Its Not Only Our World

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Wolves and mountain lions 'poised to invade densely populated cities in the United States'

Colonies of coyotes have already established themselves in the suburbs of Chicago

Scientists believe other potentially dangerous wild animals, including wolves, lions and bears may soon adapt to urban living

Mountain lions have been sighted on the fringes of American cities, with one shot near the Wrigleyville neighbourhood of Chicago 

By JILL REILLY

Wolves and mountain lions could soon be a more common sight in densely populated cities in the United States, experts fear.

Colonies of coyotes have already established themselves in the suburbs of Chicago.

Scientists believe other potentially dangerous wild animals, including wolves, lions and bears, may soon be following in their footsteps as they adapt to urban living.

Yesterday a mountain lion stretching over 6-feet in size was shot dead by police officers in a residential area of Des Moines, Iowa while roaming just blocks from an elementary school and in a man's backyard.

'The coyote is the test case for other animals,' said Dr Stan Gehrt, from Ohio State University, who has been tracking the wild dogs. 

'Racoons, skunks, foxes - they’ve already been able to penetrate the urban landscape pretty well. The coyote is the most recent and largest. The jury’s out with what’s going to happen with the bigger ones. They are going to be an even bigger challenge.'

For at least six years, one small coyote community five miles from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport has remained within a territory covering just a third of a square mile.

'That’s an indication that they don’t have to go far to find food and water,' said Dr Gehrt. 'They’re finding everything they need right there, in the suburbs of Chicago. It amazes me.'

He estimates that about 2,000 coyotes live in the city’s metro area, along with nine million people in 250 municipalities.

People living in urban areas are going to have to get used to predators on their doorstep, says Dr Gehrt.

He added: 'It used to be rural areas where we would have this challenge of coexistence versus conflict with carnivores. In the future, and I would say currently, it’s cities where we’re going to have this intersection between people and carnivores.

'We used to think only little carnivores could live in cities, and even then we thought they couldn’t really achieve large numbers. But we’re finding that these animals are much more flexible than we gave them credit for and they’re adjusting to our cities.

'That’s going to put the burden back on us. Are we going to be able to adjust to them living with us or are we not going to be able to coexist?'

Earlier this year police shot dead a mountain lion after it wandered into the downtown area of a busy city.

The large cat was found by a janitor in the courtyard of an office building near a popular open-air mall, the Third Street Promenade, in Santa Monica, California near a preschool, church and other businesses.

Authorities made multiple attempts to try and subdue the young male cat, including use of a tranquilizer and a pepper ball, according to Capt Daniel Sforza of the Fish and Game Department.

Dr Gehrt issued his warning at the EcoSummit 2012 meeting taking place in Columbus, Ohio.

He pointed out that historically, one reason people moved out of remote areas was to get away from dangerous large predators.

'The funny thing is that now we have more people on earth and bigger cities than ever, we also now have carnivores moving into cities,' said Dr Gehrt. 

'It’s a two-way street. We’re expanding cities into their territories and they’re also coming in.'

Coyotes can be helpful by hunting rodents and rabbits, but will also eat the occasional cat or small dog, he said.

The animals do not usually attack humans. Waving arms, shouting, or throwing a rock will usually scare a threatening coyote away, said Dr Gehrt.

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Weird & Wild: Rare Maned Lionesses Explained

Posted by Christine Dell'Amore of National Geographic News on October 9, 2012

If it looks like a male lion and is perceived as a male lion—well, sometimes it isn’t. That’s the case of Africa’s unusual maned lionesses, which sport a male’s luxurious locks and may even fool competitors.

Though uncommon, maned lionesses have been regularly sighted in the Mombo area ofBotswana‘s Okavango Delta (including the individual pictured below), where the lion population may carry a genetic disposition toward the phenomenon, according to Luke Hunter, president of the big-cat conservation group Panthera, which collaborates with National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)

Hunter said it’s possible that maned lionesses in Mombo are related—including a safari favorite named Martina, which disappeared in 2002. (Learn more about how you can see the maned lionesses at Mombo Camp.)

Such masculine females likely occur when the embryo is disrupted, either at conception or while in the womb, he said by email.

“If the former case, the genetic contribution of the sperm—which determines the sex of the fetus in most mammals—was probably aberrant, giving rise to a female with some male characteristics.

“Alternatively and perhaps more likely, the problem may have occurred during gestation if the fetus was exposed to increased levels of androgens— male hormones such as testosterone.”

If a lion mother had abnormally high androgens during pregnancy, her female offspring may end up “masculinized”—a situation that occurs occasionally in people but which is rarely observed in wild animals.

Whatever the case, such lionesses would likely be infertile but otherwise “perfectly capable” of surviving, Hunter noted. (See more lion pictures.)

