Interesting Links
Secret sorrows of tea chimps: Real animal stars of
TV’s most popular ad
Back in the
mid-1950s the antics of the apes, dressed in human clothes, drinking from cups
and eating jam sandwiches, caused a sensation.
then a smart
advertising executive had a brainwave. Why not go a stage further and use their
obvious ability to mimic people in a TV campaign?
The PG tips chimps
were created and delighted viewers for more than 25 years. Even now the
adverts, which made the tea Brit ain’s best-selling brand, are fondly
remembered.
The young chimps
became stars and earned a fortune for the zoo where they lived.
However a new
Channel 5 documentary reveals that away from the cameras there was a darker
side to teaching animals to become human.
Once they were no
longer wanted to promote tea the chimps struggled to adapt to normal animal
life, paying a price for their fleeting stardom.
The first PG tips
commercial was screened in 1956, recreating a chimps’ tea party in an elegant
mansion.
It was a huge
success and the brand flew off the shelves, sparking a demand for more daring
adverts.
The makers turned to
Molly Badha
Father-of-six wildlife park boss died when he was
crushed by tree he was felling with his son at bird centre
A wildlife park boss
was killed in front of his son after he was crushed by a tree he was felling
for fuel, an inquest heard today.
Father-of-six Ceri
Griffiths, 71, could not escape as the tree crashed down onto his head at his
South Wales bird centre.
Mr Griffiths
suffered catastrophic brain injuries from the accident at his Welsh Hawking
Centre in Barry, near Cardiff, and died later in hospital.
He cut into a
v-shaped trunk believing it was one tree - not two - and the second tree fell
on him.
Falconry expert Mr
Griffiths and son Griff were cutting down trees with a chainsaw to use as fuel
for his wood burner.
His son told the
Cardiff inquest: 'He had cut a v-shape in the tree four feet from the ground
when I saw that the tree was two trees which had merged into one trunk.
'My dad cut through
Rhinos escape zoo after security guard falls asleep
(Video)
Three rhinoceroses
managed to escape from the front gate of the Ramat Gan Safari Park zoo in Ramat
Gan, Israel, after the security guard fell asleep. You had one job.
One zookeeper
attempted to chase down the rhinos, as if he could somehow stop them. “Hey,
guys! Wait! Come back! I promise I won’t lock you in a cage again!” The rhinos
were only able to experience the sweet taste of freedom for 10 minutes, before
How Female Animals Choose Which Male Animals Get to
Bang Them
Choosing a mate is a
funny thing. While other animal species are probably less likely to make the
poor alcohol-fueled choices most of us regret, albeit fondly—and less likely
still to wake up in a hungover fog in a strange place the next morning, grabbing
articles of clothing up off the floor and checking the waste bin to make sure
the number of used condom wrappers matches up with our hazy memories—females of
other species are subject to a lot of the same bravado and competitive
posturing we endure from human males, and they act just like we do: sometimes
accepting an offer, sometimes walking away.
This process of
picking—whether you're mating for lifelong partnership, to make babies, or just
for a recreational quickie—is known as sexual selection. Just like us, animals
mate for a staggering variety of reasons. And also like us, they frequently make
questionable decisions.
Why we pick the
mates we do has been the subject of countless research studies since Charles
Darwin coined the term "sexual selection" 150+ years ago, but we
still know way less than you'd expect. One thing we do know: animals are
show-offs, and will do just about anything to impress a lady.
Darwin was so
impressed by animal courtship that he included a description of sexual
selection in On the Origin of Species—a term he defined by contrasting it to
his theory of natural selection. That is, while natural selection is shaped by
"a struggle for existence," sexual selection depends "on a
struggle between the males for possession of the females," in an effort to
produce the most viable offspring.
Darwin's examples of
sexually selected traits that confer an advantage range from "special
weapons confined to the male sex," such as horns, spurs, or overall
strength and dominance, to the "more peaceful character" of sexual
selection see
North Korea claims 'new liver medicine made at
national zoo'
A researcher at
North Korea’s Central Zoo has been busy working on a liver medicine to combat
hepatitis, according to the state news agency KCNA.
Kwon O-song, a
researcher at the zoo, said the new medicine consisted of “a compound of bear’s
gall and extract from pith of maackia amurensis,” according to KCNA. He
reportedly added that it “has proved to be efficacious against liver diseases
like fatty liver and hepatitis.”
The article cites
the case of Choe Ryong from the Pothonggang District of the North Korean
capital Pyongyang, who “feels no pain in his right side and digests well after
taking it for nearly half a month.” The medicine has been awarded the DPRK
patent, the report said.
