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he San Diego Zoo said goodbye last week to its oldest resident, a Galápagos tortoise named Gramma who lived at least 140 years. Dubbed “Queen of the Zoo,” Gramma came to San Diego sometime between 1928-31.
On a windy Sunday morning in Cornwall, a young flamingo took flight from a local sanctuary. By the following day, she had crossed the Channel and arrived on Île Aganton along the north coast of France, 130 miles from where she began.
This month Japan deployed troops to fend off bear attacks in the northern prefecture of Akita. Bears have gone a bit nuts here this year, killing at least a dozen people since April and injuring more than 100.
We’ve covered this kind of behavior before: moronic tourists getting too close to wildlife in Yellowstone National Park. This time it was a man armed with pepper spray walking directly into a pack of wolves. Wildlife photographer Keith Allen Kerbs captured the incident (from a safe distance, using a 500-mm zoom lens) and posted a video on Instagram. The clip shows the man walking toward at least five wolves as he waves his arms. The wolves approach him and quickly back away as he wields the pepper spray.
Longtime television hostess Giuliana Rancic organized an impressive airlift out of Los Angeles this week: 109 dogs stuck in overcrowded California shelters and slated for euthanization were flown out to more accommodating rescues elsewhere in the country.
The endangered Siberian tiger, also known as the Amur tiger, is rarely seen in the wild, but this year the world’s largest big cat is making unwelcome appearances in Russia’s far east. The tigers are preying on dogs, livestock, and in a few cases, humans.
Raccoons love to live near humans, especially in urban environments where there happens to be lots of food (trash). Researchers from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock have observed subtle anatomical changes in these little trash pandas that suggest they are becoming domesticated by spending so much time around us.
A fashion show in Chelsea this week featured a very special kind of fabric: wool harvested from gay sheep. Designer Michael Schmidt teamed up with German sheep farmer Michael Stücke and LGBTQ dating app Grindr to launch a line of knits that have the added benefit of saving the lives of the sheep that produced the wool.
We’ve documented orcas wearing hats made of dead salmon. Now comes another cetacean making a fashion statement: humpback dolphins sporting hats of sponge.
he Mexican government was all set to eradicate the spiny-tailed iguana on Clarion Island. But now researchers have discovered that the reptile is in fact a native of the remote island and not an invasive species.
This week former NFL quarterback Tom Brady announced that his pitbull mix called Junie is a clone of his late dog, Lua. The Fox football analyst had shared Lua, who died in 2023, with ex-wife Gisele Bündchen and their children.
The world’s most endangered porpoise species clings to existence in the Sea of Cortez off San Felipe, Mexico. There are only between seven and 10 vaquitas alive, but a survey last month revealed some good news: a newborn calf (with maybe another on the way).
At least three weirdly colored dogs have been spotted in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the abandoned area around the 1986 nuclear reactor disaster site. This month, researchers from Dogs of Chernobyl recorded canines with blue fur, and they’re not sure how it happened.
Earlier this year the West Coast Game Park Safari in Bandon, Oregon was shut down following a years-long investigation into the deplorable conditions at the roadside petting zoo. Hundreds of animals – lions, tigers, chimpanzees, camels, goats, capybaras – were victims of neglect; now some are finding a new life in sanctuaries. The Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, Minnesota shared photos of its adopted jaguar, a sleek cat the shuttered petting zoo had called Lucifer, now known as Louie. The sanctuary also took in Bently the leopard, Nasha the lioness, and Lyla the lynx. The rescues enjoy spacious habitats and tender care in Minnesota, a far cry from their former lives.
When we last left the sea otter known as Otter 841, the 5-year-old female was harassing surfers off of Santa Cruz, commandeering – and occasionally taking a bite out of – their surfboards. That was two years ago; now she’s back, perhaps.
Cougars once roamed freely throughout much of North America but were exterminated in many states by the 20th century, including Michigan, which killed off its last wild specimen in 1906. In recent years the predator has been seen again on the Upper Peninsula and wildlife experts wonder if the species can re-establish a breeding population here.
With Diane Keaton’s passing last week we remember her film career – Annie Hall, the Godfather movies, Reds – but let’s tip our caps to her other passion, “a lifetime of dedication to the cause of animal welfare,” as the Helen Woodward Animal Center writes in a tribute.
The rights of seven chimpanzees, currently behind bars at the DeYoung Family Zoo in Wallace, Michigan, is being heard this week by the Michigan Court of Appeals. At issue is whether the chimps should be granted habeas corpus, a protection against unlawful imprisonment.
A small group of lions have left their traditional stomping grounds in the Namibian desert and have found new life – and plenty of seals to eat – on the country’s Atlantic coast. The 12 lucky lions now prowling the Skeleton Coast are part of a population of maybe 80 stuck in the Namib Desert which features massive sand dunes and the weird Welwitschia plant which can live for 2000 years.
A marine park in Canada hoped to sell its last 30 beluga whales to an aquarium in China, but the deal was kiboshed by the fisheries minister. So Marineland, a near-bankrupt tourist attraction in Niagara Falls, is threatening to euthanize the whales if the government doesn’t cover some of the cost of their care.
