Animals news

• Populist cleric Sadr all but wins Iraq election

  14-05-2018 22:43 via yahoo.com
  By Ahmed Aboulenein and Maher ChmaytelliBAGHDAD (Reuters) - Populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a long-time adversary of the United States, has all but won Iraq's parliamentary election, the electoral commission said, in a surprise turn of fortune for the Shi'ite leader.In the first election since Islamic State was defeated in the country, Iran-backed Shi'ite militia chief Hadi al-Amiri's bloc was in second place, while Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, once seen as the front-runner, trailed in third
  
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• Cat that comforts trafficked women in London safe house is feline of the year

  18-09-2024 21:00
  
  Marley, whose ‘incredible gift of empathy’ is said to help exploited women, beats thousands of cats to prizeA cat that offers comfort to trafficked women has been named cat of the year at a national ceremony.Marley, a black and white cat who lives at a safe house for women who have been enslaved, exploited and trafficked, won the award because of his “gift of empathy”. Continue reading...
  
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• As a vet, I thought I knew cows. Then they attacked | Letters

  18-09-2024 18:44
  
  David Mackay on his experience of being trampled and almost killed by cattle, and Sara Davis, Danielle Stevenson and Wolfgang Wagner on staying safe in the countrysideI would like to add my voice to those urging greater caution when walking in fields with cattle (The hell and horror of cow attacks: ‘I told my husband to leave me to die’, 12 September). I had to be airlifted to Southampton hospital from the Isle of Wight earlier this year and spent 10 days in intensive care and the ac
  
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• Stop that capybara! Search party uses drone to spot rodent that fled British zoo

  18-09-2024 16:59
  Cinnamon, a one-year-old female, escaped on Friday and has eluded inventive efforts to recapture herTo catch a rat, many call pest control. But how does one go about catching the world’s largest rodent, the capybara?Zookeepers in Shropshire are wrestling with that very problem after Cinnamon, one of the furry breed native to South America, escaped. Continue reading...
  
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• Thai woman rescued after two hours trapped in four-metre python’s coils

  18-09-2024 15:08
  
  Arom Arunroj, 64, said she was doing the washing-up at about 8.30pm when the 20kg snake attacked herA Thai woman has described being trapped in the coils of a 20kg (44lb) python for about two hours in her home before rescuers were able to free her.Arom Arunroj, 64, was bitten several times by the snake, which had entered her home in Samut Prakan, a province south of Bangkok. She said she had been doing the washing-up at about 8.30pm when she suddenly felt something biting her leg. “I looke
  
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• JD Vance’s obsession with cats is bizarre. He needs to stop spreading fake mews | Arwa Mahdawi

  18-09-2024 12:00
  
  From banging on about ‘childless cat ladies’ to spreading racist rumours about Haitians eating pets, Trump’s running mate can’t seem to move on from his strange fixation with felinesWant to know the secret to winning elections and influencing people? Cat memes. This is according to JD Vance, who, you might have noticed, has a bizarre fixation with felines. Donald Trump’s running mate – a man who might soon become one of the most powerful people in the world &n
  
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• A lot of good people there: Henty Machinery Field Days 2024 – in pictures

  18-09-2024 05:54
  
  More than 50,000 people are expected to attend the three-day field event in southern New South Wales, which is the largest agricultural event in AustraliaSign up for the Rural Network email newsletterJoin the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community Continue reading...
  
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• Whale of an appetite: humpback almost swallows live seal in rare photo

  18-09-2024 01:01
  
  Animal known as ‘Big Mama’ accidentally gulps marine mammal, who escapes in waters off Anacortes, WashingtonIt’s a good thing seals aren’t on a humpback whale’s menu.A photograph by a whale-watching naturalist captured a seemingly bewildered seal in the mouth of a humpback whale after the giant marine mammal accidentally gulped it last Thursday in the waters off Anacortes, Washington. Continue reading...
  
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• Rat winter: why vermin are crawling up our sewage pipes

  17-09-2024 16:41
  As temperatures drop, rats search for shelter and food to survive the harsh temperatures. Expect to find them lurking in your garden, your home and emerging from your toilet ...Name: Rat winter.Age: It hasn’t even properly begun yet … but when it does, you’ll know. Continue reading...
  
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• Zimbabwe outlines plan to cull scores of elephants to feed people after drought

  17-09-2024 11:03
  Culling after severe drought wiped out crops across region is also part of effort to decongest country’s parksZimbabwean authorities have outlined plans to cull 200 elephants to feed communities facing acute hunger after the worst drought in four decades.The El Niño-induced drought wiped out crops in southern Africa, affecting 68 million people and causing food shortages across the region. Continue reading...
  
