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MANILA, Philippines (AFP) — Bertha, believed to be the world’s oldest hippopotamus, has died aged 65, the Manila zoo said Monday, having beaten the typical lifespan for the mostly herbivorous mammals by decades. The 2.5-tonne female was found dead Friday in her enclosure, with a post mortem examination concluding that Bertha, the zoo’s oldest resident, had died from multiple organ failure, zoo director James Dichaves said. “Bertha was among the pioneer animals here. Her mate […]
SANTIAGO, Chile (AFP) — Talk about a cute critter: a hippo small enough to fit in a pet cage. Unveiled to the press Wednesday at a zoo in Chile is a two-week-old, female, baby pygmy hippopotamus, yet unnamed. The mother’s name is Coca and the dad goes by Hipolito. They weigh about 250 kilos (550 pounds) — a tenth of the weight of regular, jumbo hippos. The baby now tips the scales at 14 kilos, nearly […]
JILIN, China (Reuters) – Siberian tigers and Amur leopards are wild animals that are rarely seen, even in pictures. But with infrared cameras, more and more live images of these rare wild beasts are seen by the general public in northeast China’s Jilin Province. “When we first installed these cameras in 2013, we were just lucky enough to capture the image of tigers once a year. Now we tour these cameras every two months and we […]
Pangolins are the world’s most heavily trafficked mammals. Malaysian authorities have seized more than 700 kilograms of pangolin scales, officials said Monday. (AFP Graphics)
PIURA, Peru (Reuters) — Wildlife experts from Peru and Ecuador inspected the health of 27 baby Galapagos tortoises, a highly endangered species, that were recently rescued from a group of traffickers trying to take them to Europe, according to local media reports. A group of members from Ecuador’s National Forestry and Wildlife Service (Serfor) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation said the tortoises were in good health. After a morphological evaluation, specialists concluded the […]
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AFP) — At least five wolves, including one female, have returned to Denmark for the first time in two centuries, a zoologist who has obtained DNA evidence said on Thursday. The predators came from Germany to settle in western Denmark’s agricultural region, the least densely populated in the Scandinavian country. Peter Sunde, scientist at the University of Aarhus, told AFP the wolves must have walked more than 500 kilometres (310 miles). “We think […]
GOLD COAST, Australia (Reuters) — Sea World Australia released video footage on Tuesday (May 2) of two new born polar bear cubs feeding from their mother inside their den. Sixteen-year-old mother Liya delivered her second litter on April 26, and the cubs, which still have to be named, weighed about 600 grams with a height of 15 centimetres. Fully grown they could stand as tall as 11 feet (3.35 meters) and weigh up to 1,400 […]
(AFP) — A rare albino orangutan has been rescued on the Indonesian part of Borneo island where villagers were keeping the white-haired, blue-eyed creature in a cage, a protection group said Tuesday. In an extremely unusual discovery, authorities picked up the female, estimated to be five years old, in a remote village in Kapuas Hulu district. The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF), which is caring for the critically endangered ape — believed to be albino […]
Morocco’s Barbary macaque monkey is facing a battle for survival as poaching, tourists feeding them and loss of the species’ natural habitat take their toll. (AFP)
by Martin Parry Agence France-Presse SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — The world needs to do more to protect the Antarctic wilderness and its wildlife, scientists warned Tuesday, as they marked World Penguin Day. The flightless seabirds — a favorite with children for their clumsy, waddling gait — offer a useful yardstick for researchers to judge the health of their habitat. “Penguins are great ambassadors for understanding the need to conserve Southern Ocean resources,” Christian Reiss, an Antarctic […]
by Pierre-Henry Deshayes Agence France-Presse Kautokeino, Norway (AFP) — Winter temperatures in Norway’s Lapland could rise dramatically this century, with potentially devastating consequences for the region’s reindeer and the indigenous Sami people who make their living herding them. A vast frozen tundra, the mountainous Finnmark plateau in Norway’s far north, is experiencing a hot spell — relatively speaking — wreaking havoc on the centuries-old Sami way of life. “We already feel the effects of global warming […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Whale cams have revealed the secret feeding habits of the giant mammals in frozen Antarctica, details on their social lives, and even how they must blow hard to clear sea ice to breathe. Scientists attached tiny cameras and electronic tags to humpbacks to better understand what they do underwater as they study how shrinking sea ice caused by warming sea temperatures linked to climate change may impact them. “Once we have […]
