Tag Archives: environment

Young Orca Tries to Communicate

Posted on December 7, 2011 by avatar

Orcas breaching. Poetry in motion, don't you think?

This post is cross posted here with permission from our sister site bleeding earth. I hope you will enjoy it. I found this young Orca to be truly amazing.

Lots of older people like me begin to think they have seen it all and know the basic fundamentals of everything. That is why we become ‘stuck in our ways.’ That means we don’t adapt and accept new things.

The problem with getting ‘stuck in our ways’ is we miss out on a lot of things life has to offer and the wonders that are still out there to discover.  It is like the mind is not only closed, it has rusted shut and that is sad.

My parents taught me at a very young age to never think in generalities. Plus my mother gave birth to me in the ‘Show Me’ State of Missouri. Maybe that guaranteed I would be curious about the things around me throughout my life.

However, I tend to think another thing also made me understand to expect the unexpected. That thing was being around, living with, observing, learning about and loving animals of all kinds. Because once you have been around a various group of animals you will find they do truly amazing things and you can never really predict what is coming next.

I had the good fortune of living on a beach in Southern California for twenty plus years. Those years gave me ample time to observe both Dolphins and Whales. I saw fewer whales of course, but during their normal migration they were plentiful.  There is even a group of the California Gray Whales that stays off the coast Of California year round. Needless to say, I became entranced with whales and Dolphins.

Anyway to get to today’s video. This video is of a young Orca or Killer Whale doing something truly unusual and in my view, spectacular.

Before we get to the video, let’s learn a bit about this animal. First off,  Orcas are not  whales, they are Dolphins.

From Wikipedia;

The killer whale (Orcinus orca), commonly referred to as the orca, and less commonly as the blackfish, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. Killer whales are found in all oceans, from the frigid Arctic andAntarctic regions to tropical seas. Killer whales as a species have a diverse diet, although individual populations often specialize in particular types of prey. Some feed exclusively on fish, while others hunt marine mammals such as sea lions, seals, walruses and even largewhales. Killer whales are regarded as apex predators, lacking natural predators and preying on even large sharks.

The video is a young Orca named Luna. He lost his family and began trying o communicate with people In many different ways. The video shows one of the more novel of his attempts to communicate.  YouTube Preview Image

Anyone who says animals of all kinds don’t talk is just crazy. They talk in a language we don’t understand, but they do talk. They talk to each other and to their young, they have regional dialects and accents and they even have certain ‘words or phrases’ that seem to be specific to one pod or family.

Watching Luna trying to talk to humans by imitating the boat’s motor is just mind-blowing. This young Orca was trying to make friends and receive guidance. It is likely he was very lonely after the loss of his family. I find that very sad.

Imagine what we could learn about our planet and particularly its oceans if we could learn to communicate with other mammals. I bet one of the first things we would learn is we are the ones ruining the environment for all the rest and we aren’t as smart or different as we think we are.

Be sure to introduce any older people you know who are ‘stuck in their ways’ to things like the wonder of the Orca. Perhaps they will see losing your curiosity about life leaves you without knowledge of some of the best parts of the life you share with the rest of the world.

How sad is it that this poor animal cannot communicate with humans? I hope someday whales, dolphins and other animals will be able to talk to us. Lets learn their languages and have conversations, okay?

Posted in Amazing Animals, Animal Behavior, environment, Video, Whales and Dolphins | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Oakland Zoo Adopts Tigers

Posted on October 25, 2011 by avatar

Beautiful, dangerous and mystical tiger.

This article is cross posted here from our sister site Bleeding Earth which is about the environment.  I hope you enjoy it.

Where would you rather see a tiger live?

  1. In a cage in someones personal animal collection
  2. As a roadside or freak show attraction
  3. In a circus or carnival
  4. In an accredited zoo

I don’t like to see tigers or other wild animals penned up in any way, because I sincerely think they should live their lives in freedom and in their native habitat.

However, in our modern world  it is a sad but true fact tigers and other big cats are going extinct in the wild.  In fact, there are more tigers in the United States than there are in the wild. Over 8,000 tigers are in this country and only a few of them live at accredited zoos.  The rest are mainly trapped in small cages in backyards because someone bought a cute tiger cub and I guess they were too stupid to realize it would grow up to be one of the world’s top predators.

