This is the most awesomest thing you will ever see in your life:

Labels: altruism, animals, cute things, who says animals have no souls

Monday, March 5:

Missing: One town turkey. Walks on one leg. Last seen being carried away on Pascack Road in Washington Township.

Reward: $200.

Neither wattle nor feather has been seen of the hobbled turkey — humorously nicknamed “Eileen” by locals — since Saturday morning, when two unidentified men allegedly chased down, cornered, captured and carted her away.

The injured bird has become something of a fixture in town over the past two years, and her disappearance has sparked a hunt for her abductors. The fowl first endeared herself to residents when she was spotted hanging out on a grassy area across the street from 5 Star Gas.

Animal control officials believe Eileen’s leg never properly healed, becoming calcified as a result. They have tried to capture her on several occasions, but even on one leg, Eileen proved to be a formidable opponent.

In the past, her plight inspired numerous calls for help to animal control and police, and even motivated two elementary school children, who sold turkey cookies in November in hopes of raising money for an operation on the bum leg.

Now, everyone wants to know why someone would abduct the town’s beloved turkey.

There’s an investigation by local police. A $200 reward from the bird’s de facto caretaker. Signs posted all over town. And an outpouring of support from local residents — all hoping for Eileen’s safe return.

Tuesday, March 6:

Police in Washington Township received a call Tuesday morning from representatives at The Raptor Trust, where Eileen — a constant fixture around town for the last two years — was dropped off Monday morning.

The names of those individuals who brought the bird in for treatment were provided to Washington Township police, Lt. Gregg Hackbarth said.

“We spoke to the people that brought her in, and it appears they were just being good Samaritans,” Hackbarth said. “They had the bird’s best interest at hand, and when Eileen’s available to be released, the animal control warden will bring her to the animal center in Wyckoff.”

Carol Tyler, senior animal control officer at Tyco Animal Control, said Eileen’s captors acted in the turkey’s best interest.

“Whoever had her decided she needed to go there to have her leg treated by a veterinarian,” Tyler said.

Lauren Butcher, education director at The Raptor Trust, said a preliminary examination of Eileen has revealed an infection on the bird’s good leg.

“Someone was legitimately trying to help the turkey, and didn’t realize the history of this particular bird in the town where they found her,” Butcher said.

But Eileen is obviously a tough old bird, and sometimes there's no place like home. Thursday, March 8:

It has been a long, strange week for Eileen, the one-legged turkey, who was back Thursday at her usual haunt at the corner of Pascack Road and Washington Avenue.

First, calls made Saturday to Washington Township police alleged two men had snatched the beloved bird. The purported abduction sparked an intensive search for Eileen, who has become part of the town’s scenery. For the last two years, Eileen has survived despite her injury — a broken leg that has become calcified as it has healed.

The fowl was then delivered Monday by the two men to The Raptor Trust — a bird rehabilitation center in Millington — just as $2,700 was being raised for a reward seeking information leading to her safe return. Police were notified of her whereabouts Tuesday. She was examined by veterinarians Wednesday. And by Thursday, Eileen was returned to her corner, where she could be seen hopping around, pecking at the ground for nuts — immune to the roar of the passing traffic amid the ringing of the 5-Star Gas Station’s service bell.

“I’m kind of happy and I’m kind of not,” said Ruth Carrino, a township resident and former veterinarian’s technician who regularly feeds the bird. “That is a dangerous intersection, but it is what she knows. She is comfortable in that area.”

Officials at The Raptor Trust said that is exactly why Eileen was returned home. Initially, local animal control officials wanted the hobbled turkey to be placed at James McFaul Environmental Center, a wild life sanctuary in Wyckoff.

But in a statement issued Thursday, The Raptor Trust said Eileen — who was “in good weight when admitted to the Trust, and was bright, alert, well-hydrated, and in healthy feather condition” — should return to “where she has been thriving well for years.”

One town has its mascot. Now all it needs is a baseball team and an Irish pub named "Eileen's" that serves Wild Turkey at the bar. And a radio show called "Talking Turkey". Add your own turkey puns and jokes in the comments.

