Posts for 'Endangered Species' Category

The cuckoo has joined Britain's "red list" of endangered birds, researchers said Thursday. Boasting an unmistakable two-note call and noted as a traditional harbinger of spring, the cuckoo has joined 51 other species of birds considered to be in danger of dying.

The assessment comes from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds that added the cuckoo to the endangered for the first time along with such birds as the lapwing, tree pipit, wood warbler, yellow wagtail and herring gull. Conservationists blamed the situation on loss of habitat caused by intensive farming techniques, climate change and development. 

Dogs require a lot of attention and some dogs can be extremely sensitive, which means they are not always best for small or young children. When you have children who want a pet there are several things you should consider. Below is a list of dog breeds that do well with children as well as some dog breeds that do not.

Dogs That Love Children:
German shepherds are our first dog on the list for being great with children. Despite the size of the German shepherd you will find that they are sensitive and very hardy dogs. They will tolerate a lot from young children such as tail pulling or hair pulling from children that are not aware of how it can hurt the dog. German shepherds are working dogs, but they also love a lot of affection and attention. They do well in households that have walking age children, especially older children that may return home from school and play in the backyard with them.

Poodles tend to do well with children as well. You may not want to have a poodle with infants or toddlers as they can be a little sensitive, but they love the affection and attention the children are willing to offer. Poodles are very active dogs inside and outside of the home. This means, they like being played with as well as trained. They can be sensitive so well behaved children are really the best types of households for them.

Golden Retrievers love children. In fact the best dog breed you can have for your child is going to be the Golden Retriever. You will find that they play, learn well, and shower affection. Most Golden Retrievers tend to follow children around as if they have adopted the care for that child and become some of the best companions as the child ages.

Labradors are also very good dogs to have around small children. They may need a little training to help with the proper socialization and commands as they can get quite rowdy, but they are hardy and not too sensitive. They tend to take the abuse of a toddler rather than lashing out.

Dogs That Tolerate Children:
Bulldogs are usually very loyal and loving to their owners, however they do not do well in abusive homes or where they will be picked on a great deal. Bulldogs tend to like peace and quiet over little children pulling on their ears or screaming.

Old English sheepdog’s can be in either category. It will depend on when you adopt the pet. Old English sheepdogs tend to be very loyal, affectionate and vie for attention. When you have an Old English sheepdog before children they can display very jealous behavior making them only tolerant of most children.

Great Danes are wonderful dogs, full of life and happiness. If you have a Great Dane in your home you can be assured that they will do well with any type of child; however they have landed in the tolerant status because of their size. The Great Dane is a very large and muscular dog, even with socialization training they can harm smaller children without meaning to do harm. Though they love being around children it is up to the parent to decide if they can be trusted with infants or toddlers even when the parent is in the room.

Anatolian Shepherd Dog’s are not the best dogs to have around children. They are a fiercely independent dog that does require attention. They do not tolerate children, and in some cases have been known to carry off children left unattended. The Anatolian Shepherd dog is meant to guard as well as protect the home from animals. Their instincts are to carry small prey to their owners during hunts as well as protect the home.

The only reason that most people ascend to 14,000 feet is to go skiing. For a group of U.S. and Chilean scientists, however, such altitudes are ideal fossil-hunting terrain. In fact, over the past 10 years their explorations have taken them to one of the highest elevation vertebrate fossil sites in the world. The localities near Salar de Surire in northern Chile have yielded several hundred fossil mammal specimens. A study led by Dr Darin Croft of Case Western Reserve University has determined that one of these specimens, a partial skeleton collected in 2004, represents a new species of armored mammal known as a glyptodont, which they have named Parapropalaehoplophorus septentrionalis. As Dr Croft says, ‘The name of this new species is a mouthful, but it does roll off the tongue nicely!’ The discovery is reported in the December issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology.Glyptodonts are a group of now-extinct armoured mammals most closely related to modern armadillos. Unlike armadillos, glyptodonts had shells made of mostly immovable plates and reached much larger sizes; some of the largest likely weighed two tons — the size of a small car! The new species, P. septentrionalis, is much smaller, weighing a mere 200 pounds and it documents the early history of this interesting group, which went extinct at about the same time that humans arrived in the New World. ‘When we collected this fossil, we had no idea that it would turn out to be a new species,’ said Croft. ‘We knew that it would be an important specimen, given its completeness, but it was only after careful comparison to other known species that we realised how unusual it was.’

