Tourists who carried a baby fawn in their arms to a Grand Canyon ranger provoked an unusual reaction - the frustrated ranger burst into tears.

 Ranger Della Yurcik was manning the Phantom Ranch Ranger Station last Thursday at noon, with temperatures hovering at 110 degrees, when a tourist couple showed up with a leggy fawn wrapped in a T-shirt, according to The Arizona Daily Sun.

Worried that the fawn would suffer the same fate as the bison calf who was euthanised after a family visiting Yellowstone National Park in May loaded it into its car thinking it needed help, the ranger said seeing the young fawn made her cry.

'The baby just happened to be walking by when people came, so in their mind it was coming up to them for help,' she told the outlet. 'Unfortunately it’s commonplace for them to leave their young and it’s common for visitors to see what they assume to be abandoned animals.'

Luckily, this story had a better ending than the bison calf story.

Rangers returned the fawn to her habitat and kept an eye on her, eventually seeing her mother return to her that evening.


They have since spotted mama and baby going on about their lives.

Yurick says she will issue the couple a citation. The punishment could be up to six months in jail or five years probation and/or a $5000 fine.

The ranger wants visitors to leave the wildlife alone, but she also understands that sometimes people just can't help themselves.
Source

A new-born puppy’s life was saved thanks to the swift actions of police officers who broke a window of the car he was trapped in.

 With temperatures in excess of 30C, officers from Pensacola Police Department in Florida had no choice but to shatter the car’s front window.

As you can tell from the pictures, the poor little brown and white puppy pictured was suffering from the heat.

After the incident, the force posted the following plea on Facebook:

"Don’t. Just don’t. If you leave your dog in a hot car and that dog is suffering, we will do whatever we have to do to free him. Or her. Doesn’t matter, we like both kinds of dogs. We will drive your pooch to the caring folks at the Escambia County Animal Shelter and we will drop you off with the caring folks at the Escambia County Detention Facility. You will both receive attention, food, and shelter, albeit different kinds. So, don’t."


Why are hot cars dangerous? Animals are only able to cool themselves off by panting, sweating and through their paw pads, which makes being locked inside a car especially dangerous.. Pets can suffer brain damage or die from heatstroke in a matter of minutes.

An ancient variety of squash that was all but lost to history is now being rediscovered.

Native Americans in the Great Lakes region have cultivated this squash for centuries, and now tribes are sharing the seeds with each other and with small farmers to bring the plant back.

Eighth Day Farm in Holland, Mich., is among those that acquired seeds from this mystery squash. And the farm's Sarah Hofman-Graham says they didn't know what to expect when they planted it last year.

"I definitely didn't have a firm idea of what kind of squash it was going to grow—or even what the plant was going to look like," she says. "It was just a fantastic surprise."

The seeds grew into massive bright orange squashes, each more than 2 feet long. Hofman-Graham invited me to a dinner party featuring a soup made from the ancient squash — it tasted sweet and mild.

The seeds passed through a couple of pairs of hands before they got to the farm. But they started with Paul DeMain, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. DeMain says his seeds originally came from the Miami tribe in Indiana and are thought to be from a line that's somewhere between 1,000 to 2,000 years old.


"The squash and the seeds that are going around now have provoked quite a bit of excitement in the native community because it is an indigenous seed," he says.

DeMain says several stories have circulated about the seeds' origins and that it's possible several stories have morphed together over time. According to one story, the seeds were found in a clay vessel that was unearthed during a construction project in Wisconsin.

"There were seeds in it that were regrown," Demain says. "And allegedly these seeds were dated [to] about 850 to 900 years ago."


"As communities begin healing after a hundred years of decline — of displacement — it comes along with a revival of the language, the revival of songs and ceremonies," he says.

One tribe in Michigan wants to make sure these seeds stay around a lot longer.

In a small basement room in the Jijak office, there are dozens of glass jars on wooden shelves, with native varieties of corn, beans, tobacco, watermelon and ancient squash.

Finney opens a jar of the seeds of the ancient squash, called Gete Kosman: Gete means ancient, or something from a long time ago, and kosman is the word for squash.

"They're big, just like the squash. And they're "really fat, and that's a good thing for a seed," Finney says.

He calls the ancient squash "heroic."

"This squash has re-emerged. It's an ancient, lost and forgotten thing. It's a champion for all of these seeds," he says. "They were forgotten, and all of them are making their re-emergence again."

"There is spirit within those seeds," she says. "So that's why we want to keep revitalizing things like this, and keep building things like this, to provide for those next seven generations," she says. "And also thinking about those ones that were in the past seven generations, that because of them, we're here. Because of them, those seeds are still here as well."