Labels: animals, You can't make this shit up

Another one:

After the unfortunate saga of Knut at the Berlin Zoo, it seems that zoos have learned that these hand-raised Eisbären need to be raised by a staff, so as not to bond too closely with any one person.

Seriously...how cute is that. The only thing cuter may be my neighbors' new Maltese puppy.

Labels: animals, cute things, polar bears

I don't know about you, but I've had a tough week. So if you too need your heart warmed, here you go: Two cat ladies and some monkey wranglers (with links, for those who'd like to make an for end-of-year donation):

Siglinda Scarpa of The Goathouse Refuge in Pittsboro, NC:



Lynea Lattanzio of Cat House on the Kings in Parlier, CA:



It's important to note that these women are not hoarders. These are not cats kept in filth, there's no dead cats in freezers. Cats at these facilities, if they are healthy and adoptable, are all up for adoption. If they aren't, they have a clean place to live where they can live out their days I haven't been to Cat House on the Kings, but I have been to the Goathouse Refuge, and it is not just a refuge for cats, but a place of calm. It's also immaculately clean. If you think you're going to walk around these fenced enclosures and step in cat poop, guess again. It takes an army of volunteers to keep these places clean and the cats healthy -- and a ton of money.

"But what about people? Isn't it better to help people in this economy?"

I'm not sure that one precludes the other. When I worked in New York City in the 1980's, I went through the World Trade Center every day for eight years. There was a homeless woman who always parked herself near the token booth at the E train terminus. Her name was Sharon. Sharon had a cat that she carried with her in her shopping cart wherever she went. On most days, you could see Sharon sitting on a blanket at that token booth, feeding that cat, often as not from a tin of Fancy Feast. The cat was always sleek and healthy-looking. I still think about her sometimes and wonder whatever happened to this woman who despite her own circumstances, always made sure that the one being that she could rely on to not torment her was cared for.

And now for something completely different: The Nosara Wildlife Rescue:



I would hope that those inclined to give to animal organizations at this time of year would eschew the envelopes full of address labels, holiday cards, and slick photos of sad-faced tragic animals -- organizations with millions of dollars in endowments and enough money to send these mailings, and focus on groups like these -- smaller rescues that put their donations towards care of the animals instead of fat executive salaries and payments to direct mail houses.

Labels: animals, cat blogging

I Can Has Babeeburger?

Nom nom nom nom nom.

Labels: animals, cat blogging, cute things, snark

Yes, it's true. In Missouri, teabaggers are against even minimal regulation of puppy mills:

Now, a group of Missouri tea partiers have found a new target: regulations that would mandate more humane conditions in the state’s puppy mills. This November, Missouri voters will go to the polls and decide the fate of Missouri’s Proposition B, which would place new regulations on puppy mills, including mandating that they provide “sufficient food and clean water, necessary veterinary care, sufficient housing, including protection from the elements, sufficient space to turn and stretch freely, lie down, and fully extend his or her limbs, regular exercise, and adequate rest between breeding cycles.”

As TPM Muckraker’s Jillian Rayfield reports, the Missouri Tea Party and the Tea Party Patriots have begun organizing meetings against the proposition. One tea party activist described the measure as being about the “government or the big company trying to tell people what to do“:

The Tea Party has also gotten on board the anti-Prop B bandwagon. A meeting called “Vote NO on Proposition B” on October 12 is advertised on websites for the Missouri Tea Party and the Tea Party Patriots. The event, held at Coach’s Pizza World, is being organized by the Mexico Tea Party, which activist Ron Beedle told TPM is a relatively new chapter of the Tea Party. This is their first meeting, he said, and Prop B is about the “government or the big company trying to tell people what to do.”

Also campaigning against the proposition is the local chapter of conservative Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and Samuel Wurzelbacher (”Joe The Plumber“). Wurzelbacher has teamed up with the Alliance For Truth, an anti-Prop B organization strongly backed by the kennells and mills across the state, to blog against the measure. One blog post by him features an animal rescue officer kicking down the door of a home. Meanwhile, the Missouri Cattleman’s Association is warning that if the Humane Society — which is a big booster of the proposition — manages to pass the measure, they may be able to succeed in bettering conditions for farm animals as well.

