Creatures in the news — winged, four-footed, cute or scary

If you love reading stories about animals, here is a wonderful example of positivesynergy between man and beast!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/science/dogs-trained-in-prison-to-protect-lives.html?ref=todayspaper

Don't know what is sadder: the intentional or unintentional killing of a big cat, or the Internet vigilante judge and jury..

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/us/cecil-the-lion-walter-palmer.html?ref=todayspaper

Shrinking your cat!

http://nyti.ms/1DYXOuz

What about people who love animals?

My aunt was a judge for the AKC. A number of years ago she was judging a show. After the show a group had gone out for dinner. When they returned to the hotel it was blocked off by police and men in hazmat suits. They were told they could not enter because there was norovirus in the hotel. One member of the party tried to enter explaining that her dog was inside but she was turned away, the dog would have to stay where he was and they didn't know how long access would be blocked. The woman was beside herself. My aunt came up and calmly led her away from the police barricade, then explained that if they went around the block, then scaled a fence, there was a back door to the hotel that was not locked. Sure enough my aunt and the woman did what had to be done to get the dog safely out of the hotel.

Good for them

You have to wonder thoughwhy a guy in a hazmat suit didn't safely rescue the dog!

This I can believe!

https://www.facebook.com/ruth.hook.96/posts/714068298697608

mtierney said:
This I can believe!
https://www.facebook.com/ruth.hook.96/posts/714068298697608

The link didn't work for me.

How do you copy a photo off Facebook

mtierney said:
Don't know what is sadder: the intentional or unintentional killing of a big cat, or the Internet vigilante judge and jury..
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/us/cecil-the-lion-walter-palmer.html?ref=todayspaper

Mr. Palmer is a trophy hunter. I am finding a bit hard to feel sorry for him and I used to hunt when I lived in Pa.

From another perspective....

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/in-zimbabwe-we-dont-cry-for-lions.html?ref=todayspaper

mtierney said:
How do you copy a photo off Facebook

You have to save the photo to your computer (right click on it) or tablet/phone (hold finger on it until you get options--at least for idevices, I can't remember for androids) and then post it.

ED CONTRIBUTOR
In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions

By GOODWELL NZOU

AUGUST 4, 2015

Winston-Salem, N.C. — MY mind was absorbed by the biochemistry of gene editing when the text messages and Facebook posts distracted me.
So sorry about Cecil.
Did Cecil live near your place in Zimbabwe?
Cecil who? I wondered. When I turned on the news and discovered that the messages were about a lion killed by an American dentist, the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine.

Protesters have called for the death of the hunter who killed Cecil the lion.

My excitement was doused when I realized that the lion killer was being painted as the villain. I faced the starkest cultural contradiction I’d experienced during my five years studying in the United States.

Did all those Americans signing petitions understand that lions actually kill people? That all the talk about Cecil being “beloved” or a “local favorite” was media hype? Did Jimmy Kimmel choke up because Cecil was murdered or because he confused him with Simba from “The Lion King”?
In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror.
When I was 9 years old, a solitary lion prowled villages near my home. After it killed a few chickens, some goats and finally a cow, we were warned to walk to school in groups and stop playing outside. My sisters no longer went alone to the river to collect water or wash dishes; my mother waited for my father and older brothers, armed with machetes, axes and spears, to escort her into the bush to collect firewood.
A week later, my mother gathered me with nine of my siblings to explain that her uncle had been attacked but escaped with nothing more than an injured leg. The lion sucked the life out of the village: No one socialized by fires at night; no one dared stroll over to a neighbor’s homestead.
When the lion was finally killed, no one cared whether its murderer was a local person or a white trophy hunter, whether it was poached or killed legally. We danced and sang about the vanquishing of the fearsome beast and our escape from serious harm.
Recently, a 14-year-old boy in a village not far from mine wasn’t so lucky. Sleeping in his family’s fields, as villagers do to protect crops from the hippos, buffalo and elephants that trample them, he was mauled by a lion and died.
The killing of Cecil hasn’t garnered much more sympathy from urban Zimbabweans, although they live with no such danger. Few have ever seen a lion, since game drives are a luxury residents of a country with an average monthly income below $150 cannot afford.
Don’t misunderstand me: For Zimbabweans, wild animals have near-mystical significance. We belong to clans, and each clan claims an animal totem as its mythological ancestor. Mine is Nzou, elephant, and by tradition, I can’t eat elephant meat; it would be akin to eating a relative’s flesh. But our respect for these animals has never kept us from hunting them or allowing them to be hunted. (I’m familiar with dangerous animals; I lost my right leg to a snakebite when I was 11.)
The American tendency to romanticize animals that have been given actual names and to jump onto a hashtag train has turned an ordinary situation — there were 800 lions legally killed over a decade by well-heeled foreigners who shelled out serious money to prove their prowess — into what seems to my Zimbabwean eyes an absurdist circus.
PETA is calling for the hunter to be hanged. Zimbabwean politicians are accusing the United States of staging Cecil’s killing as a “ploy” to make our country look bad. And Americans who can’t find Zimbabwe on a map are applauding the nation’s demand for the extradition of the dentist, unaware that a baby elephant was reportedly slaughtered for our president’s most recent birthday banquet.
We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people.
Don’t tell us what to do with our animals when you allowed your own mountain lions to be hunted to near extinction in the eastern United States. Don’t bemoan the clear-cutting of our forests when you turned yours into concrete jungles.
And please, don’t offer me condolences about Cecil unless you’re also willing to offer me condolences for villagers killed or left hungry by his brethren, by political violence, or by hunger.
Goodwell Nzou is a doctoral student in molecular and cellular biosciences at Wake Forest University.

