BBC Earth's "Spy in the Wild" series (also on PBS) uses animatronic animals outfitted with miniature cameras to capture wildlife close up. In this gripping scene, Komodo dragons meet the Robot Spy Pig. Guess who wins.
These two little bear cubs are play-fighting, but they look beary serious. Read the rest
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Read the rest
PBS Nature's "Spy in the Wild" series employs spy cameras outfitted with animatronic animal disguises to capture intimate imagery of wildlife. In this clip, a drone wearing a hummingbird costume infiltrates a swarm of monarch butterflies in the mountains of Mexico.
On Tuesday (or was it Wednesday? Yes, it was Wednesday), I noticed something on my front door steps. It was something small and freaky looking. It soon registered that it was a nestling, a featherless baby bird who had fallen from its nest in the curved Spanish tiles above the steps. Its eyes weren't even opened yet.
It wasn't the first time there had been an accident on those steps. Last year, an egg dropped from the same tiles. A half-formed, but beaked, baby bird remained, surrounded by broken eggshell. Dead, of course. The year before, just broken eggshells and yolk. No actual bird. You'd think the birds would learn not to build a nest in our terracotta roof slide.
I called out to my 15-year-old daughter, SJ, to help me think the situation out. Is it dead? ("I don't know!") Oh my gawd, it's moving. Did she think it had broken its neck too? ("Maybe...?!") Should we bury it? ("MOM! It's still ALIVE!") But, I don't want it to SUFFER! ("Mom, no.") Yes, it was alive. Struggling, but alive. It was difficult to determine if there were injuries but, as its beak opened and its legs squirmed, burying it no longer was an option.
Panic set in. We couldn't just leave the little guy there. This tiny creature suddenly seemed much bigger as I realized that I'd have to deal with it. I'd have to be the one who has to do something with its fleshy three-inch-long body. I grew up in a rural area and saw a fair amount of wildlife mishaps in my childhood but I was never the one charged with "cleanup." Read the rest
La espectacular imagen de un coyote sobre el puente Golden Gate, en San Francisco. La llegada de animales salvajes a las ciudades desiertas es un hecho #COVID2019 #QuedateEnTuCasa #COVID19 #LugaresyMás pic.twitter.com/7rTpKbt7W2
— Lugares y Más (@_LugaresyMas) March 25, 2020
While coyotes are occasionally spotted in San Francisco's parks, the shelter-in-place mandate has seemingly made the beautiful animals more comfortable wandering around the mostly empty city. From SFGATE:
There has been an increase in coyotes in the city over recent years. In February KQED reported that they were thought to be recolonizing the places they used to inhabit abundantly after being nearly wiped out through poisoning and hunting from the '40s onwards. After years of zero sightings in San Francisco, a coyote was seen in the Presidio in 2002, thought to have been brought over from a trapper in the North Bay or possibly even making its way alone over the Golden Gate Bridge. Since then numbers have continued to rise.
Read the restCoyote on the streets of San Francisco during the coronavirus shelter in place order #mindblowing #wow pic.twitter.com/mz35HAe9ZM
— manishkumar (@manishkumar457) March 23, 2020
“Say hello to Meeko,” says IMGURian @Lifeisfull12.
“Yeah. He's got jammies...” Read the rest
The large black bear in this video was observed ambling around a Monrovia, California neighborhood last Friday morning. The bear walked through residential lawns, driveways and rested in a nearby alley. Read the rest
The four that died were part of a 17-member group, which has been called the Hirwa family by the authorities.
"The potential of the three females for their contribution to the population was immense," (GVTC executive secretary Andrew) Seguya said.
He added that the 13 surviving members of the Hirwa family have been found and are feeding well.
image: "Mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei), 10 month old baby, Titus Group, Rwanda" by Charles J Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0) Read the rest
Sam Rowley's fantastic image of mice brawling over crumbs on a London Underground platform won the London Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year LUMIX People's Choice award.
"With the majority of the world living in urban areas and cities now, you have to tell the story about how people relate to wildlife," Rowley told CNN.
Over the course of a week, Rowley staked out multiple train stations each night to find the shot.
Sir Michael Dixon, Director of the Natural History Museum, Sir Michael Dixon said that the image "provides a fascinating glimpse into how wildlife functions in a human-dominated environment."
The mice's behaviour is sculpted by our daily routine, the transport we use and the food we discard. This image reminds us that while we may wander past it every day, humans are inherently intertwined with the nature that is on our doorstep – I hope it inspires people to think about and value this relationship more."
Image: Sam Rowley/Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London. Read the rest
After a video of a woman luring deer into her home went viral, Colorado Parks and Wildlife is reminding humans -- yet again -- to please, please, just leave deer and all other wildlife alone.
Do not feed the animals.
Do not post videos of yourself feeding wild animals in your home. Read the rest
“I mean, just see the flash of him rolling over me and in a straight line, and he was gone,” the deer-trampled gentleman told WSOC-TV. Read the rest
In Vermont, a moose got stuck on an active railroad bridge, and state fish and wildlife officials managed to remove the moose and relocate it to the wilderness with minimal injuries. Read the rest
An Alaska family's home surveillance camera recorded a most remarkable video of a moose trapping a man inside the family shed. Read the rest
This is some pretty amazing and highly rare video -- seldom do you get footage of five, count 'em FIVE, California mountain lions all hanging out together. The big cats were captured on home surveillance video, in a rare gathering of the typically solitary critters. Read the rest
In Russia, some idiot spraypainted this polar bear with "T-34," the model of a Soviet tank. The video was shared by World Wildlife Fund employee Sergey Kavry who lives in the remote region of Chutkotka. From CNN:
Read the restIn the comments (on Facebook where Kavry posted the video, he) said he obtained the video via WhatsApp from indigenous minorities in Chukotka, in Russia's far east, though it is not clear from the video where it was filmed...
Anatoly Kochnev, a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that, while the black paint is likely to wash off, the polar bear might find it difficult in the meantime to use its coat as camouflage while hunting.
It's not known why the animal was painted. Kochnev said it was probably the work of "pranksters."
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