In fact, their manes may actually be a boon to the pride—for instance, if the female is perceived as a male, she may better defend kills from hyenas or the pride from attacks by foreign males. In the case of the pictured female, Hunter said, it seems like she’s treated as a lioness by the rest of the pride.

“It would be interesting to know if she behaved like a male,” he added. “Two similarly aberrant Serengeti lionesses were outwardly female—they did not have manes, but were almost male-sized, and they challenged and fought unfamiliar males for territories as though they weremales!”

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Antelope-Lioness Photos Document Friendship Or Hunting Strategy?

By Natalie Wolchover, Life's Little Mysteries  While documenting a lion hunt in Uganda recently, a photographer came across a surprising sight: a lioness seeming to "adopt" a baby antelope after killing and eating its mother.

In photographer Adri De Visser's photo series of the incident, which has been reproduced all over the Web in recent days, the lioness nuzzles the tiny, orphaned calf, picks it up by the scruff of its neck and hauls it off "like one of her own cubs," as the Daily Mail put it. According to many media outlets, the lioness's maternal instincts kicked in when confronted with the poor, defenseless youngster.

But is that really what happened?

Far from it. Everybody likes a good story about a lion lying down with a lamb. But in nature, "the lamb always gets eaten," said ecologist Craig Packer, director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota. "It's quite common for cats to play with their prey and they can look very gentle doing it. But it always ends in tears," he said.

According to Packer, the scene depicted in the photos is familiar to anyone who has studied lions, and to anyone who has ever watched their cat catch a mouse. "These are just variations on the theme of cat-and-mouse, where cats capture their prey and play with it until they either get bored and leave it or get hungry and eat it," he told Life's Little Mysteries.

Lions and other large cats can be surprisingly gentle when playing with young, feeble prey, he noted, but only in order to keep the creature alive and prolong the game of cat-and-mouse. [What Would Happen If a Lion Fought a Tiger?]

Despite being in danger, the baby kob (a type of antelope) in the photos doesn't try to escape the lion. Packer explained that its flight instinct hasn't kicked in yet. Like baby impalas and gazelles, baby kobs are "hiders." While their mothers graze, they hide in the underbrush, staying still and docile to minimize their chance of detection. "So, when they are detected, they just kind of stand around," Packer said. "They don't know how to run away. When they see the lion, they are responding to the presence of a large, warm body."

Perhaps, in this case, the lioness eventually killed and ate the baby kob. Perhaps she got bored before she got hungry, and let the creature wander off and starve to death. "Nobody follows these things so persistently that they can tell you what happens at the end of the encounter," Packer said. "But either way, nature is not 'The Lion King,' with the warthog and all that. This story ended."

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An adorable baby emu.

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J Jayalalithaa gives Rs 1cr to feed starving emus

TNN Sep 18, 2012, 01.05AM IST

CHENNAI: In a compassionate gesture to save thousands of abandoned emu birds, Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Monday allocated 1 crore to the department of animal husbandry to take care of them. This will help rear nearly 15,000 exotic birds abandoned in private emu farms in Erode and Coimbatore districts.

With most emu farm owners and employees abandoning the birds after police started cracking down following complaints of cheating from investors, the state has taken up the responsibility of rearing the birds through its veterinary officers. Many of the farm owners have gone into hiding fearing police action and employees have left in search of other jobs, leaving the birds starving. In the initial days, hundreds of birds died and those alive started feeding on the carcasses.

Moved by their plight, the government roped in its animal husbandry department employees to take care of the Australian birds. In Erode alone, about 36 private emu farms were shut down following police action and nine of them were booked for cheating investors.

Emu farming, which took off in a big way in southern and western districts, started falling apart when investors began flooding collectorates and police stations complaining that the firms were defaulting on payments.

Animal welfare activists hailed the chief minister's gesture. "She has always been supportive of the less fortunate and this is something we expected from her. We profusely thank her," said Chinny Krishna, vice-chairman, Animal Welfare Board of India. Krishna said commercial rearing of emu birds failed in Australia over three decades ago and the government there declared it an endangered bird. Emu farming failed even in Mexico, the US and Canada, he said. "We are surprised over the initial encouragement the state has accorded," said Krishna. The life span of an emu bird is 35 years.

Erode district collector V K Shanmugam said the fund would be of much help, since the district administration has already floated tenders to purchase feed for the birds. "Fodder is available in Erode, Namakkal and Tiruppur, therefore rearing emus will not be a problem," he said.

The original plan of the government was to rear the chicks, sell them once they grow and use a part of the money to meet the fodder expenses. However, the animal husbandry officials are now unclear as to till when they should continue looking after the birds, given the fact that most chicks have now become adults. "Unless specific directions come from courts, disposal of birds will not take place. The government will manage the fodder expenses till then," said a senior official.

