Stories (not only) from the wildlife

Post Reply
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Re: Stories from the wildlife

Post by Brit »

Head up, little bear ...
A chance for the last brown bears in the Pyrenees

In panic the bearess pushes her cub through the underwood – she wants to flee, has to flee, but the underbrush is too dense. Again and again the cub stumbles and after a few meters it is exhausted and lying down. The bearess knew: if she wants to protect her cub she has to do it sacrificing her life. Roaring she is drawing herself up, a giant of over 2 meters height – she hears the screaming of the hunters, the breathless panting of the dogs who traced her. But she has no chance: The first shot hits her from a few meters distance. Groaning the bearess tumbles on the ground and while she is trying with her last power to reach her baby, the men anathematizing shoot all their ammunition on her ...

“It was only a bear” the triggerman explains later. But he is wrong – because the animal he shot, was the only native brown bearess in the French Pyrenees. A female named “Canelle” – and as the man – and as the man used his gun he knew what he was doing: ”Shortly before we gave a warning to the hunters” animal protector Marc Lobeille says. “We wanted to close the district to save the bearess with her baby – in vain.” Depressed he is shaking his head: “Our hope is now the youngster. We know that it ran after the killing into the wood – since there is no trace whatsoever.” The file of the youngster shows that he is not older than 10 months – a baby just weaned from mothers milk, in the very beginning of his life. “Alone he is helpless like a little child”, Lobeille declares. But we cannot catch and bring him up. Bears get too quickly used to people. They loose their shyness – the only instinct which saves them”.

In the meantime unknown persons put signs around the wooded area in which the cub is roaming: “Do not enter – protect Canelles son!” is written there. Helicopters throw strengthening baby food down over the area – and for the first time in the history of France – the prosecution ordered investigation proceedings because of killing an animal. “The last bearess had to die before we understood what her life was worth” Lobeille says “we paid a high price, but when her baby survives we have the chance to make amends ...”

by Dorothee Teves

English translation by Brit
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
alice44
Registered user
Posts: 16489
Joined: April 8th, 2009, 8:59 pm
Location: Oregon, Western USA

Post by alice44 »

That last one is just too sad :cry:
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

Brit wrote:Posted from Ixamari in Hartmuths Forum.

A report from BBC:

San Francisco's smelly sea lions end their 20-year stay

Gone fishing? One theory is the sea lions have gone to find food elsewhere
The famous sea lions of San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf have disappeared after 20 years - leaving experts baffled as to why........
Here they are, the sea lions! They moved from San Franciscos Fischerman's Wharf 800 km north to Oregon. Unfortunately only in German language, didn't find anything in English language yet...

FR-online.de January 8 2010

Seelöwen ziehen von San Francisco nach Oregon
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

Remember the story of The dream of freedom (December 4 2009)!? .....

If these aren't good news! Please have a look at Mervis sites:

RAJU the bear will never have to smoke cigarettes or dance on his hind legs under the hot sun again thanks to a multinational project to save an endangered species and end a cruel centuries-old tradition in India.

Raju was the last endangered sloth bear that had to work for a living, but who now can roam free at the Bannerghatta bear sanctuary on the outskirts of the southern city of Bangalore.

The bear’s freedom is the outcome of lengthy efforts by animal rescue organisations and the Government that have taken the “dancing” bears off India’s streets, where the animals were once as ubiquitous as snake charmers and their cobras........

India’s last ‘dancing’ bear set free
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
alice44
Registered user
Posts: 16489
Joined: April 8th, 2009, 8:59 pm
Location: Oregon, Western USA

Post by alice44 »

Brit wrote: Here they are, the sea lions! They moved from San Franciscos Fischerman's Wharf 800 km north to Oregon. Unfortunately only in German language, didn't find anything in English language yet...

