wild animals
Animals the way nature intended it; explore the world of wild animals and the controversies surrounding domestication and hunting of feral beasts.
What's All the Buzz About?
A world without the buzz of bees would really sting. The humble bumblebee- the same ones we swat and scream at when they fly our way, play a crucial role in each of our daily lives! We actually have a bee to thank for every 1 in 3 bites of food that we eat every single day. Bees work tirelessly, sometimes up to 12 hours a day foraging nectar and transporting pollen between plants to produce essential foods in our diet like fruits, vegetables, nuts, chocolate and even coffee! Bee populations have been drastically declining more and more each year since the 1980s. If we lose our precious pollinators to extinction, we lose up to 90% of the world’s nutrition. It’s time for us humans to beehive!
By Sam Villemaire6 years ago in Petlife
Great Blue Heron On Assateague
A Quick Aside A Brief Aside Assateague Island, which is divided in two by the Maryland/ Virginia state line, is home to two very famous herds of "wild" ponies. These ponies have been featured in books, movies, and famous photography for decades. On the Virginia side of the border, these ponies are occasionally supplemented in nutrition and given wormer and vaccinations as well as having their hooves trimmed. Once a year, the Chincoteague ponies (the ones on the Virginia side of the Island) are rounded up and many of the foals are auctioned off in the famous Chincoteague Island Pony Auction to benefit the Chincoteague Fire Department. On the Maryland side of the island, the ponies are typically referred to as Assateague Horses (but are largely the same as the Chincoteague Pony) and considered to wild and therefore have even less intervention/ interaction/ care given to them than the ponies on the Virginia side. On both sides of the island, the opportunity to see those ponies brings people from throughout the United States and around the world. The Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is one of the more accessible wildlife refuges in the country which helps make it one of the most visited, but there is incredible access to wildlife afforded to those that visit in most any time of year.
By Michael Hanson-Metayer6 years ago in Petlife
My Groundhog, Ciabatta. First Place in Pets Welcome Challenge. Top Story - June 2020.
After the untimely passing of our last tabby cat when I was 12 years old, my father decided there would be no more pets living in our household. No more new felines, no more cockatiels, not even a hypoallergenic dog that wouldn't affect our allergies. His primary reasoning for the ruling was a materialistic one. If we got a new animal, no matter what it was, it would tear up our living room furniture - just like the cats did.
By Kathryn Milewski6 years ago in Petlife
Roach Case
One day, I saw roaches, near my kitchen sink on my kitchen counter, stuck inside one of my electric blender (a Walmart Bullet) drinking cups, upright. At first, only two roaches, both adults of two slightly different size and shapes, were in the cup. Strangely to me, the roaches could not crawl up the cup. The next day, I saw only one roach, looking to me like the bigger adult roach, in the cup. Apparently, the two roaches had been stacked together one on top of the other, as the next day after that, two roaches, looking to me just like the same two first adult roaches, were visible to me in the cup. Also, on that same day, a third roach, an immature, or a roach still developing into an adult, was crawling around near the cup on the same kitchen counter of mine. The next day after that, a third roach, looking to me like the same immature roach, was also in the cup.
By Stephen Richards6 years ago in Petlife
Why Artificial Animals Can Never Replace In-Person Encounters
Melanie Langlotz, a New Zealand-based tech entrepreneur and vegan helped her Chinese business partner build a lifelike, but creepy looking robotic bottlenose dolphin puppet after they were asked to build a suitable habitat for an aquarium that would house live cetaceans. The puppet, which has a 10-hour battery life and can last in saltwater for a decade, attracted the attention of theme park operators about possible mass production of the puppets after hearing a word about it from volunteers who swam with it. They claim that they were unaware that they were swimming with the puppet, which is a prototype by the way, until they were told the truth.
By Jenna Deedy6 years ago in Petlife
The Elephant
The Elephant Once I had finally persuaded my father to take me to the zoo, and as soon as we had stepped down from the front step of the trolley, which kindly stopped right in front of the gilded and ornamented gate, I stomped my little five-year-old foot on the floor and demanded that we go at once to see the elephant. He smiled in his acquiescent and gentle nature and bent down offering me a privileged view from the seat of his shoulders, and we marched imperially under the ornamented arch that spelled-out “Zoo”, a name which represented then, to me, a wonderful and undiscovered land.
By Shanta Navvab Walker6 years ago in Petlife
“Rare Blue Bees Seen in Florida”
An ultra-rate metallic blue bee has been discovered by researchers in the state of Florida. They believed conclusively that the species was extinct and no longer existed because they hadn’t seen the species for years. Yet previously found in four areas, “totaling just 16 square miles of pine scrub habitat at Central Florida's Lake Wales Ridge," the Florida Museum said in a news release, proving the species is making a comeback.
By Jenna Richardson aka J. J. Richards6 years ago in Petlife
When Vancouver Aquarium Struggles, PETA Exploits
Six weeks in its closure, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vancouver Aquarium is financially struggling to care for its sea otters, seals, sea lions, and other animals that call the 64-year-old facility home. The closure did not just mean a loss of revenue of about $3 million a month but also, a loss of about 2,00 visitors who patronize the aquarium each day through animal encounters, admission, behind-the-scene tours, and symbolic animal adoptions.
By Jenna Deedy6 years ago in Petlife
ANTS!!!
Have you heard of the Facebook group “A group where we all pretend to be ants in an ant colony?” It’s a lighthearted roleplaying group where the members pretend to be ants. There are elections for the Queen and everyone posts ant related memes and stories. At present, it has 1.7 million members. I recently joined and it's made me a tad more retrospective about eusocial insect. I’ve interacted with them in two states to date and those experiences have widely differed.
By Nicole "ChaseThePen" Sanchez6 years ago in Petlife