Many zoos don’t want to take the ‘pet’ tigers because they are mutts.  They are not pure Bengal Tiger, Sumatran Tiger or Siberian Tiger.  So they are not endangered and zoos consider them unsuitable for breeding.

So these mutt tigers spend their lives in cramped cages often without adequate food or water. They are often abused and teased and definitely die before their time.

From SFgate:

“There’s no way we could take just one,” said Erica Calcagno, an Oakland zookeeper who made the trek to Brownsville, Texas, where the tigers – all sisters – had been rescued from a roadside freak show.

“They’re gorgeous. Even when they’re sleeping they’re gorgeous. And we thought their story was an important one for us to tell.”

<snip>

So far, the frolicsome felines are the party girls of the zoo. On Tuesday the 6-year-old sisters chased each other through the grass, splashed in the pool and rolled on a wooden platform sprayed with their favorite scent, Calvin Klein’s Obsession.

But beyond entertaining visitors, zoo staff hopes the tigers serve a broader purpose: to educate the public about tiger mills.

<snip>

The sisters’ elderly tiger compatriot is also a rescue. She came to the zoo about 10 years ago from a circus. In fact, many of the animals at the Oakland Zoo are rescued from some less-than-ideal situation, said Colleen Kinzley, director of animal care, conservation and research.

“We feel this is such a critical issue,” she said. “We can’t come close to helping all the animals, but maybe we can sway public opinion a little bit.”

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/18/MN071LJ7QM.DTL#ixzz1bkMOctSF

It is heart breaking to think of the lives the animals who are not rescued live.  However, The Oakland Zoo deserves a lot of credit for what they are doing. The faster we make all people aware of the plight of these big cats and other animals, the better.

We need the top predators in a wild environment to keep the ecosystem in balance. We need these animals, perhaps more than they need us.  We need to have a world where animals and humans can live together.

As much as we may need these things, climate change, chemicals and pollution are making it impossible to live on the earth.  The sooner we recognize this the better.  Let’s just hope we aren’t to late in getting the naysayers to come around. If we are, it may not be only the big cats that will disappear.  Humans will be going right along with them.

 

Posted in Animal Behavior, Anti-Cruelty Campaigns, Cats, Endangered Species | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Orphaned Bear Cubs Go to the Wild

Posted on July 11, 2011 by avatar

Grizzly Bears are big and can be very ferocious

I can only speculate about how difficult it must be to raise an orphaned bear cub.  So cute and vulnerable, then  suddenly be so big and dangerous.

Obviously, the trick to returning bear cubs to the wild is to give then as natural an upbringing as possible and not to allow any more interaction with humans than is absolutely necessary.  You don’t want them to think of humans as friends.  If they do they are in grave danger from all those human friends that carry big guns in the forest where the bears will eventually live.

Some very dedicated people have been working with orphaned bear cubs and returning them to the wild with quite a degree of success. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) partnered with the bear rescuers at Northern Lights Wildlife Society (NLWS) to make sure orphaned bear cubs were given the proper care and could go back home to the forests.

Did I forget to mention that these are Grizzly Bear cubs?  Yup, the biggest and some would say most ferocious bears of all.

When the big day came to release four grizzly bears  the IFAW joined their partners at NLWS and the BC Ministry of Environment to release the four rehabilitated orphan grizzly bears in Canada.  Below is a video of the release.

Now the tracking of these grizzlies will begin. Hopefully the bears will have a lot to teach animal behaviorists and environmentalists about keeping grizzly bears safe and how they live when we aren’t there to watch them. What rewarding work these people do and what an invaluable service to the animals. It is also invaluable to people who believe in conservation and keeping the wild environments wild for the animals that call them home.

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Dogs Help Find Endangered Species

Posted on July 10, 2011 by avatar

Red and White Setter.

I suppose the title if this post just about says it all.  Dogs are helping find endangered species.  No, they don’t get a scent from a handler and then track the endangered animals down, although that is what I thought too when I first heard about conservation dogs.

So how do they do it?  The dog is trained to recognize the smell of a certain endangered species poop or scat.  They are then used by conservationists trying to save the endangered species. The conservation dogs are taken to an area where the endangered animal is known to have lived or possibly is living now.  The dogs focus on sniffing out the poop scent they have been trained to key on.

