Wednesday, December 24, 2014

December 24/2014

(E.B.W.) Critter Corner 

Feature:
Winston’s wish: A new orange cat

           “LONDON- There is a new kitten at the Winston Churchill estate.


           The orange-colored cat is there to comply with the late British leader’s request that there always be a cat of that color living at Chartwell, his country home.


           Churchill also indicated that the cat should have white chest fur, white paws, & be named Jock.


           The unusual request stems from the affection Churchill felt for a kitten given to him on his 88th birthday by Jock Colville, one of his secretaries.


           The new kitten was formerly known as Malley but has been renamed Jock IV. He was a stray cat taken into the care of an animal welfare group before being adopted by Chartwell officials.


           He is described as a ‘caring, loving’ cat.


           The Churchill home & gardens are about 40 kilometres south of London.”


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Montreal Gazette
March 15/2014

Critters in the News:

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/photos/the-cats-who-made-headlines-in-2014-1419004929-slideshow/




Cute Critter Pic 

Weekly Chuckle



Canadian Links: 
International Fund for Animal Welfare: www.ifaw.org/canada/ 

U.S. Links:
Humane Hollywood: http://www.humanehollywood.org
 
 

 


 

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

December 17/2014

(E.B.W.) Critter Corner

Feature:

Orangutans & giant turtles enchant visitors



           “Standing in the jungle in Borneo, wilting on a humid 40C afternoon, the simple act of breathing can drench you completely…I try to move as little as possible on the viewing platform…giant trees stretching to the sky, dense low-level vegetation dripping with moisture, & thick vines zigzagging among the branches.

           Then, high up in the canopy, the leaves start to move…


           I point up to the trees just as a young female swings into sight with a baby clinging to her chest. My son follows my outstretched finger & smiles with surprise…

           The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre is nestled in the Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve, a stretch of virgin forest in the Malaysian Borneo protected by the government since 1964. Rangers at the centre care for orangutans that are orphaned, abused, or abandoned & gradually reintroduce them to the wild in an effort to increase their now dwindling population.

           And so, anywhere from 200 to 800 tourists a day pay the roughly $10 per adult ($5 per child) to visit the centre to get as close a view as possible of these shy & gentle primates… 

         Once the orangutans arrive, there is silence from everyone…For this is what we had all come here to see: Wild orangutans playing in the trees, beautiful & graceful, before disappearing into the seemingly impenetrable vegetation so quickly, you wonder for a moment if it even happened at all.

           But jungles & orangutans aren’t the only reasons we come to Borneo. And after a few days of mainland heat & humidity, we are ready for a trip to the ocean. From the marina in Sandakan, we catch our 90-minute speedboat to Selingan Island, one of a handful of annual birthing areas for giant sea turtles…we are keen to reach the 7.2-hectare island in the Sulu Sea near the Philippine border.


           Every night, 450-pound turtles, numbering anywhere from 5 to 50, scramble out of the water & flap their way through the sand to deposit their eggs on the island where they were born. Even though the females may spend their first 30 to 40 years roaming the earth’s oceans before they return, tiny crystals in their skulls tune them in to the magnetic field of the island &, year after year, beckon them back.


           we take off, jogging through the sand toward a point where rangers spot the first enormous turtle who has come to lay her eggs that evening


           …We are offered spots at the front as the turtle lays her 120 small white eggs in a deep hole in the sand, & again when the rangers collect & bury their eggs in a special fenced-in incubation area, protected from predators until ready to hatch.

           The last treat of the night is to watch the rangers release a bucketful of newly hatched baby turtles into the ocean…”





Michela Pasquali
POSTMEDIA NEWS
The Montreal Gazette
Dec. 7/2013
 Cute Critter Pic
Weekly Chuckle



Wednesday, December 10, 2014

December 10/2014

(E.B.W.) Critter Corner
Feature:

Where The Wild Things Are


           “OKAVANGO DELTA, BOTSWANA- I’m jolted from sleep by a deep & rolling roar & what sounds like the slithering paws of a large cat trawling through my cabin.

           ‘Oh my God, I think something’s in our room,’ I whisper, waking up my friend & roommate…

           …as we lay in our dreamy cabin in the great wilderness of Botswana’s Okavango Delta, we were truly snoozing where the wild things are.

           Finally I picked up the phone beside the bed…

           ‘Something is in our room, we need help,’ I stuttered… She alerted the safari staff on patrol. They discovered an elephant had been roaming around all night on the deck that lined the lodge perimeter…

           That drama-filled last night of our safari was a fitting end to what had been a week of pure magic & wonder.

           We landed in Botswana…after 48 hours with no sleep, traversing time zones on 2 back-to-back overnight flights & another 4 flights. The safari began as soon as we got to Pompom airport in Muan, Botswana. We jumped in a 4 by 4 after being greeted by 2 guides from our safari company…

           Minutes into driving deep into the savannah, we were shaken out of our bleariness by the sight of vervet monkeys swinging through tree tops, herds of impalas prancing by,
& graceful woodland kingfishers with fringed, bright blue wings sweeping through the cloudless sky…

           We drove through the vast expanse of sun-drenched land, sprinkled with acadia trees, bulbous baobab trees, & towering termite mounds, steering over & through bushes. We turned a corner & spotted a pride of 6 lions sprawled in the grass, lounging in the blistering afternoon sun in post-kill splendor. Their lolling yawns revealed formidable fangs & hinted at the hard work that goes into ruling such a fine kingdom… 
   
           The big cats are among more than 100 species of mammals & 400 species of birds that call the delta home. This diversity found amid the lily-speckled marshes, blue lagoons, & picturesque woodlands make this place, set along the banks of the Okavango River, one of Africa’s richest game-viewing destinations…

           A 5:30 AM wake up call began another day of exploring where zebras, hyenas, water buffalo, elephants, & giraffe coexist & roam free. We left the wilderness of the delta to head to Chobe National Park, the third-largest game park in Botswana & one that boasts one of the largest concentrations of game in Africa, including the biggest herds of elephants…Just after entering the gates into the lush terrain, we were greeted by a journey of giraffes munching on the acacia trees that dot the plains. Our guides imparted this interesting fact: As a defense mechanism, once the acacia foliage is torn by a forging giraffe, the plant emits an airborne gas, ethylene, alerting nearby plants to increase tannin production, which giraffes don’t like. The animals then move upwind to dine on plants that failed to catch the drift.

