Almost four years ago, artist and photographer Robert E. Fuller posted this video of a baby wild stoat playing on a trampoline in his garden in the U.K.
Fuller has observed wild stoats for many years at his home in Yorkshire. The baby stoat that played on the trampoline in autumn 2020 appears to have started a trend. His video posted in July 2021 shows mother and kits at the same playground.
Yes, they are very cute, but … wild weasels are not good pets and it is illegal to keep them without a wildlife permit. If you want a pet weasel, get a ferret.
There’s a tiny bat in the eastern U.S. that’s even smaller than the little brown bat. The tricolored bat (Perimyotis subflavus), formerly called the eastern pipistrelle, weighs only 0.16 to 0.23 ounces making it 30% smaller. Tricolored bats, like so many U.S. bats, are declining rapidly due to the fungal disease white nose syndrome and are Endangered in Pennsylvania. It’s pretty amazing that two of these tiny bats showed up in Downtown Pittsburgh in the past two years. We know this because both were rescued and rehabilitated at Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh’s Wildlife Center in Verona (HARP).
To give you an idea of the tricolored’s size, here’s one roosting in a bat cave in North Carolina.
Before the two bats were found in Pittsburgh, there was no known record of their occurrence here. A female and a male came separately to HARP many months apart so there are probably more of them but who knows where?
Almost a year ago the male arrived at the Wildlife Center.
On August 22nd [2023] we received a male Tricolored Bat…a bat we never would have thought to ever come through our door! Tricolored Bats are an Endangered Species here in PA. Aside from being moderately emaciated and dehydrated, he sustained no other serious injuries. Weight gain was our main goal, he was 5.2grams at intake and the goal was to get him to at least 7.0grams before release.
He was fed the tiniest mealworms, gained weight, and was soon ready for release. HARP points out that bats cannot take off from the ground. “In order for a bat to fly, first it must climb to a high place and then it launches itself by intentionally falling into the air!” Here he walks out of the sheltering blanket, up the tree, and he’s off!
(*) p.s. The bat is called tricolored because each hair on its back has three color bands, like a tabby cat hair. The bat is not striped. All the tips are reddish brown.
Do you have a “problem” raccoon that’s getting into your trash no matter what you do? Do you need ideas on how to outsmart it? A study published last week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences can help set your expectations.
From 2016 to 2017, Lauren Stanton and colleagues [at the University of Wyoming] placed six puzzle boxes in areas that locals in Laramie reported as having a lot of raccoons—a residential backyard, behind a food store, and near an abandoned barn. …
Night vision cameras captured raccoons at their most active and revealed some immediate surprises. In one instance, a raccoon shoves a skunk out of the way to fiddle with a difficult latch, then easily opens it. In another, some raccoons wait near the puzzle box until another raccoon solves it, shoving the competitor aside and reaping the reward of kibble and sardines without any of the work.
In all, about 25% of the raccoons were able to open at least three doors over the 3-month study period. That’s not as good as the 65% observed in the lab, but Stanton says animals in captivity studies have more energy, free time, and attention.
Suddenly the whale leapt out of the water to catch a mouthful of pogies and accidentally capsized a boat. No one was hurt and, amazingly, it was all captured on video.
In the Tuesday morning incident in the ocean off Rye, the whale appeared to be lunging in a classic humpback fishing tactic, said Linnea Mayfield, a natural manager at Boston City Cruises, affiliated with the New England Aquarium, after viewing the video.
The whales blow large frothy bubbles in the water to help corral fish, then they lunge up through the bubbles to scoop up the fish, Mayfield said. The incident was almost certainly accidental, she said. Humpbacks have a blind spot, and it’s “very possible the vessel was in the animal’s blind spot as it came up to lunge and feed.”
Whale experts at NOAA and elsewhere think this was probably the young whale that’s been hanging out from nearby Maine to New Hampshire since early July and they’re working to identify it using photographs.
As the video explains this was a very unusual incident. The whale was probably as surprised as everyone else. I’m sure he learned a valuable lesson from the adventure.
Coyote on the lawn, Illinois (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
11 July 2024
Coyotes live in Allegheny County and in the City of Pittsburgh. In fact I saw my first one in the city limits 21 years ago. But coyotes keep a low profile so people are often surprised when they see one and think they’ve newly arrived.
Six years ago I recorded a piece about urban coyotes for the Allegheny Front; this week they rebroadcast it. I’d forgotten I’d said such helpful things. Have a listen.
p.s. Everything I said in this piece is still true today except for the timing (“last year” refers to 2017) and my neighborhood (Back then I lived in Greenfield; now I live in Oakland).