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• Notes from Sheepland review – lovely portrait of artist-farmer who only has eyes for sheep

  17-09-2024 10:00
  Orla Barry clearly has a true vocation for her flock, both handling real livestock and weaving them into her art and this documentary has poetic beautyNear the beginning of this beautiful, brooding film, Orla Barry (its subject/writer/narrator) remembers a farming expert advising her to go into cattle or vegetables after she inherited her family spread in Ireland. But really he could tell, she says, that she was “Orla with the ovine eyes” – meaning that her undeniable destiny w
  
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• Stark before and after photographs reveal sharp decline of Norway’s seabirds

  17-09-2024 07:00
  
  When Rob Barrett set out to survey one of the country’s largest colonies in the 1970s there were too many birds to count. Now, his pictures and archive images show a species decline echoed around the worldIn the mid-1970s, seabird researcher Rob Barrett set out in a rubber boat to survey one of Norway’s largest seabird colonies. Equipped with a camera and a pair of binoculars, he planned to photograph the Syltefjord colony, in the far north of the country, then, back on land, develop
  
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• Country diary: Spotting a lynx requires patience or profound luck | Mark Cocker

  17-09-2024 06:30
  
  Andújar, Spain: I discover that there are hints of humour in the otherwise seriously exciting business of watching Iberian lynxThere are four lynx species on Earth: Canadian; North American bobcat (the most abundant, with a population of possibly 1.5 million); Eurasian, the largest species, with males in some Asiatic populations weighing as much as 35kg; and the Iberian, the smallest and rarest, with an average weight of 8kg-9kg and which feeds on rabbits and partridge
  
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• Teenage male koala escorted from supermarket in Australia – video

  17-09-2024 06:26
  A koala has been spotted browsing the aisles of an IGA grocery store in regional Australia. Koalas are frequent visitors to the Victorian town of Meeniyan, population 840, but it's the first time one has entered the local supermarket. After 20 minutes exploring, the marsupial was carefully removed from the store with the help of a wildlife carerHands off the koala: why cuddling Australia's iconic marsupial could soon be a thing of the past Continue reading...
  
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• Shropshire zoo seeks runaway ‘beloved’ capybara

  16-09-2024 23:03
  
  Telford’s Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World urges public to report sightings of Cinnamon and not approach herA zoo has issued a plea on social media for help in finding a capybara named Cinnamon which escaped from its habitat in Shropshire.Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World posted to its Facebook page on Monday announcing its “beloved capybara” was at large. Continue reading...
  
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• From Truman Capote to feline firefighters – a day out at New York’s historical cat walking tour

  16-09-2024 16:00
  
  Historian Peggy Gavan created Cats About Town with Dan Rimada, who runs an Instagram account about bodega catsEmily Warren Roebling was a groundbreaking engineer who took over construction of the Brooklyn Bridge after her husband, who had been leading construction, and son died of decompression sickness. On 24 May 1883, Roebling became the first human to cross the bridge during its opening ceremony. But the first creature to cross the bridge did so about a month earlier, when a cat named Ned cla
  
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• The pet I’ll never forget: Floof, the lost cat who found me – and made me feel I was worth loving

  16-09-2024 12:00
  
  She followed me home from work one rainy night, and never left. I was in a dark place, but we filled a hole in each other’s hearts.Floof burst into my life on a gloomy autumn night in 2015. I was new to London, walking home from my bar job in the teeming rain, when a pair of green eyes on a porch roof stopped me in my tracks. Closer inspection revealed a small fluffy cat – black as the night, totally drenched and yelling right at me. I helped her down, and in response she shadowed me
  
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• Revenge of the childless cat ladies - podcast

  16-09-2024 04:00
  
  How Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate JD Vance calling Democrats ‘childless cat ladies’ backfired. Elle Hunt reportsWhen Taylor Swift announced her support for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign last week, she signed the post ‘Childless cat lady’. It was a reference to the Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance’s interview with Tucker Carlson in 2021, in which he said Democratic party members were a “bunch of childless cat l
  
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• Rare smelly penguin wins New Zealand bird of the year contest

  16-09-2024 02:40
  
  The hoiho, which means ‘noise shouter’, triumphed in a year free from the usual scandals surrounding the competitionOne of the world’s rarest penguins has been crowned New Zealand’s bird of the year, in an unusually sedate year for the competition, free from the foreign interference and voting scandals of previous events.The endangered yellow-eyed penguin, or hoiho, is the largest of New Zealand’s mainland penguin species and is distinctive for the pale yellow band
  
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• Oysters belong in the sea, not on our plates | Letter

  15-09-2024 18:53
  
  Dawn Carr of the Peta Foundation responds to to an article on ‘bivalve vegans’, while David Duell recalls a self-declared vegetarian who ate chickenVegan or not, we should all leave oysters in the ocean, where they belong (‘I’ll have them with hot sauce’: should vegans eat oysters?, 12 September).Without obvious legs or faces, oysters and other bivalves, such as scallops and clams, may appear less animal-like than other shellfish, but that doesn’t make them an
  
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• RFK Jr says he faces federal investigation for beheading whale