Once they look at the poop and determine it was recently left there, the conservationists can set up their trap cameras and  get pictures as well as determine the number of animals in the area and what the best way is to proceed in helping the species survive and keeping it safe.

If this sounds to you like a strange way of locating  endangered species, consider the fact that the conservationist isn’t really helping the endangered animals when they are searching for them.  Valuable time is saved by the dogs quick location of the animals the conservationists seek thus letting them get more quickly to the business of actually doing things to protect the animal.

It may seem unbelievable but these conservation dogs have even been used to locate whales by sniffing out their scat floating on the ocean.  Now that is some nose!

From Pack Leader Dog Training;

Conservation Detector Dogs utilized by PACKLEADER come from a variety of sources – animal shelters or humane societies, private donors and breeders. Many of the shelter dogs may have faced euthanasia if not selected for this program. One of the things all of these dogs have in common is an intelligence, drive and desire to work that can make them difficult house pets but these same characteristics make them excellent detector dogs. As you will see, our dogs come in all different breeds, mixes and sizes but without exception they are all happiest when in the field working with their assigned handlers.  The dogs live a full, productive life at PACKLEADERand provide an innovative new tool to conservation researchers and/or private organizations. 

When you go to the link at Pack Leader you will be able to look at lots of pictures of the dogs who are doing this invaluable work. There is also a listing of what the dogs specialities are and where they do their work.

It is becoming increasingly evident to me that dogs are being used for more and more tasks that help people and our planet in many varied ways.  Animals are amazing and dogs are just about the most versatile, loyal and amazing of all.

 

 

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Birds-Budgie Tries Balancing Act

Posted on June 21, 2011 by avatar

Okay, you all have already guessed it anyway, I love birds too.  Wild ones, tame ones, all colors, kinds and types, I don’t care because I just love to look at them and observe them doing whatever it is they happen to be doing when they catch my eye.

Many birds are now in decline because of a loss of habitat and the decline in their environment.  The migrating birds especially suffer because so many of their water, over night rest and nesting stops have been sacrificed for housing developments, shopping malls, roads and farming.  Many songbirds migrate and we are losing them at an alarming rate.

I can remember as a child waking up on Spring and Summer mornings when the songs of the birds were everywhere.  As a matter of fact, my father on Sundays would get up and shut my parents bedroom windows to drown out some of the noisy bird talk. I don’t blame him, many times Sunday was his only day off and the birds were really loud at times.

For me the singing of the birds was literally music to my ears.  On Sunday  mornings I waited to smell bacon, pancakes and eggs cooking before getting up.  Until the smell of breakfast reached my room I just snuggled down into the line dried sheets that had been put on the bed the day before (Saturday was bed changing day) and breathed in their sunshine and outdoors smell as I listened to birds in the trees outside my window.

Naturally the next thing I am going to say is I had a pet bird as a child and I actually did.  I had three Parakeets over a period of time.A yellow one, a green one and a blue one.  All of them were named Fogarty and I really cannot remember why.  But there was a Fogarty 1, a Fogarty 2 and a Fogarty 3.  Each of them had separate and distinct personalities.  One of them, I don’t remember which learned to say ‘hello’ and my name ‘Bobbi’ which I remember was quite a thrill. I believe it was the same bird that learned to laugh like my dad.  That irritated my mother to no end.

As I was watching animal videos over the weekend just past, I ran across the one below of the cutest little Budgie.  He is playing with a tennis ball almost as big as he is.  Watch and enjoy.

Just for everyone’s information, Budgies and Parakeets are the same bird. Some say there is a difference, bit taxonomy shows that not to be the case. These birds are called Parakeet in the United States and Budgerigars or Budgies in the rest of the world.

Some places, for example England have Budgies  with a very distinctive look which might lead you to believe they were different birds than Parakeets or other Budgies.  The difference in appearance has been attained through selective breeding.  The English Budgies ae the same bird as the Parakeet and other Budgies around the world.

Now back to the Budgie in the video.  He sure is a determined little guy, isn’t he?  If he ever talks, I don’t think the word NO will be in his repertoire.

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