OMG, humane treatment of animals? Horrors! Next thing you know they'll be telling industry that they can't put melamine in baby formula. What's America coming to?

Labels: animals, insanity, Teabaggers

Amazing, cranium-combusting cuteness, via Americablog Pets:

Labels: animals, cute things

Labels: animals, sheer awesomeness

Someday alien civilizations will find Bear Den Cam at Archive.org and say, "These people let corporations take over their government because they were too busy watching a grizzly bear sleep? Maybe they deserved to have their civilization fall."

Labels: animals, watching paint dry

Because it doesn't get a whole lot cuter than this:

Labels: animals, video

Why I never wanted children:

I don't care who started it! Knock it off!

Labels: animals, Teh Funny

Back when my granddad bought this place, North Stamford was considered the backwoods, with dirt roads and a pretty sparse population. Gentrification has pushed out alot of the original old timers but we still have our share of oddballs. Now, I may be one myself, in the new order, because I keep chickens, but that's not the kind of thing that would rate as all that odd up here in the detritus of family places sitting on overgrown prime land and the secrets therein. Its not unusual for specially licensed professionals to keep exotic animals in their homes, but its a little unusual that a troublesome 200 lb Chimp was allowed to remain in what had become a populated residential area.

Travis the chimp was not the cute little guy in the Old Navy commercials anymore. He was not that little guy in diapers driving around town in the company truck... and Sandra Herold was not an animal handler by any stretch. Herold is an eccentric who had managed to grandfather in the ability to keep this wild and increasingly unmanageable animal under wraps and perhaps illegally in her residence. Travis was a disaster waiting to happen, and with his ability to get out of cars, stop traffic, drive cars himself, not to mention his threatening actions, its a wonder that only one person was so severely injured. When Travis stopped downtown traffic for 2 hours last year, it was a warning that things were out of hand. If what happened here on Tuesday had happened downtown, there could have been a much higher death toll.

Whatever was going on with Travis on Tuesday morning that caused Herold to call her friend Charla Nash to help her get the animal inside, is unclear. Sandra Herold has already given him an unprescribed dose of Xanax in tea to try to calm him and get him into the house, (Xanax has not been tested on Chimpanzees.) What is clear, from the reports of the first responders, is that Nash got out of her car with a doll for Travis and he attacked. As those first responders pulled up the drive, Travis appeared with blood dripping from his mouth and down his chest. He raised his arms like a gorilla, running back and forth between threatening the approaching rescuers and what looked like a crumpled mannequin on the lawn, but was actually Nash, continuing to chew her face some more as if she was his kill and they were threatening it.

She didn't even look like an actual person because she basically had no face, no scalp....The responders retreated, backing their truck away, because they knew that Travis could tear the door off their truck and there was no way for them to get to Nash until police sharp shooters arrived. When police approached the scene, Travis partially tore the door off their cruiser, causing an officer to begin shooting him with his .45. It took 5 shots to get Travis to retreat into his house, where he fell to the floor and died. Rescue workers were able to get Nash to the hospital where she remains in critical condition, but those on the scene can't imagine how she can live through the injuries she sustained. Bits of her were left on the lawn there along with the doll she brought to try to calm him.

This morning Sandra Herold was all over the news, giving interviews telling us that Travis looked up to her as if to say "Mom, what did you do?" What did she do? Well, that's an interesting question. She certainly didn't keep Travis in a proper enclosure. She certainly didn't think of her neighbor's safety, including the many young mothers in this neighborhood pushing baby carriages along the roads. She also didn't seem to be at the hospital outside of her "best friend's" room, waiting for word on her condition. Perhaps she has been told to stay away, but honestly, to use this time to make excuses for a wild animal behaving the way that many, many mature male chimpanzees behave, is insane.