FR-online.de January 8 2010

Seelöwen ziehen von San Francisco nach Oregon
I will find an article --- I knew this story had come up here but not which thread. They are moving to MY state :laugh:

Here is a story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1BE41C.DTL
and a flickr page I found a while ago but did not think about in terms of the sea lions leaving California.
It is a beach I love, where I have never seen seal lions before
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29910712@N05/4191359733/
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

Ghee ... :D :D :D that's what I call 'team-work'! Thank you so much for the info and the picture, Alice44! So many sea lions on one place ... unbelievable!
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
alice44
Registered user
Posts: 16489
Joined: April 8th, 2009, 8:59 pm
Location: Oregon, Western USA

Post by alice44 »

The rope through there noses is just horrible!
User avatar
alice44
Registered user
Posts: 16489
Joined: April 8th, 2009, 8:59 pm
Location: Oregon, Western USA

Post by alice44 »

My friend just sent me this link
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... .DTL&tsp=1
about an earthquake in California
It sounds off topic but she said the first thing she thought when she heard the Sea Lions were leaving California was earthquake. 4 hours after she sent me the article on sea lions moving here for food there was a 4.1 (as I recall) earth quake and now there has been a bigger earthquake -- maybe the sea lions knew.
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

That is very interesting, alice44! Thank you. I am sure, that animals are much more sensilbe to whats happening in the nature!
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

Friendship awards wings
As a little bear learned to climb


Little bears are cheerful companions. They are the whole day busy, to tease their mother, to climb trees, fall down again or doze in the sun. Fitzgerald doesn´t have a mother he could tease – he was an orphan and didn´t know anything what a little bear should know. “When I found him” ranger Joe McAllister says, “he was so frightened, that he didn´t even dare to look at me.” McAllister does, what´s best in this case: he is bringing the animal in a breeding station – there, the man believes, Fitzgerald will finally learn the lections of survival.

Things never turn out the way you expect. Fitzgerald was sitting in a corner of the enclosure and didn´t move” Joe said. “He refused sturdy to take part on the training and after six month he still didn´t know how to climb. I just could not approach him.” For weeks nothing changed and slowly Joe is loosing hope – but than something strange happened. A magpie made herself at home in the enclosure – and suddenly the lethargic silence is gone. “The bird was sitting in a tree”, Joe says, “took measurement and intentionally bounced at the bear. Again and again he plugged out fur flakes from Fitzgerald and rushed back in the tree. He never hurt him – but he tormented him mercilessly.“ For four days the little bear ignored his cohabitor – than his patience was exhausted. With loud buzzing sound he is dashing after the bird, he is struggling his way troublesome hand over hand along the tree - and is looking inward. He is eleven meters high above the ground – in front of him the magpie is sitting and it almost seems that he is smiling – because Fitzgerald just climbed for the first time in his life a tree. All by himself. “From this very moment on”, Joe says, “this two were inseparable”. Major, as the ranger named the magpie, gives the little bear escort protection – with the help of the bird Fitzgerald is climbing the highest trees. He dares to swim through the water in his enclosure, starts to explore his district and always when he becomes unsafe Major is guiding his way. “I never experienced such a strange couple” Joe says. “But I know one thing: Fitzgerald will be brought back to wilderness within one week. He has learned everything what he has to know. Mainly one thing: Never mind where he is he will never be alone. Because he found a friend for life – and he awards him wings ...”

by Dorothee Teves

English translation by Brit
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

Have a long life, little Doc
How a sea otter baby learned to love the freedom




Little Doc. Even today US-marine biologist Michelle Staedler is thinking every day of the sea otter baby with the bis button eyes. Helpless it was drifting in a tang bunch. His mother had put it in there to be able to dive for mussles. But she got caught in a fisher net. Sea otters only can stay without air in water for 5 minutes – she drowned. Doc screamed and felt terrible cold. Michelle found him on her daily coast patrol, took him to the worldwide unique sea otter breeding station of Monterey, California. What do you need first, little guy? Food? No. Doc did not touch neither crabs, snails nor fish. He needed warmth, peace – and love. Exhausted he pressed his snout in her crook of her arm until he fell asleep.



One year she took care of him. Until he was big enough to survive in the ocean. As he was given reintroduction to his natural habitat, he casted somersaults. Freedom! Day for day Michelle drove along the coast to get signals from the microchip on his body. Every time she got the signals she calmed down. But suddenly there was no more contact. What had happened to Doc? Michelle felt like she had lost a baby. Until the whole breeding station rejoiced: Doc came by motor boat! He had jumped in the boat of two biology students, who brought him now back. What a reunion! Michelle gave him a squeeze “You cannot stay for ever” she whispered in his fur. But she could not fail: Doc was allowed to stay for one more year. Exactly that was the time he seemed to be in need of, until he heard the call of the sea. He became restless. Was swimming in his basin to and fro. As he was reintroducted for the second time he rushed with a stunning jump into the water and immediately swam far far out. Only once he looked back and gave a long view back with his button eyes as he wanted to say “Thanks for all your love, Michelle.” Bye bye, little Doc – have a long and good life ...



by Christine Brügge

English translation by Brit
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

The mother with the lions heart
To gag weapons with the power of love




From his raised hide the hunter fixed his gaze on the shadow at the horizon. A triumphant grin is on his face. “There she is coming” he is whispering and is reaching out for the radio set. His orders are short: “Take care that the youngster howls properly. His clamour will bring the lioness right in front of my gun ...”



