wild animals
Animals the way nature intended it; explore the world of wild animals and the controversies surrounding domestication and hunting of feral beasts.
Wild horses
My son went to college in Ellensburg, Wa. On the way to visit my son at college you would come across miles and miles of fields, hills, and streams somewhere before Yakima. If you were lucky enough you would spot the wild Mustang horses. Sometimes you would see specks of them up in the hills. Other times you would get lucky enough to see them right down by the road. On those days I would pull over and get my camera out and take as many pictures as I could. It is not something you see very often anymore. Some would be off by themselves enjoying their peace and quiet. Others would be in families down by the streams drinking and eating, resting in the shade. They are so majestic and beautiful. There are an estimated 20,000 wild horses running all through the Indian Country. Foals raise the population by 20 percent a year. Wild horses have lived and roamed the Yakima Valley since the 1700s. Many people think these horses are fenced in. They see a few fences along the road and think they are owned horses and kept in by fences. These horses are not fenced in. Covering thousands of acres of land, there are no homes or ranch buildings, no feeding stations, few two-track roads, and no additional fencing. These horses don’t belong to any one person. They’re wild. There are at least 20 different packs of horses roaming the land day and night. They are giant and amazing. For the Yakama Nation, the wild horses are a big part of their history and culture.. Unfortunately, the horses are overgrazing their land and finding it hard to find food. Along with the harsh, cold winters and the issues of finding food, many horses are found dead, skeletons laying on the bare ground. The horses are devastating the land and destroying the terrain. There are way too many horses for the amount of land they live on without any kind of management from the Yakama people or the government. The land can support fewer than 3,000 of the animals. The current population, which was between 12,000 and 14,000, is now estimated to be near 5,000 due to starvation, according to Washines. The property the horses live on is about the size of Rhode Island. Soil is getting eroded and the ecosystem is getting destroyed. Also many plants and vegetation the Yakama tribe find spiritual are disappearing. Other animals are being driven out of the land because of the lack of food due to the Mustangs. Sacred deer, an animal important to the Yakama people, have left the area instead of competing with the larger animals. Deer meat is an important part of Yakama Nation ceremonies, and now that is almost impossible to find due to the immense number of Mustangs in the area. Due to the Horse Protection Act which makes it illegal to slaughter the horses and due to animal activists, it is harder and harder to deal with the Mustangs on the tribal land. The tribes have actually tried using birth control on the female horses to help the population from growing, but it is said the horses are not easy to catch. Just within the last year, the horse mortality rate has been 50 percent. There are hopes that since the population has gone down so much, that the vegetation and land might have a chance to regrow and that the deer and other animals will hopefully come home again. I, myself, love seeing the horses and love photographing them. I am very sad about the deaths and mortality rate of these beautiful creatures.
By Stephanie Day5 years ago in Petlife
5 of the Coolest Frogs Ever!
When I was a toddler, my parents bought me a little green froggie plush which I promptly named "Freddy". And let me tell you, I took that guy everywhere with me. And if I ever forgot him at home, Lord help my poor mother who had to deal with my crying the entire trip.
By Emily Jimenez5 years ago in Petlife
Death at SeaWorld: The Series?
To whom it may concern, I’m writing on behalf of the zoo and aquarium community regarding an upcoming project that has been in development as a series for the last few years. They based the show in question on an anti-zoo book by David Kirby, and it’s an investigative piece that profits off the 2010 freak accident at SeaWorld Orlando. While the 10-part series is due for a 2022 release, there have been calls by both zoological professionals and patrons for streaming platforms to not distribute it for various reasons.
