Tuesday

This unique footage of 4 Canadian Lynx was provided by a Canadian research group. The female Lynx was captured in live cage trap. Incidentally, “Mom” was released unharmed to rejoin the family.

Engaged in a fisher study program where fisher are collared and released, the incidental Lynx catch was made by the research team. Appearing first, an adolescent Lynx was followed by two more of his brothers or sisters. It was apparent that the three young Lynx, about six months old, were apprehensive about entering the live cage trap. However, the adult female, no doubt still responsible for providing food for the young, didn’t hesitate entering the live trap to grab a free lunch.

The Canada lynx is a lean, medium-sized cat characterized by its long, dense fur, triangular ears with black tufts at the tips, and broad, snowshoe-like paws. Like the bobcat, the hindlimbs are longer than the forelimbs, so the back slopes downward to the front.

The long, thick fur, uniformly coloured with little to no markings except on the underside, insulates the lynx in its frosty habitat. The fur is typically yellowish brown, though in Newfoundland it can vary from brown or buff-grey in spring and summer to a greyish shade with a grizzled appearance in winter; the underparts are white and may have a few dark spots.

After a gestation of two to three months, a litter of one to eight kittens is born. Kittens weigh from 175 to 235 g (6.2 to 8.3 oz) at birth and initially have greyish buff fur with black markings. They are blind the first fourteen days and weaned at twelve weeks. Most births occur from May to July.

Kittens leave the den after about five weeks and begin hunting at between seven and nine months of age. They leave the mother at around ten months, as the next breeding season begins, but they do not reach the full adult size until around two years of age. Female offspring typically settle in home ranges close to their mothers and remain in contact with them for life, while male offspring move far from their mother's range.

Canada lynxes have been reported to live sixteen years in the wild, though most do not survive ten; in captivity they may make it to twenty-seven. Various techniques have been employed to study Canada lynx populations; the data collected can provide useful information on the ecology and distribution of the species and pave the way for effective conservation measures. In scent stations, the lynx is typically lured into camera-monitored areas by skunk scent (sometimes catnip) and a "flasher" such as a bird wing on a string.

VIDEO

Sunday

A neglected puppy who needed surgery after she was found with a metal chain embedded in her neck now has a real-life superhero as her new "dad": Marvel actor and former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista.

Last week, a good Samaritan found the 3-month-old puppy eating garbage at a cemetery and rescued her, rushing the pup to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay.

Shelter staff said the tiny dog, who they nicknamed "Sage," had a metal chain embedded in her neck.

Veterinarians said even though Sage was in immense pain, she was "wagging her tail on the exam table" as they checked her. The Humane Society of Tampa Bay performed emergency surgery to remove the chain from the pup's neck.

Bautista, best known for portraying Drax the Destroyer in the "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Avengers" movies, saw the shelter's post about Sage and shared it on his social media pages, causing her story to go viral.

The actor even offered a $5,000 reward to anyone who would come forward to name the person who abused and neglected the dog. He later said the total reward went up to $11,500 after Alvarez Injury Law Firm matched his reward, while the Humane Society offered $1,500.

The Humane Society received a flood of inquiries from people wanting to adopt Sage, but ultimately Bautista decided he wanted to adopt the tiny pup himself.

"Sage, now known as Penny, now has her very own superhero and will never know pain/suffering ever again," the shelter said.

Bautista shared the news in a video to his fans on Instagram, saying, "She is now a Bautista and she will never be abused a day again in her life… She is about to live her best puppy life ever."

It's not the first time Bautista has rescued dogs from a Bay Area shelter. Back in 2019, the actor adopted two bonded 6-year-old pit bulls, Maggie and Ollie, who had been abandoned at Hillsborough County's Pet Resource Center after their owner had a baby.

"I needed them, they needed me," Bautista wrote. "These beautiful babies spent the first six years of their lives neglected and abused. And now they are going to spend the rest of their lives being spoiled and loved."

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VIDEO

Friday

Photos and videos showing a hippo rescuing first a wildebeest calf and then a zebra foal from drowning in a strong-flowing river in Tanzania are causing a sensation worldwide.

Yule, a South African now living in Tanzania, was watching the wildebeest and zebra migration across the Mara River near the northern Lemala Serengeti tented camp together with a touring group when they saw the incident.

"This is the time of year that the migration of wildebeest and zebra starts moving south from the Masai Mara in Kenya, heading for the short-grass plains of the southern Serengeti," said Yule.

"One of their big hurdles is the Mara River, which was flowing very strongly that day because of recent heavy rains."

Yule and several others saw the strong current sweep a young wildebeest calf downstream.

"The hippo immediately went after it and positioned itself on the downstream side of the calf, nudging it with its snout and keeping it above the water all the way across the river until the calf reached the other side and managed to get out and join the rest of the herd."

