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Day Of The Animals: Tales Of Man Vs Beast (And Man Suffers)

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Trapped snake thanks its rescuers ... and despite the commentary, the snake wasn't harmed ...... the ending's pretty stomach turning though be warned .... and NSFW for swearing:

 
Spider crabs forming a pyramid ... I have no idea other than some sort of spider crab orgy? ...

 
hunck said:
We've had reintroduction of Red Kites & some escaped beavers. How about Lynx? You can vote here if you have a view. Personally I'm in favour.
Click to expand...

Update to this - 91% of those who voted [over 9000] are in favour. Watch out for lynx in your neighbourhood soon...
Details here
 
Bamboo the dog like skateboarding


I think it's safe to say this one doesn't

 
A donkey did not harm passengers or disrupt traffic when it entered a Cairo International Airport car park on Monday, airport police stated on Tuesday.

A video uploaded on Youtube on Monday showed workers chasing a donkey in the parking lot outside Cairo International Airport's Terminal 3.

"The donkey likely belongs to one of the workers who could possibly be working in a mall near the airport," the statement by airport police read.

Police forces chased the donkey until it was out of the airport, the statement read.

"[The donkey] was chased by members of the secret police and airport security guards who were able to restrain it," the statement said. ...

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/128895.aspx

 
A police dog who sniffed out firearms, cash and drugs worth some £5m is to be given a posthumous award.

Springer Spaniel Jake died aged 13, just weeks before picking up the PDSA Order of Merit, sometimes referred to as the animal equivalent of the OBE.

The Order of Merit is to be collected by Jake's "girlfriend", a police dog called Gwen, at a ceremony in London on Wednesday evening.

Jake was Warwickshire Police's longest serving dog when he retired in August. ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-32499762
 
A Pembrokeshire tortoise which had part of its legs chewed off by a rat has been fitted with wheels.

The 90-year-old tortoise, called Mrs T, had been placed in a garden shed to hibernate when the rodent attacked.

Owner, Jude Ryder, ran up a £1,000 vets bill before turning to her mechanical engineer son Dale, 37, for help.

He used the wheels from a toy plane and designed an axle which he fitted to the tortoise's shell using resin. ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-32484103
 
Animals in Norway could soon feel much safer, as the country’s government has announced plans to set up a police force for animals. The animal cops will initially work on a three-year trial period, with the move being hailed by animal rights activists.

Sor-Trondelag in the west of Norway, is the county where the initiative is going to be tested. It will employ three staff – an investigator, a legal expert and a coordinator – to fight animal abuse. It will also work closely with the Norwegian Food Safety Authority, which is responsible for animal welfare.

“First of all, it's important to take care of our animals, so that they enjoy the rights they have and that there be a follow-up when their rights are violated,” Agriculture Minister Sylvi Listhaug said, describing animals at risk as “often defenseless,” AFP reported.

http://rt.com/news/253905-norway-animal-police-protection/
 
Not a current news story as such; and I’m not sure whether this is the best place on FTMB in which to post this -- but I recently came upon it, and found it interesting.

A bit of a light cast on the regrettable fact of -- in assorted areas around the Mediterranean -- numerous people shooting and eating numerous small birds, to the rather severe detriment of said bird species, already under threat from various other factors. Italy is renowned as one of the chief culprits in this business. Found in a recently library-borrowed book, Dad's War by Howard Reid: concerning the author’s father’s WWII POW exploits in Italy, and his (the son's) retracing of them some 55 years after.

“One reason why there is so much hunting [mostly of small birds] in Italy today is that Mussolini changed the trespass laws to open up private property to the cacciatore [hunters]. His aim was to enrich the martial ardour of the nation. Half a century later few of these laws have been repealed and several million small songbirds, as well as larger game, are still sacrificed on the altar of Il Duce' s martial prowess every year.”

One rather feels: pretty much the kind of bonkers idea which someone like Mussolini would have been liable to conceive – letting the population loose to take on fierce and dangerous songbirds, being a splendid way to foster martial valour on their part; and it seems surprising that laws promulgated by a long-ago disgraced and despised despot, have indeed not been abolished.
 
More concerning the matter of Mediterranean-area small-avicide: a rather fascinating book recently found by me -- Levant – Recipes and Memories from the Middle East -- by Anissa Helou, a lady originally from Lebanon. Includes reminiscences of childhood stays with relatives on their farm in the Lebanese countryside, and pleasant eating experiences there – among those, the seasonal “roasted wild birds”.

I quote: “Towards the end of summer I would abandon the kitchen to accompany my uncles on their bird-shooting expeditions. I loved watching them in action; and I loved eating the little birds they caught even more. My uncles were excellent shots and by the end of the day we had dozens of the furry [??] little creatures, all strung together on a cord suspended from a wing mirror of the car to take back home. The birds that feed on figs, in particular, are considered a great delicacy, both in Lebanon and Syria. I would help to pluck and gut them, and once they were all prepared, my grandmother would season them with sea salt before threading them onto skewers. While we were getting the birds ready, my uncles lit a charcoal fire to grill them. As she grilled the birds, my grandmother pressed them every now and then between two layers of pita bread to soak up the fatty juices. My siblings and I always fought over who would get the juiciest pieces of bread to wrap around our little birds. And despite the fact that eating them is now seen as completely non-PC, they remain one of my favourite foods. My grandmother always served them with a plate of her homemade pickles.”

One feels inclined to applaud Ms. Helou’s honesty here, while deploring her un-Green position on the issue...
 
If you're quick, you'll catch Mum feeding the chicks right now on the above link (it's now 11:15 am)
 
Some minor strangeness here:

Black tits were nesting in the box on our balcony. We saw them carry loads of caterpillars to the nest.
Then they were gone suddenly. I took a quick peak inside the box and saw no small birds, so I assumed they had flown.
A few days passed. In this period I saw two black tits fighting in the bushes once.
Now they're busy again. But they behave differently.
While feeding they would always land on the balcony railing first, look around very carefully and only then fly into the box with their food. When they left the box empty they flew away directly from the box opening.
Now they're flying directly into and out of the box. No stop for looking around.

My hypothesis is that a second couple is building a new nest on top of the old nest. But I have often read that the birds don't use used/dirty nesting boxes. But I don't dare to check, I'm afraid to chase the birds away.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
Quite painful to watch.
Click to expand...

Only if you're another kestrel .. re-watch it .. not only does the smaller bird that's being bullied fight back, it goes all Mel Gibson mental by hooking its talons into the leg of the kestrel, drags it back into its bird box for a full on scrap and then later even goes outside its bird box looking for another scrap. They started it and he/she finished it.
 
Sonya Gilreath knew something wasn't right when she heard a man yelling "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" outside of her house Thursday morning.

The South Carolina mother ran down the stairs, opened her front door and saw her neighbor's car parked on her front lawn. The driver rolled down his window and yelled, "You got an alligator in your yard!"

A group of children on their way to school stood frozen behind the car, staring at a nearly 10-foot-long alligator sitting underneath Gilreath's bushes.

As soon as the gator moved, the kids ran home as fast as they could -- and so did Gilreath.

"All of the sudden, I saw it get up," Gilreath told CBS News. "I ran inside after seeing how large as it was." ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/10-foot-long-alligator-shows-up-on-familys-front-lawn/
 
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