If you live in close contact with animals you get to know them well. Shepherds of small flocks develop an especially close relationship with their sheep because they tend them every day — and for 24 hours a day during lambing in early spring.
Paula Aarons, originally from Valencia PA, runs a small sheep farm in New Hampshire called the Dancing Pony Sheep Farm. Last month she appeared on Junction Fiber Mill‘s Millcast program to tell the story of her flock supporting each other and supporting her, their shepherd.
Our mutual friend Jeff Cieslak introduced her 15-minute video.
People: My friend Paula told this wonderful story about her sheep for a podcast. I watched it, and I wept a little, and now you, too, must weep.
Rabbits rarely say anything but this small mammal, related to rabbits, stands on a prominent rock and shouts to his friends when he sees danger.
American pikas (Ochotona princeps) weigh 6 ounces and are only 6-8 inches long, covered from head to toe in thick fur. They live in boulder fields above the treeline where they eat flowers, grasses and other plants that they cache in a “haystack” for the winter. Though tiny these small mammals are a tasty meal for hawks, eagles, coyotes, bobcats, foxes and weasels.
Pikas very social and vocal, calling out danger and “singing” during the breeding season. When a pika sees danger he lets all the nearby pika’s know.
Though he has a small voice, he works on projection.
Akashinga Rangers set off on a patrol to establish an overnight observation post at Phundundu, near Nyamakate, Zimbabwe (photo by Davina Jogi embedded from akashinga.org)
27 March 2024
Before Women’s History Month draws to a close here’s some recent women’s history in Zimbabwe.
Poaching is a persistent problem in southern Africa because the body parts of exotic wild animals find a lucrative market in the outside world. Without effective patrols it can even happen in a national park as for example 11 years ago, in 2013, when poachers poisoned 41 elephants at Hwange National Park by putting cyanide in their watering hole.
To stem the tide of animal deaths Australian born Damien Mander founded Akashinga in 2009 to train squads of men to protect wildlife in their home areas. The men were too easily corrupted and poaching continued.
In 2017 he recruited women, many of them single mothers or formerly abused. They named themselves Akashinga — The Brave Ones in the Shona language — and the program has been a great success, not only in terms of wildlife but within their communities.
Today Akashinga has a team of 500+ staff and 9.1 million acres under management in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique. They have reduced poaching by 80% and have seen an increase in wildlife of 399%.
We were about to eat dessert on our first night at Khulu Bush Camp when our guide, Sam Mushandu, alerted us to a sound in the night. We all fell silent to listen.
The sun had set two hours ago. It was quite dark. And there were lions outside. Roaring.
“Who wants to find the lions?” said Sam.
Caution flags went off in my brain but others raised their hands so I tamped down my doubts with the thought, “When will you ever get this opportunity again? Never. So go!”
We piled into the safari vehicle and zoomed down the dirt track. Sam was on the radio with James, a Khulu guide who had gone out ahead of us to find the lions. Suddenly an elephant loomed in the dark, blocking the road. We slowed and it stepped into the bush.
Night safari with an elephant blocking the road, Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Frank Koch)
Then another elephant, then three, then four.
Night safari, three elephants, Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Frank Koch)
Surprised by crazy humans pelting through the dark the elephants appeared to be telling each other, “Hey! that truck is coming down the track. You’re in my way! Move into the bush!” It struck me as funny and I couldn’t stop laughing.
Night safari, four or more elephants, Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Frank Koch)
The elephants melted into the bush, then James radioed that he had found the lions, one male and two females. We turned around and headed toward them.
By the time we arrived the male had moved off but we found both females squinting in the bright search light. My photo shows how far away the first one was.
Night safari, female lion near Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Kate St. John)
Fellow traveler Frank Koch got better pictures than I did. Here are both females.
Night safari, female lion near Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Frank Koch)Night safari, 2nd female lion near Khulu Bush Camp, 24 Jan 2024 (photo by Frank Koch)
What an unforgettable experience!
Grateful thanks to our guide Sam Mushandu, to James (guide at Khulu Bush Camp) who knows the habits of lions, Khulu Bush Camp itself for a wonderful stay, and Road Scholar for arranging the tour. And thank you to Frank Koch for his photos of our night safari.
p.s. In case you’re wondering what a lion looks like when it roars, here’s a video from Brookfield Zoo. Keep in mind that both males and females roar so all three may have been speaking that night in the bush on 24 January 2024.
Because the pronghorn’s appearance is similar, I can see why he’s called an antelope, but his nearest relatives are other African animals, the giraffe and okapi.
Pronghorns probably resemble antelopes because they run like them, a trait they acquired to escape cheetahs(!). Cheetahs used to be in North America but disappeared a long time ago.
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