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parthenogenesis (par·the·no·gen·e·sis)

Reproduction in which an egg develops into a new individualwithout being fertilized. 

Aphids and certain other insects canreproduce by parthenogenesis. Parthenogenesis 

does notnecessarily produce clones of the parent. Among hymenopteranssuch as 

honeybees and ants, the haploid males develop fromunfertilized eggs laid by the queen, 

who is diploid. Parthenogenesis is a form of apomixis. 

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No matter what we call it, poison is still poison, death is still death, and industrial civilization is still causing the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet.

- Derrick Jenson

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Panda Twins!! Panda mother Cheng Ji has given birth to twins at the Giant Panda Research Base in Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan Province Picture: Quirky China News / Rex Features

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You can see some clips of the center raising the twins at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wmvl6

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Someone spotted the monkey poking through a Dumpster around lunchtime. When a freelance animal trapper named Vernon Yates arrived, all he could make out was an oblong ball of light brown fur, asleep in the crown of an oak. It was a male rhesus macaque — a pink-faced, two-foot-tall species native to Asia. It weighed about 25 pounds.

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Half-pregnant grizzlies vital to species’ survival

By Colette Derworiz, Calgary Herald — Sep 11, 2012

BANFF NATIONAL PARK - It's often said you can't be a little bit pregnant - unless you are a grizzly bear, that is.

From mid-May to early July, male and female grizzly bears mate.

If all goes well, the female grizzly gets "half pregnant" for the summer, says Steve Michel, human-wildlife conflict specialist with Banff National Park, where there are about 60 to 65 grizzly bears.

Essentially, the egg is fertilized and develops into a small embryo called a blastocyst. It then floats around the uterus for months before it implants.

"There can be multiple ones, which is usually the case," says Michel, explaining the fascinating world of grizzly bear sex to the Herald during a recent visit to the park. "Those can be from three or four different males as well, which is interesting."

A healthy rate of reproduction is, of course, vital to the ongoing survival of grizzly bears in Alberta.

Grizzly bears were put on the province's threatened list two years ago when it became clear the number of bears was declining. There are now about 700 grizzly bears in Alberta, compared with roughly 1,200 in the 1980s.

Studies suggest that in the Bow Valley, female bears begin reproducing later in life than average and have cubs only every three to eight years.

Take No. 64, a 23-year-old female grizzly who has had multiple litters of cubs - including three yearling cubs she's tending to right now that are expected to stay with her for at least three years.

"It's extremely rare for us to have a bear that is in its mid-20s and lived the entire time in the Bow Valley," says Michel, noting she's been dubbed the matriarch of the Bow Valley. "She's a real success story.

"She'll probably have one more set of cubs after this and that will probably be about it."

No. 64 won't mate again until the cubs go out on their own.

Mating takes place in the late spring, when male bears travel long distances to find an available partner.

Boo, a male grizzly bear in captivity at Kicking Horse Resort after being orphaned when his mother was killed in B.C., escaped his nearly nine-hectare enclosure in 2005 after catching the scent of a lady. He was neutered, but escaped again in 2011 when a "gorgeous blond" showed up.

"Boo may have mated," Craig Bolt, operations manager for the resort, says of the bear's first escape. "We just don't know.

"It's one of those mysteries."

The same uncertainty holds true for Parks Canada experts who expect some of the female bears in Banff are "half pregnant," but won't know for sure until they come out of hibernation next spring.

In a meantime, any female bears who have bred will spend the summer gaining weight.

"In fact, that's what she has to do," explains Michel. "She has to get as fat as she possibly can over the summer, otherwise she's not going to have enough body fat on to be able to have an actual pregnancy and give birth to those cubs. There's a threshold there."

So, a good buffalo berry season can actually lead to more grizzly cubs.

"She needs to be around 24 per cent body fat to actually have a successful gestation period," he says, referring to studies that have looked at the issue. "So she eats all summer - she doesn't have to worry about morning sickness or any of that stuff, because she isn't actually pregnant yet."

In mid-November, the bears will make their way to dens and the blastocyst will implant in the uterine wall, making the bear pregnant.

"Then, it's just like a normal pregnancy, but it's quite short," Michel explains. "She literally goes to sleep and becomes pregnant about the same time she puts her head down in her bed."

Halfway through the six-month hibernation, she gives birth to the cubs (usually between one and three) and immediately starts nursing.

"They are really tiny, they are only the size of a squirrel," he says. "They weigh about half a pound when they are first born.

"Then about three months later they all leave the den together. By that point, they are a decent size."

Only one mother grizzly with cubs born this year has been spotted this summer by a remote camera in the backcountry, but there are at least half a dozen bears with one-year-old or two-year-old cubs in Banff National Park.