Barely five minutes later the water swept away a zebra foal. The hippo immediately set off after the foal and helped it toward the opposite bank in the same way.

"It was incredible to watch," said Yule. The foal was utterly exhausted when it eventually managed to get on to a little rock island very close to the opposite bank.

"It just stood there panting," he said.

"The hippo got out of the water and came up behind the foal and started nudging it and gently biting it on its backside as if to say, 'Come on man, don't give up now, you can do it. Just a hop, skip and a jump and you're there.'

"The foal slowly stepped off of the island and crossed the little channel on to the opposite side and rejoined the rest of the family group."

VIDEO

For a long time, fox got its reputation as clever or cunning. This reputation partially refers to their excellent hunting skills, but it’s also because of their sharp appearances which make them look smart.

The Tibetan fox, also known as the Tibetan sand fox, is a species of true fox endemic to the high Tibetan Plateau, Ladakh plateau, Nepal, China, Sikkim, and Bhutan, up to elevations of about 5,300 m (17,400 ft). It is listed as Least Concern in the IUCN Red List, on account of its widespread range in the Tibetan Plateau's steppes and semi-deserts.

The Tibetan fox is small and compact, with a soft, dense coat, conspicuously narrow muzzle, and bushy tail. Its muzzle, crown, neck, back and lower legs are tan to rufous coloured, while its cheeks, flanks, upper legs and rumps are grey. Its tail has white tips. The short ears are tan to greyish tan on the back, while the insides and undersides are white. Adult Tibetan foxes are 60 to 70 centimetres (24 to 28 in), not including tail, and have tail lengths of 29 to 40 cm (11 to 16 in). Weights of adults are usually 4 to 5.5 kg (8.8 to 12.1 lb).

The Tibetan fox is restricted to the Tibetan Plateau in western China and the Ladakh plateau in northern India. It occurs north of the Himalayas in the northernmost border regions of Nepal and India, across Tibet, and in parts of the Chinese provinces.

Mated pairs remain together and may also hunt together.[10] After a gestation period of about 50 to 60 days, two to four young are born in a den, and stay with the parents until they are eight to ten months old. Their burrows are made at the base of boulders, at old beach lines and low slopes. Dens may have four entrances, with entrances being 25–35 cm in diameter.

At present, the Tibetan fox is not in danger of extinction, but it is still listed as a second-class national protected animal in China because of its ecological importance. As the main predator of plateau pika, if there are no Tibetan foxes, the local plateau pika would flood and destroy the grassland.

However, the concern of Tibetan foxes’ survival is rising with the dropping plateau pika population in recent years. Due to the government-sponsored pika poisoned programme and overgrazing, there is a possibility that the pika population would not just be controlled but even eliminated. Due to human disturbance, the balance of nature is on the edge now.

If Tibetan foxes lose their major food source, their survival status needs to be reassessed in the future.

VIDEO

Thursday

A fire department nearly lost a family's seven-month-old spotted pet kitten after mistaking it for a jaguar and releasing it into the wild.

Veterinarian Rodrigo Calil said tenants at his condominium in southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais called 911 Tuesday morning after they spotted the cat, Massinha, wandering around the building.

When firefighters arrived at the building and found the seven-month-old cat in the stairs and mistook it for a wild animal, according to Brazilian newspaper Metropoles.

The firemen then used a net to trap the cat and proceeded to a forest area near the family's home where they released her.

Calil said he woke up around 7am and noticed the Bengal cat, which he purchased for $1,300 as a gift for his seven-year-old daughter, was missing.

He then discovered through a WhatsApp group chat that Massinha has been found and removed from the grounds.

'What happened was surreal,' Calil said. 'In the period between me getting up and seeing it was gone, I joined the condominium group and saw that people were desperate thinking it was a jaguar.'

The family searched the vicinity for almost eight hours before his daughter found her in the bushes Tuesday evening.

'I chose to bring her so that she could see that I was committed to finding the cat,' Calil told O Tempo newspaper. 'She had been very sad and even cried when she heard the news of the disappearance. As soon as my daughter called for her, the cat listened and left the bush'

Calil was bemused that the fire department and building staff could make such a poor error in judgment.

'It's surreal, it's a sequence of mistakes one after another,' he said. 'A lack of preparation by a large condominium, a lack of preparation by a team from the fire department, who assumed it was a wild animal and released it in the Belvedere forest, a residential area.'

The fire department said the responding unit acted in accordance with their guidelines and removed the cat that has been roaming around the building for two days.

'They (building security) reported that the said animal did not belong to any local resident,' the fire department said in a statement. 'After being captured safely and unharmed, since she had no injuries and was apparently healthy, and because she had the characteristics of a domestic animal, she was released in a more remote location outside the condominium in a forested area, according to standard protocol.'

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