She calls the work they're doing "food sovereignty" — growing their own food in traditional ways, on tribal land.
 Source

The SyFy series, which portrays a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies, features Native actors protecting their homelands in an episode entitled, “We Were Nowhere Near the Grand Canyon”.

 Eddie Spears as Gorden Firecloud aka Red Hawk: Gorden Firecloud aka Red Hawk is the leader of part of a Native American tribe that followed him to their ancestral land to survive the zombie outbreak, in the hopes that their ancestors would protect them.

The son of Chief Dan Firecloud and brother of Ayalla Firecloud, he appeared in the 10th episode of season 2, "We Were Nowhere Near the Grand Canyon". Before the apocalypse, he was a college professor specializing in native culture.

His tribe is wary of the zombie virus infecting their community, calling it "Zendigo" and a "disease of the soul", and Red Hawk blames the outbreak on whites.

"We Were Nowhere Near the Grand Canyon" is the tenth episode of Season 2 of Z Nation and the twenty-third episode of the series overall.


Native actors: Eddie Spears, Gene Tagaban, Tonantzin Carmelo, Tinsel Korey and Jeff Barehand.


Ayalla (Tinsel Korey) commented on her role on the set of ZNation. “Our Indigenous women are nurturing, powerful warriors. So, it was an honor to help create such a strong, intelligent, kick-butt character like Ayalla. The producers and director really valued all the Native actors’ opinions and helped bring to life multi-dimensional and futuristic Native heroes.”
Official website 

Heart-wrenching moment: A golden snub-nosed monkey mum refused to leave her baby's body after the one-year-old baby monkey fell from a 20m tall tree and died

 Photos taken in the Qin Ling Mountains of central ‪China‬ on June 28 show a monkey mum lingering around her baby's body after the one-year-old baby monkey fell from a 20 meters' tall tree and died.

The baby monkey who fell in the process of food gathering can be seen lying on the rock, whilst the monkey mum kept screaming as if she was calling her baby not to leave her.

The monkey mum was then seen leaving the rock carrying her baby's body.

About 20,000 of golden snub-nosed monkey remain on Earth. Some 4,000 inhabit the mountainous region where Chinese officials set up the Zhouzhi National Nature Reserve to protect the species.


Guo Songtai, an Chinese professor specialised in the golden snub-nosed monkey told ifeng.com that it was not uncommon for a primate to carry its dead baby.

It has been observed in the Qin Ling mountains for a golden snub-nosed monkey to carry her infant for as long as 35 days after its death, said Guo, who teaches at the College of Life Sciences in the Northwest University in Xi'an.

A four-month-old grizzly cub has been caught on camera showering its mother with kisses in a stunning set of photographs.

The sweetheart can be seen chasing its mother around the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming trying to land a number of smooches even if the fully-grown bear does not seem all that keen to pucker up.

A tussle turns into a bit of playful rough and tumble before the pair succumb into the heart-melting parental affection in its purest form.

They walk in tandem through the vast wildlife of the Grand Teton and junior even has time to practice climbing on a wooden pylon.

Clearly a natural with the camera, its swivels its neck to give the wildlife snapper the perfect shot.

The images were captured by photographer Troy Harrison, 47, from Nashville in Tennesse at the national park synonymous with grizzly bears.
Source

This is Uni-chan, the Japanese Shiba who is making big news for being so cute while riding in a swing.

Now there’s a gorgeous shiba inu with an infectious grin who’s picking up adoring followers online thanks to her cute playground antics. Her name is Uni, and she loves nothing better than to swing on the swings, climb on the equipment and ride the merry-go-round at her local park in Japan.

Uni-chan became internet famous after a photo of her enjoying a ride on a swing were shared on Imgur.

“She has always loved high places and toys.” Uni-chan’s owner, Mr. Saito told BuzzFeed Japan.

It looks similar to and is often mistaken for other Japanese dog breeds like the Akita Inu or Hokkaido, but the Shiba Inu is a different breed with a distinct blood line, temperament and smaller size than other Japanese dog breeds

Inu is the Japanese word for dog, but the origin of the prefix "Shiba" is less clear. The word shiba means "brushwood" in Japanese, and refers to a type of tree or shrub whose leaves turn red in the fall.
Source Buzzfeed

Only when a lion lost his mane could he live happily ever after with his best friend: a white tiger.

 Cameron the lion and Zabu the tiger were rescued from a rundown roadside zoo, where keepers had tried to breed them to sell liger cubs. A Florida sanctuary, Big Cat Rescue, took them in - but the pair's hope of continuing life together here had its complications.

From the start Big Cat Rescue knew they had to try to keep the friends together, so they immediately built a huge enclosure and gave Cameron a vasectomy. A while later the keepers decided to spay Zabu, after Cameron began turning aggressive to keepers when his tiger friend was in heat.