  15-09-2024 18:24
  
  Former presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr decries ‘weaponization of our government’ over 1994 incidentRobert F Kennedy Jr has said that he is being investigated by federal authorities for collecting the head from a decapitated whale carcass.During a campaign event on Saturday for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, in Glendale, Arizona, the former independent presidential candidate said: “I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying that the
  
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• ‘Entire ecosystem’ of fossils 8.7m years old found under Los Angeles high school

  15-09-2024 13:00
  
  Researchers find two sites with fossils including saber-toothed salmon and megalodon, the huge prehistoric sharkMarine fossils dating back to as early as 8.7m years ago have been uncovered beneath a south Los Angeles high school.On Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported that researchers had discovered two sites on the campus of San Pedro high school under which fossils including those of a saber-toothed salmon and a megalodon, the gigantic prehistoric shark, were buried. Continue reading...
  
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• First large-scale UK onshore salmon project at risk over ‘factory farm’ claimss

  15-09-2024 10:00
  Animal rights campaigners win a judicial review over pioneering £120m scheme at Grimsby portOn former railway sidings at Grimsby docks in Lincolnshire, the seafood industry is backing new plans for an onshore salmon farm that it claims will create jobs, cut emissions and help meet the nation’s huge demand for the fish.The scheme would be the UK’s first large-scale onshore salmon farm, with the fish growing to a weight of four or five kilograms. The project’s backer says t
  
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• Magpie-swooping season is here. But you can avoid attack – if you play by their rules

  14-09-2024 22:00
  
  From donning ‘pie-proof’ bike helmets to conversing with the songbirds, the key to avoiding avian conflict might be learning to speak their language, experts say Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastDown a gravel track in the backblocks west of Ipswich ride six middle-aged women. Their bikes are black, their shorts and exercise tops nondescript – but strapped atop their helmets are party hats.“You know those little cone hats you used to wear as a kid
  
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• Fury in Turkey as animal lovers and politicians attack ‘massacre law’ to deal with 4m stray dogs

  14-09-2024 17:00
  A new bill forcing local authorities to remove homeless animals from city streets has led to a furious backlashNext to the network of the highways that crisscross Turkey, among the lush forests or mountain peaks that dot the country, large stray dogs are a common sight. Most are pale white Akbaş dogs or Kangal shepherds, with their distinctive dark muzzle, pale golden coat and large bodies designed to herd livestock, although on the streets of Istanbul they are more commonly found lazing ou
  
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• I was addicted to a high-pressure job when a baby hare came into my life. How would raising it change me?

  14-09-2024 13:00
  
  I loved the adrenaline rush of work as a political adviser - but a chance encounter with a tiny leveret make me rethink everythingThe path near the barn where I lived was a short, unpaved track leading along the edge of a cornfield. I was deep in my thoughts one day, walking down this slope towards a narrow country lane, when I was brought up short by a tiny creature facing me on the grass strip running down the track’s centre. I stopped abruptly. Leveret. The word surfaced in my mind, eve
  
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• Nature boys and girls – here’s your chance to get published in the Guardian

  14-09-2024 10:24
  
  Our wildlife series Young Country Diary is looking for articles written by children, about their autumn encounters with natureOnce again, the Young Country Diary series is open for submissions! Every three months, as the UK enters a new season, we ask you to send us an article written by a child aged 8-14.The article needs to be about a recent encounter they’ve had with nature – whether it’s a majestic deer, a lost spider or a wood shedding its leaves. Continue reading...
  
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• Zimbabwe orders cull of 200 elephants amid food shortages from drought

  14-09-2024 07:50
  Environment minister says country has more elephants than it needs while critics of hunt say they are a major tourist drawcardZimbabwe will cull 200 elephants as it faces an unprecedented drought that has led to food shortages, a move that tackle a ballooning population of the animals, the country’s wildlife authority has said.Zimbabwe had “more elephants than it needed”, the environment minister said in parliament on Wednesday, adding that the government had instructed the Zim
  
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• Do fish have feelings? Scientists believe they’re getting closer to an answer

  14-09-2024 02:00
  
  Research suggesting certain species can learn, experience pain and form relationships has implications for our attitude to world’s most-eaten animalGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastWhen scientists demonstrated a small tropical fish – the cleaner wrasse – could recognise itself in a mirror, Prof Culum Brown’s first thought was: “This is the coolest thing ever.”Brown, an ecologist who researches fish behaviour and intelligence at Sydney
  
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• South Wales villagers tormented by mystery plague of flies

  13-09-2024 13:51
  
  People in Bettws near Bridgend say swarms have made life hell, even prompting some to consider movingA plague of flies has descended on a South Wales village, causing residents to cancel invitations to visitors and even consider leaving their homes.People in Bettws, near Bridgend, said thousands of common houseflies had made their lives hell. Some reported being unable to eat a meal, with flies crawling over their food. One said it was affecting residents’ mental health. Continue reading..
  
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