           …We jumped into a boat & cruised down the Okavango River, where we saw elephants frolicking in the water alongside their adorable offspring, glimpsed a hippo bobbing in & out of still water, & staked out a crocodile, hoping to see its jaw snap…”

Charmaine Noronha
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Montreal Gazette
Nov. 2/2013
Cute Critter Pic
Weekly Chuckle



Wednesday, December 3, 2014

December 3/2014

(E.B.W.) Critter Corner
Feature:
Rescuers cross borders to unite blind cows



           “…It started when Sweety, an 8-year-old Canadian cow with a hoof infection, was rescued…by a horse sanctuary in Ontario. Workers at Refuge RR put out the word to the small legion of folks devoted to saving aging farm animals that she needed a permanent home.


           Farm Sanctuary in New York is just such a place & they had a 12-year-old Holstein named Tricia, who seemed lonely…Cattle are herd animals & she was the only one at the shelter without a partner.


           ‘It was exciting to think that by giving Sweety a new life, we might also give Tricia another chance to enjoy her own,’ said Susie Coston, national shelter director for the sanctuary.


           Tricia, who was born blind, has been at the Watkins Glen, N.Y., sanctuary since 2008…


           There was red tape galore, medical exams for Sweety, & finally a road trip to pick her up Feb. 4 at a veterinary hospital in Lachute, northwest of Montreal.


           Sweety arrived late that night…

           The 2 cows mooed at each other from separate corrals before they were united the next day.

 
           Nose to nose, Sweety, tall & bony with a white triangle patch on her forehead, bumped into Tricia, shorter & thicker with black-&-white body swirls. They nuzzled one other.


           It didn’t take long for them to become BFFs (bovine friends forever), shelter spokeswoman Meredith Turner said.


             Sweety is still bumping into things, but Tricia often guides her clear of obstacles.

           They eat & walk together & even bed down in tandem.

           Love may be blind, Turner said, but for shelter workers, it was a matter of seeing & believing.”

Sue Manning
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Montreal Gazette
Feb. 15/2014


Cute Critter Pic
Weekly Chuckle

Memorial:

Canadian Links: 
International Fund for Animal Welfare: www.ifaw.org/canada/
Canadian SPCA: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/.../the-canadian-spcala-spca-canadienne/




Wednesday, November 26, 2014

November 25/2014

(E.B.W.) Critter Corner

Feature:

Sea Turtles Create Natural Spectacle in Baja

           “LOS CABOS, MEXICO- Far from the bikini-lined beaches & booze-fuelled bars of Cabo San Lucas, I lie elbow deep on the sand of some remote Mexican dunes waiting for the sun to near the horizon, a growing nursery of baby turtles squirming beside me.

                  It’s September, the hottest & most humid month of the year on the tip of the Baja Peninsula… 

        August is the start of turtle-hatching season on the Baja, & for the next 5 months… tourists won’t be the only things crawling along the sandy beaches of the Pacific & the Sea of Cortez.

           5 species of sea turtle nest on the peninsula, some crossing the ocean from as far away as Japan to return to their breeding grounds: Olive Ridley, green, loggerhead, leatherback, & hawksbill turtles.

           There are only 7 species of sea turtles total, & 6 of them are considered endangered, the most endangered being leatherbacks, the prehistoric behemoths that can weigh more than 450 kilograms…

           In the penned nursery, turtle eggs collected by biologists earlier in the year had been reburied, each in a nest ringed with netting to keep the hatchlings from making a solo escape.    

           …the others in our…group were shown how to dig down into hatching nests & gently help the turtles into the fading light of day.

           ‘When I pulled the first turtle out of the nest & brushed the sand off its shell, I thought nothing about the evening would top that. I was wrong. Apparently, my nest was like the motherlode- over the next 20 to 30 minutes I dug handfuls of turtles out of the sand.’… 

               The group, directed by biologists, then took the turtles from the nursery close to the water line, where they were put on the sand to make their way- under watch- to the ocean.

               ‘The waves on that coast are huge, & as soon as the turtles got wet it was as if some primal instinct kicked them into overdrive & they started racing toward the ocean, fearless, & ready for whatever was in front of them,’… 

           The odds of survival are one in a thousand for every egg laid, but those odds are improving thanks in part to conservation efforts that began more than a decade ago with local fishermen…

           Sea turtles spend their lives in the ocean, with the exception of females that come ashore to lay eggs every 2 to 5 years.

           Tour companies offering turtle tours say the industry provides an alternative to fishing, & support conservation.” 


Dene Moore
THE CANADIAN PRESS
The Montreal Gazette
Nov. 2/2013
                                                

  

Cute Critter Pic

Weekly Chuckle

Canadian Links: 
International Fund for Animal Welfare: www.ifaw.org/canada/
Canadian SPCA: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/.../the-canadian-spcala-spca-canadienne/