Its not that Herold is considered to be a particularly sane person around here, anyway. Maybe she is just negligent and the city is to blame, but I for one, would like some answers. I have a teen who is outside quite a bit, and taking walks on these same roads with his friends, and I'd like to know that any dangerous animals are kept responsibly and that they are visited by the inspector from time to time. This monkey was allowed to drive around in a company truck when he was young, but by the time he has grown to over 200 lbs and was being kept by a disheveled woman (who was alone after having lost her husband,) living in a chaotic house, I would like to know that someone has a handle on things.

Back when I lived in Montana, I met a guy, Doug Seus, who raised and trained Bart the Bear, of The Bear fame (among other movies.) Yes, he was a cuddly animal, and the trainers that worked with him all the time could hug him and cuddle with him like he was a puppy. But he was also, like the many other wild animals that Doug raised and trained for show business, a wild animal. There were always handlers present, and one of my roommates back then had actually been a handler for Doug when Bart was a baby, (that's how I met him,) because one person couldn't possibly keep up with the training at all times. One person cant possibly keep up with the care and training of a wild animal! Older Chimpanzees become erratic


According to the Jane Goodall Institute:

Aggression is a natural aspect of chimpanzee behavior and it is not uncommon for chimps to bite each other in the wild. Even the best cared for chimpanzee innately misses the companionship of other chimpanzees and may act aggressively towards owners. However much a misguided chimp owner continues to love his or her "child," the chimpanzee will be too dangerous to keep as part of the family. Many owners, to delay the inevitable day that the chimp will have to be removed from the house, will pull the chimp's teeth, put on shock collars — even remove thumbs in the mistaken notion that this will make it impossible for the chimp to climb the drapes.

This morning on the Today Show a couple was interviewed who survived a Chimpanzee attack. This is a responsible couple who wished dearly that they could have kept their Chimp, but who put him in a facility when he got older. They were attacked at the facility while visiting by other chimps who had gotten loose. As kind as they are about Chimps in general, and as gracious as they are in saying that they sorely wish they could have one living with them so as to study it, the injuries speak for themselves. This guy isn't even done with the surgeries and care he needs. He threw himself in front of his wife, apparently and saved her.




Heaven knows that I am an animal person who has been known to have a menagerie of pets that some people wouldn't want. The city was quick to sue me for a noise complaint from a disgruntled neighbor who was trying to sell his house and who had left by the time we went to trial. I won the suit, but had remedied the temporary problem, (too many roosters here from a clutch of eggs,) much earlier, anyway. Still the machinery of the process for noise complaints went into action, and once it was moving, lets just say that I became very familiar with the health department and the courts (and all is fine with my set up, thank-you-very-much.) How is it possible that a city like Stamford could be so remiss in protecting its citizens, even after incidents pointed to the out of control nature of the situation?

Charla Nash lost her face, her hands, and maybe her life. Mothers pushing baby carriages in neighborhoods of million dollar houses who used to worry about the odd frightened coyote up here, have to now worry about what else is behind those overgrown patches here and there. I'd like to know what Mayor Malloy intends to do to assure us that animal control and the department of health has permits and knowledge of all exotics residing in this quickly growing area before we have another tragedy.

Update:
I skipped over the part where the state had allowed Travis to be grandfathered in after permitting laws for exotic pets were passed in 2004. This family had Travis since 1994, which was all the more reason for a permit to be required in 2004, considering what is basic common knowledge about Chimpanzees. In other words, you don't need a PhD in primate psychology to know that they become aggressive. It might have been helpful if some animal regulating body was overseeing this thing. But with the apparent misunderstanding of the serious dangers to the public of keeping primates in substandard housing, I don't know if it would have made a difference.

The law enacted in 2004 exempted primates weighing less than 50 lbs, (as if a 50 lb monkey can't do some serious damage,) and those owned previously. Governor Rell now says that she is willing to consider an all out ban on owning primates as pets, but what seems to have fallen between the cracks here is that the primates that need looking at are the older ones that have been owned for a long time. Granted, no individual has applied for a large primate permit in the state since the law passed in 2004, but that doesn't mean that there aren't pre-existing primates out there that pose a danger. It would serve the entire country for animal control to require some sort of registration of primates, especially large ones. It would also serve to require that owners of these primates be licensed, and required to keep handy, animal tranquilizing darts.