This worked for several years, but Cameron grew more and more possessive of the tiger again and eventually wouldn't let keepers near them to clean or feed. The sanctuary had to neuter him, meaning his mane fell away.

'While it was sad to see Cameron lose his mane, it was completely worth it so that he could continue to live with his best friend Zabu,' said Big Cat Rescue.


Thankfully it does not seem to bother him, according to the keepers: 'Cameron's mood has mellowed dramatically and he seems much more comfortable in the hot Florida summers without the extra 15 pounds of fur around his neck.


'He has even become much more playful since he no longer worries about everything that is going on around his enclosure. His favourite toy is a big yellow ring which he bats and pushes around his enclosure in the early morning and late afternoon.'


Of course, the two friends aren't always in perfect harmony.

'While Cameron tries to sleep most of the day away (as lions do in the wild), Zabu is extremely energetic and is always pestering him to play,' added the sanctuary. 'She'll often give up on him and just run and jump and play with her big red planet ball.'
Source

A study of the mitochondrial DNA of modern-day Iñupiat people suggests that all of the Iñupiat and Inuit populations from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland came from the Alaskan North Slope.

 Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to child, with few changes from generation to generation. All of the mitochondrial DNA haplogroups that have been found in the remains of Neo- and Paleo-Inuit and living Inuit peoples were found among the people from the North Slope villages, including the haplogroup of Paleo-Inuits, which until this study had only been detected in their ancient remains.

The haplogroup of the Neo-Inuits, thought to have replaced the Paleo-Inuits, was also detected. “We think the presence of these two haplotypes in villages of the North Slope means that the Paleo-Inuits and the Neo-Inuits were both ancestors of the contemporary Iñupiat people,” Jennifer A. Raff of Northwestern University said in a press release.

A third haplogroup, typically seen in Native Americans living further south, may have been carried by the first people to enter the Americas. It could also have entered the peoples of the North Slope through recent marriages between Athapascan and Iñupiat families, or ancient contact between the two groups.

“We found that there were many lineages shared between villages along the coast, suggesting that women traveled frequently between these communities. In fact, when we compared the genetic composition of all the communities in the North Slope, we found that they were all so closely related that they could be considered one single population.


This fits well with what the elders and other community members told us about Iñupiat history,” added Northwestern’s M. Geoffrey Hayes. Future studies will examine the genetic markers on the male Y-chromosome.
Sources : Arch.org
discover.northwestern.edu

Classic tale of star-crossed lovers plays out in pet store

It's a tale as old as time. Two lovers, separated by a plastic barrier, finally get to meet. They're not normally kittens and puppies, but whatever.

The JoLinn Pet House, a pet store in Taipei, Taiwan, posted a video of a kitten attempting to escape its pen by leaping over a gap in the top. A neighboring puppy is wildly excited at the prospect of the kitten coming over from next door.

And typical in love, the puppy nearly knocks the kitten off the ledge. Rest assured, it has a happy ending.

In a way, it's really just a spin on the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, except with adorable, fuzzy animals.
Source


NOTE: Thinking about getting a dog for your family? If you are like many, you may be considering buying a dog from a pet store or breeder. However, before you make a decision, consider the benefits of adopting a shelter dog. Though pet store or breeders' canines may seem the more advantageous choice, rescue dogs can be equally rewarding and perhaps an even better addition to your family.

This mischievous little fox couldn’t resist sneakily biting his sibling’s tail as they played together in the sun.

The adorable images show the young cubs teasing each other as they roll around in the grass and chase after one another as they enjoyed the bright weather in Bakersfield, California.

The pictures of the San Joaquin kit foxes were captured by physician and photographer Peter Pieslor after he spent hours observing the fox family.

The 66-year-old from Thousand Oaks, California, said: ‘This family consisted of a mother, father, and their litter of six adorable fox pups.

‘In these photos, the pups were around one to two months old and were social and mischievous. ‘These little foxes were chasing each other to ultimately snip at the tails of one another.


‘I did wonder if this activity was related to a pecking order that was being established or whether it was practice to bring down prey, although, at their young age, this cheeky behavior would have been purely playful.’


The kit fox is a fox species of North America and can be found in the states of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico as well as western Texas and south-eastern California. Watching the cubs from just 30 feet away, Mr Pieslor was able to capture the photographs of them as they happily played together.


He added: ‘The cubs came out in the early afternoon for about an hour and a half, and then they returned to the den for several hours before playing again for around two hours.‘The behavior of the fox pups reminded me a lot of the types of things that you see from young children in a park - we aren't that different after all.’