Satisfied he is activating his rifle – in a few minutes he will shoot his first wild cat. Nearly 15 000 Euro he paid for the kill and in thoughts he heard himself already boasting of his adventure. Proudly he will tell how the lioness with her baby was enticed away from her pride and sedated. How the helpers later released the animal in a fenced hunting ground in Zambia – an area where on the other end the cage was placed out of which now the crying of her baby is to be heard. The hunter knows: the cat will do everything to save her baby. Everything, also when it costs her own life.

Only a few steps parts the lioness from her baby, when the bullet hits her. Bathed in blood the animal slumps down but in this very moment something else thrills through the unconsciousness of the dying mother. With last power she is looking at her baby. She sees the hands of the man who is pulling it out of the cage and throwing it carelessly on the floor and some power awakes in her, which is stronger than death. Slowly she arises. Showing her teeth and makes herself ready for the fight ...

“As we found the lioness she was unconscious, her baby seeking shelter clinging to her body” ranger Morris Erl says. In the last second he stormed into the hunting ground – already in the morning he kept track of the hunter and followed. “With her last power the lioness threw the hunter down” he says. “But she did not kill him.” One hour later the animal was saved with an emergency operation – and the story from “Mother Lionheart” was to be read in many news papers. It is the story of courage and caused a storm of protests against the lions hunt. Protests which were so strong, that Zambia eight months later, exactly on the day on which Mother Lionheart and her baby were released to freedom – as the first African country stroke lions from the hit list.

by Dorothee Teves

English translation by Brit
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

The Super Nanny
Why of all things a lion became the best babysitter of Africa even although unwilling


Masoud is tired. Very tired. Since five days the lion didn´t sleep longer than a few minutes in one run. And as a few tiny little claws drilled into his fur and a light voice shouts in his ear, he is just rolling on the other side. Normally that is a good trick – who ever clambers about, is falling down by that. In this case it looks a little bit different: because Masoud has a job – he has to take care of the youngsters of the pride. And this with expressed friendliness. Because alone his qualities as a babysitter decide, if he might live – or must die. That means; as the young lion is landing with a “Plopp” beside him on the floor, twelve grim pair of eyes were turned toward him ...

This all Masoud imagined completely different. “male lions are expelled at the age of three from their pride”, Ranger Nala Bayensi says. Strictly speaking the youngsters have two options: either to go by themselves for strength-sapping hunting or they capture another pride of lions and get served for the rest of their life. “Masoud definitely wanted the last – but without the nerve-racking fight”, so the expert. For months he tried to allure strange females away from their pride, by attacking them away with charm or by force. All without success. Until the very day when he is finding a hidden litter. “Lionesses mostly give birth at a place away from the pride” , the ranger says. “Just in this very moment Masoud came along”. He inspected the youngster – and I think he was really satisfied, finally to have enough members for an own pride. He made himself comfortable beside of the litter, leaned back – and completely forgot that he had not reckoned with the mother.” Because she immediately gave alarm to the head of her pride – a 170 Kilo giant who couldn´t find any joy with the intruder nor with lion babies at all. “Their rampage got always on his nerves”, said Mala Bayensi. “Now suddenly he got the chance to kill two birds with one stone. Instead of wasting his energy by killing Masoud, he commandeerd him as a babysitter”. This plan worked like a charm: The lionesses of this pride got the highest success in hunting in whole Africa: they are more relaxed, healthier and more powerful than others. And Masoud? Well …. Masoud is since than the most demanded young lion in the country. Seriously: it´s everywhere difficult to find a good babysitter ...

by Dorothee Teves

English translation by Brit
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

A hero discovers his voice
How the small wolf Lupo saved his pack




Lupo was a real problem child - and the darling of his mother at the same time. As the last of the litter he was born in the vast of Arizona – and it didn´t look like for the future to mean well for this wolf: Lupo was smaller and weaker than his siblings; he behaved unbelievably awkwardly when he should learn things he needed to be a real wolf. Mainly: he was not able to howl! Worse could hardly happen to a wolf. The keepers did not give him any chance, but mothers love has nothing to do with logic – it can be more strong than any of the age-old laws of nature: Cosima the leading wolf was standing by her youngest.

