August 25, 2020

Dogs Meet Their Owners After A Long Time

Undiluted and honest joy!

August 25, 2020

Woman Accidentally Dyes Cat Yellow

A cat owner who applied a treatment to her beloved pet to get rid of a fungal infection accidentally ended up dying the poor moggy completely yellow.

As anyone who has ever cooked or eaten a decent curry knows, turmeric can be a difficult stain to shift.

However, it also has some pretty decent properties, including - apparently - being a treatment for fungal infections in cats.

So, with that in mind, Thammapa Supamas, a cat owner from Thailand, liberally applied some of the magical plant extract to her cat when it developed an infection.

(snip)

It is also responsible for the yellow stains that you get on your hands and clothing if you're not careful when cooking or eating anything that contains it.

Anyway, her overly thorough application of the treatment means that her cat is going to be yellow for a bit just yet.

Luckily, this story has a happy ending.

The treatment seems to have worked pretty well, and the feline's poorly paws are starting to improve.




https://www.ladbible.com/community/animals-woman-accidentally-dyes-cat-yellow-after-applying-turmeric-treatment-20200824

August 25, 2020

Microplastics have moved into virtually every crevice on Earth

A collection of new research provides more clues about where and how microplastics are spreading.

The Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean includes 1,192 islands. In 1992, the government added one more—an artificial construct that serves as a landfill, where 500 tons of trash are dumped every day.

Two truisms of island-living everywhere are especially true in the Maldives: Most consumer goods must be shipped in, and most waste is produced by tourists. In the Maldives, a developing nation that lacks much local manufacturing, a single tourist produces almost twice as much trash per day as a resident of the capital city of Malé, and five times as much as residents of the other 200 populated islands, according to government statistics. Consequently, the tiny island nation was ranked last year as the world’s fourth largest producer per capita of mismanaged waste.

Now marine scientists at Flinders University, near Adelaide, Australia, have added another, predictable statistic to the Maldives’ trash horror story: The island chain, renowned for its rich marine biodiversity, is also home to the world’s highest levels of microplastics on its beaches and in the waters near shore.

(snip)

Primary microplastics, such as microbeads used in personal care products or the pellets used in plastics manufacturing, are intentionally manufactured small. Secondary microplastics are the consequence of one of plastic’s most valued assets: its durability. They begin as discarded products that are broken down in the oceans by sunlight and wave action. Over time, the fragments become smaller and smaller. They will presumably survive for centuries.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/08/microplastics-in-virtually-every-crevice-on-earth/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=linkedin::cmp=editorial::add=li20200819science-newsciencemicroplastics::rid=&sf236878413=1


We just keep poisoning ourselves. The Earth is just about tired of warning us.

August 24, 2020

Thirsty squirrels beg for water

Second one is from the Grand Canyon. Don't know about the first one, but pretty sad.

August 24, 2020

Elephants run to greet new rescued baby elephant

August 24, 2020

Mesmerizing Mass Sheep Herding

August 24, 2020

Cat flees the scene!

August 20, 2020

Beautiful moments between animal mothers and their babies

From emperor scorpions to hippos to wallabies, many wild moms remind us of ourselves. Here are some intimate scenes captured on camera.

Every animal can thank a mom for making life possible. But the animal kingdom’s many mothering methods are as different as orangutans and octopuses.

Some mothers lay eggs, in treetops or on the seafloor, while others labor through long pregnancies and live births. Many moms are on their own, but a fortunate few get help from babysitters or nursemaids. Some moms have dedicated co-parents, but others have to go it alone—or even contend with infanticidal killers.

Mother-child bonding runs the gamut of relationship styles. Lion moms may live with their daughters for life, harp seals must cram every bit of their maternal care into less than two weeks, and many lizards never meet their offspring at all. Some mothers, like octopuses, sacrifice their lives to give the next generation its start.

Just keeping babies alive long enough to reach adulthood is a challenge. But moms also have to teach their young how to be a monkey, a cheetah, a whale, or a falcon. (Read how animal mothers remind us a lot of our own.)

“Many species seem to recognize that the young really don’t know what they are doing,” says animal behavioralist Jennifer Verdolin, author of the book Raised by Animals, “so they are given a kind of grace period to learn.”

One thing that most all animal mothers have in common is sacrifice; nature doesn’t make it easy to nurture the next generation. This photo gallery celebrates some of those amazing animals who, in their own unique ways, dedicate themselves to motherhood.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/05/beautiful-moments-animal-mothers-babies/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Animals_20200820&rid=2D7EBD8232363870D75E126868635ACF

Be sure to check out the photo slideshow--terrific pictures!

August 20, 2020

Did a mink just give the coronavirus to a human?

DUTCH AUTHORITIES ANNOUNCED this week that they suspect a mink has transmitted the coronavirus to a worker at a fur farm in the Netherlands. If confirmed, this would be the first concrete evidence of a specific species passing the virus to a human.

Analysis found strong similarities between the virus in the worker and in the minks, making it plausible that the virus jumped species. “Based on this comparison and the position of that form of the virus in the family tree, the researchers concluded that it is likely that one staff member at an infected farm has been infected by mink,” the Dutch government said in a statement.

Mink on at least three farms in the southern part of the country have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Lisa Gaster, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.

“The take-home message now is we are still learning a lot about COVID-19, this coronavirus, and the animals it can infect,” says virologist Brian Bird, a veterinarian and associate director of the University of California Davis One Health Institute. Bird, who is not involved in the Dutch response, cautions against undue alarm. “The risk here is related to direct contact or proximity to farmed mink, and certainly the general population has very little contact with those animals at those settings.”

Domestic dogs, cats, tigers, and lions have also tested positive for the virus, though there is no evidence that those animals have transmitted the disease to humans.

(snip)

There are more than 800,000 mink living on Dutch farms and, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, the industry brings in about $100 million dollars a year. In the wild, the weasel-like animals live in or near water. Their soft fur has long been coveted for clothing, particularly in China, the top importer of mink pelts.

And this from the email:

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced two mink farms in Utah reported “deaths in numbers they’d never seen before,” a USDA spokesperson told Science, in addition to several staff coming down with COVID-19. Nat Geo’s Dina Fine Maron tells me there’s no information yet on whether the virus spread from mink to humans or vice versa (that’ll require genetic testing, which is currently underway), and the USDA hasn’t shared whether it’s testing for the virus at any of the nation’s other 275 mink farms. (U.S. mink farms produce about three million mink pelts a year.)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/05/coronavirus-from-mink-to-human-cvd/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Animals_20200820&rid=2D7EBD8232363870D75E126868635ACF

I had no idea this horrifying industry was still going in this country. I'm guessing they're all exported.

August 19, 2020

Dogs waiting for the ice cream truck

Happy Tails!