By Jenna Deedy5 years ago in Petlife
the human health crisis is not far off
Start writing... Once upon a time these geeky birds were found everywhere in villages, towns, trees and electric poles, rock tops, houses. Typically, long bare necks on the sides of the road are seen leaning towards the corpse of a pathetic dead animal or circling the sky like a large number of dark clouds.These were innumerable in number; Were too high to count. According to a survey conducted in 1991-1992, there were 40 million eagles in India in 18 protected areas.These have disappeared in just ten years. The number of these has reached the brink of extinction. Of the three major eagle species in India, the long-haired, slender-bodied species of the genus has dropped a staggering 97 per cent, while the white-ramped species became 99.9 per cent worse off in 1992-2007."No bird has been reported to have become so extinct as anywhere else in the world," said Asad Rahmani, former director of the Bombay Natural History Society. There was a sharp drop in the number of overseen passenger pigeons. These passenger pigeons, numbering 3 billion, are considered to be the largest bird in the world. But in the early 1990s, nothing was left. The last bird in the cage, Martha, also died at the Cincinnati Zoo.What's going on?Initially no one noticed the details that the number of eagles came down. There were also rough reports from researchers and reports that villagers said 'eagles were nowhere to be found'.Vibu Prakash, chief scientist of the Mumbai Natural History Society, was the first to document the decline in the famous Keolado National Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan. In 1987-1988 he estimated that there were 353 pairs of eagles in the 29 sq km park. In 1996, that number halved. He was shocked to see eagles lying dead on plants, trees and even nests.“I was worried and confused. I do not understand what is happening to these birds, ”he recalled.By the year 2000, not a single eagle had survived in Bharatpur. It sounded the alarm. News of similar deaths soon began to arrive from across the country. The White-ramped Eagle, once considered the largest predator on the subcontinent, has become one of the world's most endangered birds.The number of three genera, which numbered in the millions, has recently been estimated to be only about 20,000. Of these, 12,000 were white ramps with long units and only 1,000 were eagles with very rare soft units.In the year 2000, the International Coordinating Center for Nature Conservation declared all three species as critically endangered. These will disappear if no emergency measures are taken to recover them before they become extinct.How did it happen?Finally, many countries are concerned about this. An international team of more than a dozen scientists, backed by the Peregrine Fund, examined the carcasses of eagles in Pakistan and found that diclofenac was the real cause. It is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug given to animals.The drug is a boon to those who depend on their livestock for their livelihood. It can act quickly. Powerful painkiller and antidepressant. The added advantage is that the price is also very low.Eagles eat carcasses. In the country with the highest number of livestock in the world, the bodies of rotten cattle are most commonly found. Long-necked eagles, especially genus eagles, dig deep into carcasses and eat soft parts. These are capable of digging up an animal or deer bone in just 20 minutes.Of the nine eagle species in India, diclofenac mainly affects three of the five genus species. Prakash explains that the migration of the other two types of eagles to faraway places such as the Himalayas and Central Asian countries, where these drugs are rarely used, is one of the reasons for their survival. Eagles and gray eagles eat hard meat and muscle cords so they are not affected by this diclofenac drug.Frozen negative image in the public domain.Not only do humans care about the safety of these birds, eagles are viewed differently. In India it is worshiped as . It is also seen as a foretaste of death. In the general view, an eagle is thought to attack the weak. There is also the habit of setting an example that is like an eagle when talking about those who take advantage of the misfortune of others. That is, it is seen as a negative symbol in many ways.But these bodies play a valuable role in our ecosystem. As it disposes of the body quickly and efficiently, harmful bacteria do not grow and spread. These contain high levels of body temperature and strong stomach acids that ingest rotten bodies infected with bacteria without causing any adverse effects. Even dogs and rats can eat rotten bodies, but unlike eagles, they can spread germs and spread disease.The extinction of eagles has had another unintended consequence. The eagles are on the verge of extinction, making it difficult for the Parsis or the Zoroastrian community to perform their unique funeral rites. It is customary for them to dispose of the bodies of the dead in places known as 'towers of silence'. There the bodies are mainly eaten by eagles. The Parsis considered land and water sacred and believed that burying or burning the dead would pollute nature.The annual decline in white rump eagles was 43.9%. The relaxed breeding eagle lays only one egg at a time. It has an eight-month reproductive cycle. So if the loss is more than 5 percent, there is not much chance of recovering these.Some signs of hope.
By Zarinabanu Zarinabanu5 years ago in Petlife
What Big Eyes You Have
Aye-ayes are part of the primate order and considered to be long-fingered lemurs. They look something like a cross between a racoon and a rat. They are fairly small around 12 to 16 inches and weigh in at 5 - 6 pounds. They have long bushy tails that are larger than their bodies. They look like they are wearing large, round glasses with their big yellow-orange or sandy brown eyes and seem to have a look of surprise on their faces. Surprisingly despite their small size aye-ayes are the world's largest nocturnal primates. It has also been discovered that they have a sixth finger on each hand giving them an extra thumb.
By Rasma Raisters5 years ago in Petlife
Just a Sunday Drive
It was March 28th of 2020 when we saw Rover. My husband likes to surprise me with adventures. Sometimes we end up getting coffee and going to thrift stores and other times we just go for a drive. It had been a cloudy few days with scattered showers so it still smelled like rain when we woke up. My husband told me to get ready for adventure. So the boots came out, hair went up, and the adventure began.
