ‘net, where the commentary of potential viewers seems to range from, “I can’t wait to see it!,” to (my fave) “This movie is gonna rain with bad reviews!”

Coming to theaters March 11th from Warner Brothers Pictures…

Comments: 3 Comments

Biting Humor?

Posted February 20, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, aquatic, Brilliant but twisted, controversial, humor, television
Tags:

– – I like dark humor and black comedy, but they’re not everyone’s cup of tea.  For this reason, the recent Snickers great white shark commercial has rubbed some shark conservationists and shark attack victims and their families the wrong way, plus done little to dispel the erroneous notion that humans are the preferred food source for sharks.

In the commercial, a group of well-animated and voiced-over CG great white sharks are participating in a focus group where they are questioned about a “blind taste test” of people that they have just eaten.  The preferred victim is revealed to have eaten Snickers Peanut Butter Squared, while the less tasty victim had consumed peanut butter cups.

Now the commercial is intended to be comical, harmless, and light-hearted rather than educational and sensitive, and is a vehicle intended to entertain and linger in the mind so as to sell more Snickers products.  Some contend, however, that the ad was released too close on the heels of actual shark attacks in Egypt and elsewhere, and has accordingly gone too far.- -Sick or slick?  You decide!

Comments: 2 Comments

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