Robert
Winstanley-Chesters, director of research at Sino NK, a group of academics
focused on North Korea, says the ‘liver cure
Hollywild Animal Park: Fire Kills Dozens Of Animals At
South Carolina Zoo
At least 28 animals
have died in a fire at a zoo in South Carolina.
A fire broke out in
the animals’ primate barn some time before 8:30 Friday morning. Zoo employee
Jay Gossett discovered smoke in the barn when he arrived at work, and went into
the building to find several animals had died from smoke inhalation, according
to Time. Fourteen other animals in the barn survived and are currently being
treated.
Dr. Beverly Hargus,
Hollywild’s veterinarian, told WHNS (Greenville) that the animals that died
likely didn’t suffer, and that the survivors likely
Over 28,000 endangered lemurs illegally kept as pets
in Madagascar may threaten conservation, survival of species
An estimated 28,000
lemurs, the world's most endangered primates, have been illegally kept as pets
in urban areas of Madagascar over the past three years, possibly threatening
conservation efforts and hastening the extinction of some of lemur species, according
to a study by Temple University researchers.
The researchers
published the findings, "Live capture and ownership of lemurs in
Madagascar: extent and conservation implications," online Jan. 5, in the
international conservation journal, Oryx.
Led by Temple
biology doctoral student Kim Reuter, the researchers spent three months in
Madagascar surveying over 1,000 households in 17 cities and villages across the
country's northern half about pet lemur ownership, which is illegal.
"We've been
spending millions of dollars on lemur conservation in Madagascar, but despite
spending all this money, no one has ever quantified the threat from the
in-country pet lemur trade," said Reuter. "If we're spending these
millions of dollars there to preserve these species, we should actually exami
Odisha’s Nandankanan zoo staff hurt in elephant attack
A staff of
Nandankanan zoo near Barang on the outskirts of Odisha capital was seriously
injured after he was attacked by a female elephant.
According to
reports, Arjuna Khamari (41), alias Babuli, a mahunta (trainer) and employee of
the zoo, had gone inside the elephant enclosur
Germany: White stork tests positive for H5N8 avian flu
at Rostock Zoo
A day following
reports of two cases of H5N8 avian influenza in mallard ducks at Saxony-Anhalt,
the Ministry of Agriculture in Schwerin report an additional case in a white
stork at the Rostock Zoo (computer translated).
More Tiger cubs perish at Sri Lankan zoo
Thirty tiger cubs
have so far perished at the Dehiwala Zoo during the last four years. Four
Bengali Tiger cubs died yesterday.
Five Bengali Tiger
cubs were born on Saturday. One is alive. It is also in a critical condition,
zoo officials said.
Previously 26 tiger
cubs including 10 rare white tiger cubs had died at the zoo, sources said.
Last year, a rare
white tiger cub was given euthanasia because he was considered abnormal.
A veterinarian told
The Island that those involved in Animal Exchange Programmes should be
questioned why the pedigree of an animal was not traced.
The Zoo, tagged as
one of the bes
Compagnie des Alpes Announces Sale of Dolfinarium
Harderwijk
The sale of
Dolfinarium Harderwijk has been completed and the sale of Walibi Sud-Ouest has
been initiated as is expected to complete by the end of January 2015.
In FY 2013/14 the
two sites together contributed around 6% of EBITDA and €22.5 million sales for
CDA’s Leisure business unit. Walibi
Sud-Ouest will retain its brand for at least three years.
The disposal is in
line with CDA’s strategy to
The Englishman returning wildlife to Cambodia's Angkor
Wat temple complex
The forests
surrounding the ancient temple complex of Angkor Wat in Cambodia are once more
echoing to the eerie, whooping calls of the pileated gibbon, a species, like so
many in south-east Asia, that has been decimated by hunting and deforestation.
Conservationists
have reintroduced the gibbons as part of an ambitious project for the
"re-wilding" of Angkor Wat, a vast "temple city" that was
once surrounded by forests teeming with deer, monkeys, birds and big cats
before the arrival of commercial hunters with guns, traps and an appetite for
money.
The re-wilding is
being led by Englishman Nick Marx, a conservationist who believes the project
could become a model for other parts of south-east Asia hit by the trade in
endangered wildlife.
Angkor Wat, the
largest religious monument on earth, was made a World Heritage Site to protect
its sprawling network of temples. Now conservationists want to restore the
surrounding forests of Angkor Archaeological Park to their former glory, Mr
Marx said.
"The area of
forest is beautiful and mature. It's a unique site but it's devoid of wildlife
now," he said. "We want to introduce different species that would be
appropriate, such as a cross-selection of small carnivores, h
Tiger farms stoke Chinese demand for tiger wine and
rugs, putting wild cats in peril
To the thump of loud
dance music, four tigers roll over in succession and then raise themselves on
their haunches. A man in a shiny blue shirt waves a metal stick at them, and
they lift their front paws to beg.