By Kristen Renee5 years ago in Petlife
Rhinoceros
Start writing...Poaching for rhino horn.Rhino horn is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, but increasingly common is its use as a status symbol to display success and wealth. Poaching is now a threat in all rhino range states, however, as South Africa is home to the majority of rhinos in the world, it is being heavily targeted. More than ever, field programmes are having to invest heavily in anti-poaching activities.Poachers are now being supplied by international criminal gangs with sophisticated equipment to track and kill rhinos. Frequently a tranquiliser gun is used to bring the rhino down, before its horn is hacked off, leaving the rhino to wake up and bleed to death very painfully and slowly. Poachers are often armed with guns themselves, making them very dangerous for the anti-poaching teams who put their lives on the line to protect rhinos.The scarcity of rhinos today and the corresponding intermittent availability of rhino horn only drives the price of horn higher and higher, intensifying pressure on declining rhino populations. For people whose annual income is often far below the subsistence level, the opportunity to change one’s life by killing an animal that they don’t value is overwhelming.What is rhino horn?.Rhino horns are similar in structure to horses’ hooves, turtle beaks, and cockatoo bills. They are made of keratin – in rhinoceros horn, it is chemically complex and contains large quantities of sulphur-containing amino acids, particularly cysteine, as well as tyrosine, histidine, lysine, and arginine, and the salts calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate.Traditional Chinese Medicine.According to traditional Chinese texts, such as Li Shih-chen’s 1597 medical text “Pen Ts’ ao Kang Mu”, rhino horn has been used in Chinese medicine for more than 2,000 years and is used to treat fever, rheumatism, gout, and other disorders. It also states that the horn could also cure snakebites, hallucinations, typhoid, headaches, carbuncles, vomiting, food poisoning, and “devil possession.” While it is commonly believed to be prescribed as an aphrodisiac, this is not the case.When used, the horn is shaved or ground into a powder, before being dissolved in boiling water and consumed.As Richard Ellis, author of “Tiger bone and rhino horn” wrote in 2005 for the EAZA Rhino Campaign’s Info Pack: “It is not clear that rhino horn serves any medicinal purpose whatsoever, but it is a testimony to the power of tradition that millions of people believe that it does. Of course, if people want to believe in prayer, acupuncture or voodoo as a cure for what ails them, there is no reason why they shouldn’t, but if animals are being killed to provide nostrums that have been shown to be useless, then there is a very good reason to curtail the use of rhino horn. There are five species of rhinoceros and, with the exception of one subspecies of African White rhino, all are in danger of being hunted to extinction for their horns. Rhinos, as we know them, have been around for millions of years, but Dr H. Spaiens has created a predicament from which they might never recover. It is heartbreaking to realise that the world’s rhinos are being eliminated from the face of the earth in the name of medications that probably don’t work.”Aphrodisiac.There is a belief in Western countries that rhino horn is used as an aphrodisiac and sexual stimulant, but this is not correct and seems to have been misunderstood or misinterpreted by Western media. However, research has shown that people in Viet Nam are starting to believe this rumour as they are consuming it for new reasons.Even without aphrodisiacal properties, however, rhino horn is one of the mainstays of Traditional Chinese Medicines, and its collection has been responsible for the death of tens of thousands of rhinos around the world.Make no mistake: those people using rhino horn to cure medical ailments really believe it works. That’s what drives up the demand on which the poachers thrive. As Ann and Steve Toon commented in 2002, “For practitioners of traditional Asian medicine, rhino horn is not perceived as a frivolous love potion, but as an irreplaceable pharmaceutical necessity.”Viet Nam – new uses for rhino horn.There has been a recent surge in demand for rhino horn in Viet Nam. A survey, carried out by TRAFFIC in 2013, identified that the motivation for consumers buying rhino horn is the emotional benefit rather than medicinal, as it reaffirms their social status among their peers. Image and status are important to these consumers, as they tend to be highly educated and successful people who have a powerful social network and no affinity to wildlife. Rhino horns are sometimes bought for the sole purpose of being gifted to others; to family members, business colleagues or people in positions of authority.Trade.The international trade in rhino horn has been banned under CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora) since 1977. In South Africa it is possible to trade rhino horn domestically (within the country), after a legal battle to overturn the ban took place in 2017.
By Zarinabanu Zarinabanu5 years ago in Petlife
Top 8 Critically Endangered Animals.
8] Amur Leopard. Amur Leopard is the subspecies of the leopard from a region of southeastern Russia and northern China. They can run at speed of 37 miles per hour like other species of leopard. The height of the Amur leopard is 19 feet horizontally and 10 feet vertically. Amur Leopards are only found in Northeast China and Far East Russia. They are adapted to a cold climate as their fur grows 7.5 cm long in winter. The coat of the Amur leopard is paler and rosettes are widely spaced and large than other subspecies of leopard.
By Pratik Deotale5 years ago in Petlife