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MIDDLETOWN - The Butler County man who formerly owned the chained, injured beagle known as Lucky has been ordered to spend 90 days in jail for cruelty to animals and is forbidden from being a pet owner again. Woodford Weybright, of Lemon Township near Monroe, appeared Monday in Middletown Municipal Court. He pleaded guilty to a count of cruelty to animals. In exchange for that plea, a second charge was dismissed, said Don Fugate, deputy dog warden and humane officer. Judge Mark Wall ordered that Weybright "never own any animal ever again," Fugate said. "It's a good result because the dog is with a new family and is adjusting well, and he can never do this to another animal again."Fugate had said he found Weybright's dog entangled in a chain that had rubbed the animal's neck raw. The dog was unable to lie down, had no water or food and was unable to get to shelter. The animal was underweight, flea-infested and suffered from mouth sores, he said. Weybright also must pay a $500 fine plus court costs, $83 for the animal's veterinary bill and $61 for boarding with the Animal Friends Humane Society's nonprofit shelter in Trenton. Weybright signed over ownership of the dog to the society. A Cincinnati-area family with three other beagles adopted Lucky. That family wishes to remain anonymous. The case is one of several incidents that left dogs injured after they were left chained too long in Butler County. Some activists are pushing for other communities to outlaw long-term chaining of animals. In Middletown, dog owners are forbidden from using stationary tethers and also are limited on how long they can legally restrain dogs even with mobile runs.

ammals are the most developed class in the animal kingdom. They are over 200 million yeas old and lived even at the age of the dinosaurs. As their name reveals they feed their young with mammary glands. They give birth to live young and have hair compared to feathers or scales which other animal classes have.Anatomy: From the anatomical point of view, their skeleton is in many ways similar to the human body. Their body is covered with a fur. They have got a bony skeleton. The spine can be divided into cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral and a tail part. The cervical consists of 7 parts / vertebrae (just like the humans), thoracic of 12-18 vertebrae and lumbar of 2-8 vertebrae. Sacral vertebrae are together fixed in the sacral bone. The number of vertebrae in the tail part may vary a lot. The first two vertebrae (atlas and axis) enable mammals to move their head to the sides (left / right) as well as up and down. Ribs are fixed to the thoracic vertebrae. They are also used as a great protection.

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The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) lives on the Arctic (this is around the North pole, don't confuse it with Antarctica - the Ant in Antarctica actually means opposite to). It is the largest of four currently recognized species of bear in the genus Ursus, which also includes the brown bear. It is the Apex predator in its territorium (this means it is not preyed upon, also called superpredator or alphapredator) and is perfectly adapted to life on the Arctic, with a thick layer of fat and fur acting as camouflage. Their paw pads with rough surfaces help prevent polar bears from slipping up on the ice. If you are concerned with global warming and the possible loss of habitat this causes for the Polar Bear, be sure to read this excellent page. Polar bears are completely dependent upon the sea ice for survival. From biologicaldiversity.org: "Polar bears use sea ice for virtually all of their essential behaviors including feeding, mating, travel, and maternity denning. They cannot survive the loss of sea ice habitat that will occur if current levels of greenhouse gas emissions continue. Scientists have already recorded thinner bears, lower female reproductive rates, and reduced juvenile survival in the Western Hudson Bay polar bear population in Canada, which is at the southern edge of the species’ range and the first to suffer impacts from global warming." (August 12, 2005). Maybe one day we are seriously transplanting polar bears to the Antarctic?
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The Beached Beluga Whale Babies Race Against the Clock

It has been observed since quite past that whenever the babies of Beluga whale beach themselves accidentally on Arctic shore, they somehow cannot waddle back to sea by their own effort, and instead keep lying there fighting for their life against time waiting for another life-saving tide to come and carry them back to sea. The baby whale thus thrown ashore struggle for life especially under the scorching sun, sometimes killing them and taking their lives.

CHINA – Beijing:  A female panda gave birth to twin cubs in southwest China. This astonished many especially the caretakers who had been expecting a single cub ever-since her pregnancy. 
The official News Agency Xinhua reported that the from the twins, the first born was a male panda while the sex of the second born is yet to be known  because the mother would not let it out of her grip after its birth a few days back.
The director of the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center in Sichuan Province, Zhang Zhihe was quoted as saying. The mother and her babies are all well," The director added that the female pandas normally become sexually mature between 4 and 5 years old. They can get pregnant once a year and usually give birth to one or two cubs at a time.

Note: More than 20 pandas were born in captivity in China last year, the report said. The panda is one of the world's rarest animals, with about 1,590 living in the wild in China, mostly in Sichuan and the western province of Shaanxi. Another 180 have been bred in captivity. 

In the Image
The picture shows eight-year-old panda Shu Qing licks one of her twin cubs at the Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu in southwest China's Sichuan province Thursday July 5, 2007. Shu Qing gave birth to twin panda cubs on Thursday, bringing the total number of pandas at the research center to 62.

Great Falls – Montana / The bear managers of the state, seeking to capture and collar grizzly bears especially the female grizzlies as part of  their  ‘population come back’ program, have recently captured a 7 foot, 6 inch male grizzly that weighs 750 pounds after it came out from its winter hide out for the purpose of hibernation.
Bear management specialist with the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Mike Madel, said that two scales and a hydraulic crane were engaged to weigh the 8-year-old bruin that had 3 1/2-inch claws and a neck circumference of 4 feet. Madel commented that this was just a beautiful bear ever seen.
Madel speculated that this huge male grizzly bear with the bronze head, golden back and dark chocolate legs could be weighing as much as 900 pounds by this autumn. Madel added  “This is really a large male,” he said. “In fact, it is the second-largest male grizzly ever recorded in the Northern Rockies Region.” 

Note: The picture shows thick pad beneath the huge paw of the second-largest grizzly bear ever captured. The paw of this grizzly bear measures 7 1/8 inches across and its claws are 3 ½ inches long.