The “show” takes
place twice a day in a gloomy 1,000-seat auditorium — empty on a recent
afternoon except for one Chinese tourist, two reporters and a security guard,
its uneven floorboards, broken seats and cracked spotlights painting a picture
of neglect.
Outside, hundreds of
tigers pace back and forth in small, scrubby enclosures or lie listlessly in
much smaller cages made of concrete and rusted metal. An occasional plaintive
growl rends the air.
This is one of
China’s biggest tiger farms, the Xiongshen Tiger and Bear Mountain Village in
the southern city of Guilin. It is part of a booming industry that is
threatening to drive this magnificent animal toward extinction in the wild,
conservationists say, by fueling demand for “luxury” tiger parts.
Encouraged by the
tiger farming industry, China’s wealthy are rediscovering a taste for tiger
bone wine — promoted as a treatment for rheumatism and impotence — as well as
tiger-skin rugs and stuffed animals, sought after as status symbols among an
elite obsessed with conspicuous consumption.
Zookeeper attacked by Whipsnade rhino still in
hospital but ‘stable’
A Whipsnade
zookeeper who was seriously injured by a rhino spent Christmas and New Year in
hospital as he continues to recover from injuries.
The keeper, a man in
his 50s, was found by other members of staff in water in the zoo’s Asian rhino
enclosure at 8.15am on November 19.
Paramedics gave him
enhanced pain relief at the scene and took measures to keep him warm as his
body temperature had dropped considerably after being immersed in the water.
He was taken to
Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and underwent surgery after sustaining
serious injuries to the chest, abdomen and pelvis in the incident.
The zookeeper
remains in a s
Second generation of octopuses born at Mote Marine
Aquarium
Mote Marine Aquarium
in Sarasota is now home to several baby octopuses.
The last week of
December, more than 20 Caribbean pygmy octopuses were born.
Biologists were not
expecting them and said the babies are a total surprise.
“I got lucky enough
to have my second generation of captive-raised octopus babies here,” Senior
Aquarium Biologist Brian Siegel said.
The eight-tentacled
bundles of joy are the children of Mote’s famous now-adult Caribbean pygmy
octopuses, who made national news last year.
The new babies came
from parents hatched in March 2014, which in turn hatched from wild octopus
eggs.
A picture showing
one of those babies next to a pencil went viral, gaining thousands of fans on
social media and appearing in Scientific American online.
The photo was
recently dubbed one of the "most amazing science and technology images of
the year" by Popular Science.
The new babies are
now hiding behind the scenes, currently too delicate and secretive to be on
exhibit.
Caribbean pygmy
octopuses (Octopus mercatoris) are nocturnal, reclusive and great at blending
into the reefs and rocky outcroppings they inhabit in the wild.
“The minute you turn
the light on, they’re gone,” said Siegel. “They don’t want to be viewed all the
time, so displaying them can be a challenge for a biologist.”
Siegel said the new
babies came about through luck and skill.
“It was luck that I
had the adults in a group of five males and two females so they could
breed," he said. “We can’t recognize the females until they lay eggs. It’s
also i
Always wanted to get up close to a tiger? You need to watch this first!
Reviving Depleted Wildlife Parks and Zoos in Nigeria
About 20 years ago,
the country's zoological gardens and parks ranked among the best in the Africa
continent.
Such parks and
gardens generated huge revenues into government coffers, but today, those
facilities have suffered from such severe neglect that some are devoid of their
exotic animals or have lost their land space to land speculators.
Such gardens as the
Port Harcourt Zoological Garden, the University of Ibadan Zoological Gardens,
Ibadan; the Yankari Games Reserve, Bauchi; the Jos Zoo and Wildlife Park, Jos ;
and the Old Oyo National Park, Ibadan, were the delight of tourists that flocked
from within and outside the country to see the animals housed in them.
The zoos were then
the major tourist attractions in the country. Tens of thousands of visitors
from neighbouring states and even foreign countries trooped in their numbers to
view the animals in their makeshift habitats.
Nigeria presently
has eight national parks, unlike the number in some African countries like
Kenya and South Africa that have 52 and 56 games reserves respectively.
A few years ago, the
zoos harboured various types of animal including reptiles, chimpanzees,
elephants, tigers, lions, rhinos and leopards, as well as various species of
monkeys.
A distinction here
on wildlife parks and zoos. An example of a wildlife park is the Yankari Games
Reserve, while most universities have zoological gardens- mostly for teaching.