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: animals, tragedy

Perhaps it's because animals play no role in their own tragedies. After all, it isn't the animals who are destroying their own habitat and belching out greenhouse gases (well, except cows, but it's not like they can stop...if flatulence could be stopped at will males with a sophomoric sense of humor would have nothing to laugh at). And they don't understand the disasters that befall them. The dogs and cats left in New Orleans before and Hurricane Katrina, however understandably, had no idea why this was happening to them. And koalas didn't set the fires that are devastating Australia, either. So it's hard not to have your heartstrings tugged at things like this:

The koala rescued in the above video has been named Sam by the men who found her. She's a female, and has now bonded with another rescued koala:

A love story between two badly burned koalas rescued from Australia's deadliest bushfires has provided some heart-warming relief after days of devastation and the loss of over 180 lives.

The story of Sam and her new boyfriend Bob emerged after volunteer firefighter Dave Tree used a mobile phone to film the rescue of the bewildered female found cowering in a burned out forest at Mirboo North, 150 km (90 miles) southeast of Melbourne.

Photos and a video of Tree, 44, approaching Sam while talking gently to her, and feeding her water from a plastic bottle as she put her burned claw in his cold, wet hand quickly hit video sharing website YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSPx7S4jr4), making her an Internet sensation.

But it was after reaching a wildlife shelter that Sam met and befriended Bob, who was saved by wildlife workers on Friday, two days before Sam, in Boolarra, about 180 km from Melbourne.

Tree, who has been a volunteer firefighter for 26 years, said it was extremely rare to get so close to a koala so he asked his colleague Brayden Groen, 20, to film him.

"You can how she stops and moves forward and looks at me. It was like a look saying "I can't run, I'm weak and sore, put me out of my misery"," Tree told Reuters.

"I yelled out for some water and I sat down with her and tipped the water up. It was in my hand and she reached for the bottle then put her right claw into my left hand which was cold so it must have given her some pain relief and she just left it there. It was just amazing."

INSPIRING LOVE STORY

Sam was taken to the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter in Rawson. Her story was reminiscent of a koala named Lucky who survived the 2003 bushfires that destroyed about 500 homes and killed four people in the capital of Canberra. Lucky became a symbol of hope.

Colleen Wood from the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter that is caring for Sam and Bob said both koalas were doing well while other animals like possums, kangaroos, and wallabies were also starting to emerge from the debris.

She said Sam had suffered second degree burns to her paws and would take seven to eight months to recover while Bob had three burned paws with third degree burns and should be well enough to return to the bush in about four months.

"They keep putting their arms around each other and giving each other hugs. They really have made friends and it is quite beautiful to see after all this. It's been horrific," said Wood.

"Sam is probably aged between two to four going by her teeth and Bob is about four so they have a muchness with each other."

But all is not happy endings in Victoria. The introduction to this video (not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach) says that over 5000 koalas alone have perished in this fire. And the injuries suffered by those animals that survive are heartbreaking:

workers at the shelter were scrambling to salve the wounds of possums, kangaroos, lizards — "everything and anything," Wood said.

"We had a turtle come through that was just about melted — still alive," Wood said. "The whole thing was just fused together — it was just horrendous. It just goes to show how intense (the fire) was in the area."

The animals arriving appear stressed, but generally seem to understand the veterinarians are trying to help them, Wood said. Kangaroos and koalas are widespread in Australia and are not particularly scared of humans.

Wildlife Victoria, a wildlife rescue group, has teams in place at several staging areas near the worst-hit regions, with volunteers seeing a range of injuries from burned lungs and smoke inhalation to singed paws.

Rescuers were just being allowed to venture into the blackened zones Wednesday, and while the scope of the impact on wildlife was still unclear, it was likely to be enormous, Wildlife Victoria president Jon Rowdon said.

