Our dog, whom we had gotten soon after the end of World War II and named “Jeep,” was keeping a benevolent eye on our cat.
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Allied Dog
Tag: animals
BOGOTÁ — In a kind of eerie, Darwinian evolution, abandoned pets in parts of Colombia have become feral beasts and predators that are proving more fearsome than wild animals. Once again, wildlife is proving defenseless in the face of yet another man-made threat, produced in this case by former owners of an unwanted dog or […]
This week we shine the spotlight on Mexico: CHILD TRAFFICKING PROBE IN SONORA Mexican national daily Excelsior reports that the country’s Attorney General formally charged two officials from the northern state of Sonora with child trafficking. The case first emerged last month, when Vladimir Alfredo Arzate and José Hernández López, both officials at a government […]
BOGOTA — The World Wildlife Fund has sounded the alarm across the planet’s sea and oceans. “In just one generation, human activity has seriously harmed the ocean by catching fish faster than they can reproduce, while destroying their feeding zones,” the director general of World Wildlife Fund International Marco Lambertini declared, as the WWF publishes […]
Humans aren’t the only living beings able to perceive the emotions of others and respond to them. When it comes to empathy, animals and people are more alike than not.
-Analysis- MUNICH — Slaughterhouses and farms are becoming increasingly larger in size. Tracing the origins of an animal has become next to impossible as our sources of meat are increasingly transported across Europe, and the world. This not only affects the animals but inevitably us as well. The schnitzel on your plate was once a […]
Munich considers a different kind of police sweep of the city streets.
CHUBUT — Through cunning techniques used in hunting seals and smaller whales, killer whales reveal they are one of the most intelligent of sea mammals, explains Argentine daily Clarin. Every season killer whales return to the Valdés peninsula in Chubut, southern Argentina, for their seal hunting ritual. Here they display their ingenuity using the particular […]
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The Donkey That Wanted To Be A Chameleon
That shade of blue you often find on the Greek island of Santorini was also perfect for this donkey’s saddle. “The Donkey That Wanted To Be A Chameleon” would make a great fable by Jean de La Fontaine, wouldn’t it?
Animals have many of the characteristics of the brilliantly useful machines scientists would like to create: flexibility, adaptability, instinctive intelligence …
Images are spreading of extreme cruelty to animals at the corralejas, a version of bullfighting in remote areas of Colombia. Social media can be both enemy and friend for animal rights activists.
As the ruble nosedives and Russia chokes on Western sanctions, the president –once compared to a bear or bull — now looks smaller to his countrymen in an unusual recurring survey.
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Introducing The CowCam
Uschi, scratching herself on the leg, takes a picture of her udder. Fat Lola, who is mainly interested in eating, keeps her head down, which means the photos she takes are close-ups of grass blades. Only old Frida shows considerably more artistic talent, because she looks around while chewing her cud and takes in the […]
For the second straight year, there is an unwelcome Christmas visitor in northern Argentina. A variety of piranha fish called palometas have returned for a second year to bite Argentine swimmers in the Paraná River, near the city of Posadas. On Christmas day last year, some 60 people were attacked by the palometa piranha, an […]
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Mexico Bans Jungle Animals In Circuses
MEXICO CITY — Legislators in Mexico have voted to forbid the use of jungle animals such as elephants, big cats or monkeys in circuses across the country, threatening fines equivalent to over $220,000 for offenders, Spain’s EFE agency and Latin American newspapers report. The ban, applicable nationwide, is already in force in Mexico City and […]
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Monkeys Up Close
More than once have I experienced the power and joy of a 70-300mm telephoto lens. Looking from afar, in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, I couldn’t even make out what these little creatures were — they even looked like they could have been penguins! But once I zoomed in, I could enjoy watching these locals […]
SHANGHAI — Every summer, the little town of Yulin in southeastern China celebrates the summer solstice by tasting local dishes: lychees (a Chinese fruit) in alcohol, for example, and, perhaps the favorite main course delicacy, dog meat. Dog carcasses are visibly displayed on street stalls — for now. But last year, animal rights activists began […]
BUENOS AIRES — The right to protection from arbitrary detention, known as Habeas Corpus, is one of humanity’s greatest achievements, the fruit of England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688. Now, a group of animal-rights activists in Argentina is demanding its application for an orangutan, which they say is being “illegally deprived of its liberty” inside the […]
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Central Safari
If you click on “show story map” at the top of this page, you’ll have a global view of the slides published so far, and begin to get an idea of how widely my wife and I traveled. Still, you may notice some gaps on the map — and Zimbabwe was the closest we got […]
RADOLFZELL — Biologist Martin Wikelski put sensors on goats living on Italy’s Mount Etna and watched what happened. He found that if you watched their movements, you could predict when there would be volcanic eruptions. So now he wants to do satellite research on how animals roam and escape on a world scale. What happened […]
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Iran’s Last Siberian Crane Flies Alone
TEHRAN — What was described as the “last remaining” member of a flock of cranes that has flown to Iran from Siberia every winter was recently spotted on Iran’s northern Caspian shore, confirming environmental officials’ fears that the pack is virutally extinct. This was said to be the seventh year it had flown 4,000 kilometers […]
In the hills south of Rome, another kind of “liberation community” is preparing for a very different future.