Animals in the zoos
are fed by their keepers and their 'homes' (cages or venclosures) can hardly be
described as natural. However, animals in wildlife parks are as calle
Legalizing Rhino Horn Trade Won't Save Species,
Ecologist Argues
Conservation efforts
saved the species from an earlier brush with extinction. There were no more
than 50 white rhinos in South Africa at the end of the 19th century. Today
South Africa holds nearly all of Africa's estimated 20,135 white rhinos.
But more than 1,215
were poached for their horns in 2014. A similar number were killed in 2013. The
animals are expected to be in net decline by next year.
And yet in the
lead-up to the next big meeting of the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to be held in Cape Town in
October 2016, South Africa is expected to push hard for legalization of trade
in the horns of southern white rhinos.
In Vietnam, among
other Asian nations, powdered rhino horn is said to treat fevers and cure
cancer, although no scientific studies exist to support such beliefs.
A legal trade,
proponents argue, would reduce incentives for poaching of wild rhinos and the
illegal trade of their horns. People who are pro-trade view rhino horn as a
renewable resource because the horns gradually regrow after they're cropped.
The idea is that
rhinos would be intensively managed under farmed, or at least semi-captive,
conditions, and that the animals would be sedated while their horns are
harvested. Profits from the sale of horns would be invested in maintaining
"viable, free-ranging" populations in "natural habitat," as
South African
Shocking trade in baby orangutans being bred as
playthings for the Russian super-rich for £24,000 each
Baby orangutans are
being bred in Russia as exotic pets to sell as playthings for the super-rich
and are being advertised for sale on the internet for £24,000, a MailOnline
investigation has found.
And the endangered
creatures are not just being reared in Russia but also being imported in an
apparent defiance of international rules.
With very little
regulation and a myriad of legal loopholes, a booming animal trade has grown
with a shocking selection of animals - from macaques to falcons - being offered
up for sale over the internet.
At a 'nursery'
called Exotic Zoo in Desna village outside Moscow, MailOnline was offered an
orangutan for two million roubles (£23,845).
The great apes are
in the Red Book, an internationally recognised
Trafficking great ape body parts in Cameroon
For years,
traffickers fuelled the slaughter of gorillas and chimpanzees in Cameroon's
rainforests to meet demand for bush meat - an activity conservationists feared
could wipe out the great apes in the wild in a few decades.
But now they fear a
far worse scenario is taking place.
A previously unknown
trade in ape heads, bones and limbs - rather than full bodies for meat - is
encouraging poachers to kill more animals than previously done, and wildlife
law enforcement officials say it is speeding up population decline.
"We may be
looking at something that is developing down the road of ivory
trafficking," said Eric Kaba Tah, deputy director of the Last Great Ape
Organisation (LAGA), a non-profit wildlife law enforcement body based in
Cameroon's capital, Yaounde.
"Gorillas and
chimpanzees were hunted mainly for bush meat. The babies were captured and sold
as pets. Heads and limbs were cut off and left behind because they resemble
human parts," Tah told Al Jazeera.
However, a new
picture has no
Zoo keeper reveals what was going through his head
when a giant crocodile attacked him and bit his THUMB off
A zoo keeper blames
himself for a near-death experience with a crocodile which ended with his thumb
being ripped off - although he does admit that he has very scant memories of
the traumatic event.
The owner of the
reptile park, Ian Jenkins, was grabbed by a crocodile whilst performing in
front of a large crowd, at Snakes Downunder Reptile Park and Zoo near Childers,
south of Bundaberg,far north Queensland .
In extremely
distressing scenes, the 58-year-old was dragged into the pond at which point
the four-metre croc ‘Macca’ started a death roll.
Thanks to the quick
thinking of his fellow worker, Louise Smith, Jenkins escaped with his life.
‘I’m relieved but
also so annoyed,' Mr Jenkins told Seven News from hospital after the incident.
'You just don’t get
yourself into that situa
And there is a lot more.
Check out ZooNews Digest on Facebook
*****
Recent Questions/Discussions on Zoo Biology this Week
Zoo Biology is the longest established Zoo Group on the internet with a huge cumulative knowledge. Your question may have already and the information there in the huge archive. Facebook is all very well but this beats it hands down. Learn more about Zoo Biology and how to become a member here.
Zoo Biology
Bleach in Tiger
pools
Groundbreaking
Symposium for Animal Trainers
AAZK 2015 Conference
Tracking Tiles
Solomon Island Leaf
Frogs
Mixed Species
Exhibit
Itchy Giraffes
Suricatta suricata
introduction
Giraffe Rubber Mats
*****
New Meetings and Conferences updated Here
Zoo Conferences, Meetings, Courses and Symposia
If you have anything to add then please email me at elvinhow@gmail.com
I will include it when I get a minute. You know it makes sense.
Recent Zoo Vacancies
Zoo Jobs
Vacancies in Zoos and Aquariums and Wildlife/Conservation facilities around the World
*****