"We've got a wallaby joey at the moment that has crispy fried ears because he stuck his head out of his mum's pouch and lost all his whiskers and cooked up his nose," he said. "They're the ones your hearts really go out to."

Rescuers had set up vaporizing tents to help creatures whose lungs were burned by the searing heat and smoke.

"There will probably be a significant number which probably can only be euthanized to end their suffering," Rowdon said. "And my heart goes out to the people who are given that task."

If you are in Australia, you can find out who needs help and what kind here. The Victoria RSPCA is accepting money donations specifically for animal efforts here. And the Australian Koala Foundation is here. And Wildlife Victoria is funding the rescue and rehabilitation efforts cited in the above article.

Labels: animals, Australia wildfires

Click the preposterously cute photo above to read the kind of amazing animal story that'll make you glad to be alive. Even if, like me, you spent too much of the day attempting to apply for a job via an online application system that refused to accept ANY number format at all for current salary.

There's something inherently cute about ducks. Part of the 2.2-mile loop that constitutes my morning constitutional goes down a path into a small wooded area surrounding a brook, and a bridge across said brook. People have been known to fish off this bridge, and there's often an elderly person or small child feeding the ducks. As a result, the ducks have learned that people = food. Yesterday as I headed down the path, a veritable Netroots Nation of ducks -- about fifty of them -- came waddling towards me, mack-mack-macking with excited anticipation. I greeted them using the diminutive species name, as is my wont to do with small cute animals, saying "Hello, duckies!" This only served to encourage them as I wound my way through the sea of mallards anticipating the kind of feast usually only seen at family reunions and G-8 meetings about world hunger. You'd think that once I'd passed through the horde without any little bullets of Wonder bread being tossed in their direction, they'd realize that the Anas Platyrhynchos equivalent of the hotdog cart just wasn't happening this morning. But no...these are persistent little buggers -- the whole crew of them followed me, mack-mack-macking, this time in reproach, all the way out to the street.

Next time I head out that way, I'm taking my camera to see if I can capture it for posterity.

Labels: animals

No, I'm not going anywhere. But that seemed an appropriate title for this warm and fuzzy story to end all warm and fuzzy stories:

THEY famously attempted to warn mankind of the Earth's impending destruction in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, only for their behaviour to be dismissed as playful acrobatics.

But now, solid evidence has emerged of the dolphin's altruistic nature. In a act of selflessness which has astounded experts and confirmed the friendly nature of the species, a bottlenose came to the rescue of two whales stranded on a beach in New Zealand.

The dolphin – nicknamed Moko by local residents, who said it spent much of its time swimming playfully with beachgoers – helped two pygmy sperm whales, facing imminent death after becoming stranded on a sandbar, swim to safety.

Until Moko's arrival, rescuers feared the mother and calf would have to be put down to prevent them suffering a prolonged death on Mahia beach, about 300 miles north-east of Wellington.

Malcolm Smith and his team from the New Zealand Conservation Department had tried in vain to rescue the animals for an hour-and-a-half. With their effort faltering, it seemed only a matter of time before the operation was called off.

"They kept getting disoriented and stranding again," Mr Smith said yesterday. "They couldn't find their way back past (the sandbar] to the sea."

Just as it seemed all hope was lost, Moko appeared. The dolphin approached the whales, leading them 200m along the beach before navigating them out to the open sea.

Mr Smith believes the dolphin heard the whales' distress calls and came to their aid.

"It was looking like it was going to be a bad outcome for the whales ... then Moko came along and fixed it," he said. "They had arched their backs and were calling to one another, but as soon as the dolphin turned up, they submerged and followed her.

"I don't speak whale and I don't speak dolphin, but there was obviously something that went on, because the two whales changed from being quite distressed to following the dolphin willingly and directly along the beach and straight out to sea."

Another rescuer, Juanita Symes, added: "Moko came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales. She got them to head toward the hill, where the channel is. It was an amazing experience. The best day of my life."

Indeed.


(h/t: Lynn)

Labels: animals