Clipmarks | Kelika's 'animals' clips

Cloud Animals

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:31:51 GMT

clipped by: Kelika

Clip Source: www.environmentalgraffiti.com

The Donnie Darko Bunny lives on

Smoke angel left behind from airplane flares.

Tags: photos

Survival of California condors hangs on lead ban, study says

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 05:00:38 GMT

clipped by: Kelika
clipper's remarks: "But they also noted that humans who ingest meat from game can suffer adverse effects from lead: "Removing lead ammunition is not only right for condors, it is right for other scavengers, and it is right for hunters and their families."

The report called on the Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees the recovery program, to "increase the visibility of its leadership."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

The California condor, rescued from extinction in an elaborate and expensive recovery effort, has become tantamount to a zoo animal in the wild and can't survive on its own without a ban on lead ammunition across its vast western ranges, a scientific study has concluded.

They must be frequently trapped, tested and treated for lead poisoning. They depend on man-made "feeding stations," a buffet of lead-free carcasses of rats, deer, stillborn calves and other animals, a practice that has damaged their ability to forage.

So much effort is required to feed, nurse and protect wild condors, the scientists wrote, "that one might argue that they constitute little more than outdoor zoo populations."

"Poisoning from ingestion of spent ammunition in carcasses is so severe and chronic," the panel concluded, "that condor recovery cannot be achieved so long as such lead exposure continues."

The National Rifle Assn. and other hunting groups have fought restrictions on lead bullets, which are cheaper

Tags: animals

Tigers make a fresh start in Baghdad

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:54:59 GMT

clipped by: Kelika

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

BAGHDAD -- Tigers have not fared well in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, they languished in zoo cages, hungry and haggard. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, they survived on scraps provided by sympathetic zookeepers. And after Hussein's ouster in 2003, one of the two tigers in the Baghdad Zoo was shot and killed by a U.S. soldier.

The survivors included two Bengal tigers. But a few months later, a U.S. soldier shot the younger of the cats, an 11-year-old, after it mauled the hand and arm of a comrade. Zoo officials said at the time that the soldiers had been drinking and that the mauled man had put his arm into the cage to feed the tiger. U.S. officials said tests determined that the soldier was not drunk, though he had consumed beer in violation of Army regulations.

The second tiger died in 2005 of old age at 20, leaving the zoo tigerless.

A zoo veterinarian, Haidar Malik, said Friday that he was quite certain the donation of the tigers was a U.S. move to make up for the 2003 shooting.

Tags: animals, iraq

T-Rex Grandpa Found in Poland

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:26:56 GMT

clipped by: Kelika

Clip Source: www.newsdaily.com

WARSAW, Aug. 2, 2008 (Reuters) — Paleontologists digging in a brickyard in southern Poland have discovered the remains of a dinosaur they say is a previously unknown ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The predator dinosaur, given the working name "the Dragon," lived around 200 million years ago, team member Doctor Tomasz Sulej of the Polish Science Academy, told Reuters.

It was five meters (yards) long and moved on two legs. Its longest teeth were 7 centimeters (2 inches) long.

"This is a completely new type of dinosaur that was so far unknown," Sulej said on Friday. "Nobody even expected that members of this group lived in that time, so this gives us new knowledge about the whole evolution of the T-Rex group."

At the same site the group also found a dicynodon -- a reptile which was a direct predecessor of mammals.

"We are almost certain that "Dragon" hunted animals like this herbivorous dicynodon, which looked like hippopotamus but was much bigger," Sulej said.

Tags: dinosaurs

Federal law on animal cruelty videos struck down

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:51:35 GMT

clipped by: Kelika
clipper's remarks: "Overturning a Virginia man's 2005 conviction, a U.S. appeals court says that depictions of dogfighting and other acts are protected by the 1st Amendment."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

The ruling overturns a Virginia man's 2005 conviction, the nation's first under the law. Robert J. Stevens of Pittsville, Va., advertised and sold two videos of pit bulls fighting each other and a third showing the pit bulls attacking hogs and wild boars.

In Friday's decision, the appeals court in Philadelphia, by a 10-3 vote, said it was not prepared to "recognize a new category of speech that is unprotected by the 1st Amendment."

The law also was designed to stop so-called crush videos. According to a congressional report cited by the court, these are "depictions of women inflicting torture [on animals] with their bare feet or while wearing high-heeled shoes."

The appeals court disagreed. "Preventing cruelty to animals, although an exceedingly worthy goal, simply does not implicate interests of the same magnitude as protecting children from physical and psychological harm," wrote Judge Brooks Smith of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Effect of movies on featured animals

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:17:36 GMT

clipped by: Kelika

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Every time an animal hits the bigtime in Hollywood, their real-life counterparts get the willies. Recent headlines bear sad news about the dwindling population of clownfish, the bright orange species made famous in Pixar’s “Finding Nemo.” It seems that eager-to-please parents have been quick to purchase the bright orange fish as pets which has contributed to their demise.

Often when animals go Hollywood, the bigger the box office success, the bigger the impact on a species. From the domestication of rats to getting one five-ton orca whale released into the wild here are ten critters that probably rue their silver screen debut.

Tags: movies, animals

Weird Animals

Sun, 18 May 2008 00:11:04 GMT

clipped by: Kelika

Clip Source: divaboo.info

The blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus) is a fish that inhabits the deep waters off the coasts of Australia and Tasmania. Due to the inaccessibility of its habitat, it is rarely seen by humans.

The Shoebill, Balaeniceps rex also known as Whalehead is a very large bird related to the storks. It derives its name from its massive shoe-shaped bill.

The octopuses of the genus Grimpoteuthis are sometimes nicknamed "Dumbo octopuses" from the ear-like fins protruding from the top of their "heads" (actually bodies), resembling the ears of Walt Disney's flying elephant. They are benthic creatures, living at extreme depths, and are some of the rarest of the Octopoda species.

Aye-aye

Axolotl

Star-nosed Mole

NEW!!! Leafy seadragon

Newly discovered giant cobra

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 01:28:28 GMT

clipped by: Kelika

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Record-size spitting cobra found in Kenya

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A new species of giant spitting cobra, measuring nearly nine feet and possessing enough venom to kill at least 15 people, has been discovered in Kenya, a conservation group said on Friday.

"A new species of giant spitting cobra is exciting and reinforces the obvious -- that there have to be many other unreported species but hundreds are being lost as their habitats disappear under the continued mismanagement of our planet," said the group's chairman, Kenyan environmentalist Richard Leakey.

Tags: snakes, animals