A somewhat unusual event was held over the weekend in a park in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, called “I want to touch a dog.” The idea was organized through Facebook in order to introduce Muslims to dogs, and more than 800 people attended, Asia One reports. Many came to see and be near the dogs, and […]
A Siberian tiger released into the wild by Russian President Vladimir Putin has attacked a henhouse in northeastern China, raising concerns that farmers may now have to hunt it down, according to Chinese media reports quoted by the AP. The official Xinhua news agency says the animal, known as Kuzya, was believed to have eaten […]
Zurich-based group Zürcher Tierschutz launched a campaign earlier this year to set a quota for the country’s cats, deeming them a threat to other wildlife, including small mammals, reptiles and birds. However, since the campaign began, cat lovers have been pawsitively up in arms about it. The group estimates there to be 1.4 million cats […]
The number of wild animals living on our planet has drastically decreased over the past 40 years, according to research by scientists at the World Wildlife Foundation and the Zoological Society of London. “Unsustainable human consumption” is to blame — killing creatures for food, whilst polluting and destroying their habitats. The report suggests populations have […]
Recent behavioral and developmental studies of animals such as rabbits and rats show striking similarities to patterns we see in how childhood relationships and experiences shape humans.
The world’s first live broadcast panda cub delivery was canceled Tuesday — not because something went wrong, no, just because Mama Panda wasn’t actually pregnant. She faked it. Chinese experts suggested that Ai Hin, the panda who was supposed to be the star of the show, may have faked her condition to get extra bun […]
Ravens tend to have a bad rap. In the Middle Ages, because they fed on corpses after executions, they were associated with gallows. In mythology, two ravens symbolizing wisdom and intelligence were attributes of the northern god Odin. But ravens — and other members of the corvine family like crows, jackdaws and magpies — are […]
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Feeding Time At The Zoo: Ice Cream Edition
It’s hot in Colombia, and severe drought conditions are affecting most of the country. Though forest fires have sadly killed thousands of wild animals, those at the zoo in the southern city of Cali are getting some pampering and a little help cooling off. Staff there have decided to mix the animals’ food with ice, […]
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Meet Camillo, Germany’s Roaming Facebook Cat
EICHSTATT —Camillo the cat nearly missed his TV appearance. The one-year-old feline belongs to the Auer family in the this Bavarian town of 14,000, but he is anything but a house cat. No, Camillo spends his days and nights attending parties around town, visiting art galleries, and catching a cat nap in a comfortable chair […]
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Zebra Crossings
Can you spot the odd one out?
PACHMARHI — Anil Yadav has lived in the hilltop town of Pachmarhi for the past 16 years, but over the past three he says that the monkey population has expanded beyond control. So much so that humans are now being forced to live in cages. In India, monkeys are sacred and worshipped by Hindus as […]
Animal rights activists have attacked an annual Dog Eating Feast, which asks the larger question over values in modern China.
MUNICH — Citing the failure of antibiotics to work effectively in their patients, a group of German doctors and other healthcare providers are laying blame on the factory farming industry — and calling for reform. The doctors say that antibiotics no longer work because of multi-resistant germs that patients carry, at least some of which […]
VILLA CARLOS PAZ — In 2005, Damián Guzmán, a resident of Villa Carlos Paz, in central Argentina, gave his son Miguel a present: a German shepherd mix they named Capitán. Miguel died a year later and was buried nearby, and Capitán left the house soon afterwards. The family assumed the dog was lost or that […]
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Buffaloes And Burials
Funeral proceedings for the Toraja people, in southern Sulawesi, include the slaughtering of a water buffalo. Four of them were killed in this case — a sign we were told that the deceased must have been from a wealthy family. Weirdly enough, the ritual throat-slitting and skinning of the bovid was followed by a Protestant […]
NAKHON PATHOM — Why did the thousands ducks cross the road? Drivers and pedestrians in Nakhon Pathom, in the central Bang Len district, were trying to find an explanation to the stampeding, quacking duck-nami that took them by surprise Saturday. It is captured below on the video below that will strike true fear in anyone […]
There is growing evidence that different species of animals can actually become what we humans think of as ‘friends.’ This is science, not Walt Disney…
The wind instrument this snake charmer is playing is called a pungi. I brought one back as a present for my then 6-year-old grandson, who — since there aren’t that many cobras in France — tried to charm earthworms with it.