Cats rule the Internet...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/arts/design/how-cats-took-over-the-internet-at-the-museum-of-the-moving-image.html?ref=todayspaper

Animal eyes do more than "see"

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/science/eye-shape-may-help-distinguish-predator-from-prey.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

Not so much about an animal, but an interesting revelation about Bambi, decades after we were mesmerized by his sweet voice...

http://mentalfloss.com/article/67092/marine-major-who-kept-sweet-childhood-secret-he-was-voice-bambi?utm_content=buffer9933b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

As someone who cries during ASPCA commercials, I am no one to judge the pros and cons oftrophy hunting, but other points of view are interesting..

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/world/africa/outcry-for-cecil-the-lion-could-undercut-conservation-efforts.html?ref=todayspaper

Lest we forget the insect world, there is some good news..

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/high-tech-hope-for-repelling-mosquitoes/

And now here come the ticks!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/fashion/ticks-summers-unwanted-guests.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

spontaneous said:
What about people who love animals?
My aunt was a judge for the AKC. A number of years ago she was judging a show. After the show a group had gone out for dinner. When they returned to the hotel it was blocked off by police and men in hazmat suits. They were told they could not enter because there was norovirus in the hotel. One member of the party tried to enter explaining that her dog was inside but she was turned away, the dog would have to stay where he was and they didn't know how long access would be blocked. The woman was beside herself. My aunt came up and calmly led her away from the police barricade, then explained that if they went around the block, then scaled a fence, there was a back door to the hotel that was not locked. Sure enough my aunt and the woman did what had to be done to get the dog safely out of the hotel.

Who do these people think they are, deciding that they know more about the dangers to public health than a judge for the AKC???? Your aunt is a hero!

How can you stay down in the dumps (clinically known as depression) with a kitten in the house!

http://nyti.ms/1MsdJJX

Wonderful account of a dog hero!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206167588928221&set=a.1119852436036.19783.1218796371&type=1

mtierney said:
Wonderful account of a dog hero!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206167588928221&set=a.1119852436036.19783.1218796371&type=1

Wonderful, but apparently not true. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/daisy.asp

Oh, poo! Loved reading it, though

Adorable! But I wouldn't want them my backyard....

https://goo.gl/J59x6v

Klinker said:

Who do these people think they are, deciding that they know more about the dangers to public health than a judge for the AKC???? Your aunt is a hero!

It was norovirus, not ebola. You can keep from catching it by washing your hands with soap and water. Soap and water. She went in to retrieve a living, breathing creature since they weren't told when, or even if, they would be allowed back in.

Sex in the City! Bronx Zoo that is!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/nyregion/at-bronx-zoo-gorilla-family-is-a-match-made-in-well-cleveland.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

Making NYC safer for the pigeons! Seriously

Good news is that the $$$$$ renovation helps all our feathered friends.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/05/nyregion/making-the-javits-center-less-deadly-for-birds.html?ref=todayspaper

mtierney said:
How can you stay down in the dumps (clinically known as depression) with a kitten in the house!
http://nyti.ms/1MsdJJX

What a great story! Although the kitten eating a sparrow in the house while the owners watch was a bit off-putting, I loved how the kitten managed to bring the boyfriend back to life.

mtierney said:
Sex in the City! Bronx Zoo that is!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/nyregion/at-bronx-zoo-gorilla-family-is-a-match-made-in-well-cleveland.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

Very interesting article, but the author should retract and apologize for his comment about Eagle Scouts. (It's both insulting and inaccurate.)

Why insulting? All the author was implying was youth and sexual inexperience. Or are you more concerned that it's an insult to Madonna, who embodies the mature-and-sexually-experienced side of the equation in that metaphor??? I thought it was mildly funny.