She stopped the pack, when Lupo again could not follow, she interrupted when the others wanted to play their games with him. And when Lupo during the excitement of hunt got lost, than she was looking for him until he was back secure in the safety of the big family circle … After a long day with lots of hunt and little prey the pack was lying dozing in the evening sun. The whole pack except Lupo. As so often he had isolated himself and was sitting lonely on a small hill. Suddenly a strange smell came to his small wolfs nose: danger, gun powder – humans! Once Cosima had taught him that there can be only one reaction for wolves, when they get this smell: Escape! At once! But how should Lupo warn his pack? The poachers were already quite near, weapon at the ready. They came from the other side of the mountain and they wanted to destroy what nature wrested from humans: the first wolf pack in Arizonas since more than 30 years. There was only one solution: Lupo had to do, what a real wolf has to do – he finally had to howl! Lupo tried hard and with each meter the poachers came closer he created new sounds: first pitiful squeaking, than a soft whining, finally a so-so yelping. He was shivering from exhaustion. And than it worked: Lupo is hawling in a loudness that would pay credit to every grown up wolf! He is running down the hill, as quick as his short legs can carry him – the pack is gone, in safety. The next morning Lupo is standing in front of the proudest of all wolfs mothers …

Four years passed by since than. There are some wolf packs in Arizona. But only one pack is gathering every evening around a little hill. Not to howl at the moon but their leading wolf – Lupo

Nils Nomis

English translation by Brit
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
User avatar
Olga
Registered user
Posts: 9111
Joined: October 11th, 2008, 2:48 pm
Location: Finland

Post by Olga »

:wave: Brit! Thank you for the stories, photos and videos!
SHoW(StorkaHolics of the World)
User avatar
Fleur
Registered user
Posts: 35395
Joined: November 11th, 2009, 10:01 am
Location: Netherlands

Post by Fleur »

Brit..really quite amazing .
Thanks for sharing :D
User avatar
Brit
Registered user
Posts: 6062
Joined: November 28th, 2008, 4:40 pm
Location: Franconia/Germany
Contact:

Post by Brit »

Freedom I am talking about …..
Baby seal Carlos and his dream of life



Carlos was in every way something special. Not only that the heaviest storm in years snatched him away from his mother as the waves crossed with hurricane strength over the little sandbank, which was Carlos nursery. That what the cold North Sea finally threw onto the beach was by far the smallest seal baby which the observers on alert of the Dutch seal station ever found. A baby seal? (the german word for this is “Heuler” which means “Crier”,- as explanation for the next sentence!) Carlos did a tribute to this title in mercy …



4259 g the scale showed. “Chances that a baby seal with less than 6 kg survives is 1 : 100” said keeper Geseke van Houtem. But what does statistic mean concerning the heart of a fighter which is beating in the little seals chest. Within a couple of month the helpless baby seal became a very merry animal with the weight of 28 kg – thanks to extra rations of milk powder, fat eel and crabs. And than the days were counted until he was able to swim around with the others in the basin or to jump making a salto from the edge of the pool – Carlos was released to freedom. But funny enough, he did not join a pack, stayed all the time near the coast. One week later he was found on the beach. Healthy, but a little bit more skinny what the check up in the station showed. So: back to the sea. Four times more the same procedure – every time the scale showed less despite he had learned hunting more quick than the others. The experts didn´t know what to do. “Carlos the limpet” they called him rather angry – oh, could they only have read in his eyes! As they found the totally pinched Carlos the next time, they kept him in the station. And there finally he started to eat again – after in the big basin he had found Merle, the only baby seal who had been as small as he was when they had been found. Because of an infection Merle wasn´t released too at that time together with Carlos.. And when the best of all friends has to stay back freedom is nothing but loneliness …

Dirk Simon

English translation by Brit
Have a nice day!
Brit
http://www.worldofanimals.eu/
Post Reply

Return to “Stories and News”