Rock'n'Roar

Hi! I'm Max and I love animals. This is a sideblog where I post thoughts, experiences, pictures, and many other things related to animals and animal welfare. All pictures taken by me except the ones in the "Cool Animals" posts. Fox drawing by freakydragonlady (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-31154737-3', 'auto'); ga('send', 'pageview');

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Some pictures I took two weeks ago at the ZSL London Zoo. 

I’m used to Spanish zoos (that are usually horrible) so it was nice to visit a very different kind of institution, run by a charity that has lots of conservation programs all over the world, and see the contrast between the two kinds of zoos. Of course it had its flaws but in terms of animal welfare it was definitely closer to the rescue centers and sanctuaries I’ve been to than to the Spanish concept of “zoo”. Overall it was a great visit.

(Click the pictures for full size)

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Panthera tigris

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Happy World Lion Day!

Here’s Nala celebrating with some fun and tasty enrichment.

Lions are not as endangered as tigers but they’re still classified as vulnerable by the IUCN. In less than a century we went from over 200.000 wild lions in Africa to about 20.000. They’re already extinct in 26 African countries due to illegal trading, trophy hunting, habitat loss and fragmentation. Thankfully each day there are more lion conservation projects so there’s still some hope to undo a little bit of what humanity has done to this animal.

(Click the pictures for full size)

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Panthera pardus

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Happy International Tiger Day 🐯💚

Friendly reminder of how important conservation is, in 1900 there were approximately 100.000 tigers in the wild, in 2016 it’s estimated that there were only between 3.000 and 4.000 tigers in the wild. Although the numbers have been growing since 2006 (for the first time in 100 years!), there’s still a long way until this amazing animal stops being endangered.

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Enrichment is extremely important for wild animals. Here’s Suzu enjoying some time with some of his favourite enrichment: The pool, and his jiggly ball.

(Click the pictures for full size)

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A few pictures I took in Valencia’s Bioparc last week. I was pleasantly surprised with the visit :)

(Click the pictures for full size)

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A difficult rescue: Mojito’s story

This gorgeous lion here is Mojito. He’s two years old and he was rescued by AAP Primadomus from a Spanish circus just a few months after being born where he and Tintín, his best friend, were used as photo props for the audience.

Mojito was born with an esophagus problem that makes him unable to eat any piece of meat bigger than a coin. He obviously wouldn’t have survived in the wild but thanks to an amazing caregiver team he’s been given an opportunity to have a decent life in a rescue center with his enclosure partners Tintín and Anthares.

Nowadays Mojito has to get 3.1 kilos of meat almost every day, that’s a lot of food to prepare considering it has to be in very small pieces. 

Preparing Mojito’s meat takes almost as long as the rest of the big cat’s food because it’s very tricky to find good pieces that are easy to cut, remove most of the fat, and stay concentrated so the bits are not too big or too small.

Feeding has similar complications, where feeding most of the big cats is just leaving the meat in their outside enclosure or give it to them through their feeding boxes in their inside enclosures, giving the food to Mojito is a slow process. You have to be aware of him all the time, wait until he finishes swallowing, keep a good speed rate so he doesn’t get too nervous, and most importantly make sure he doesn’t choke or have any kind of problem.

Another delicate situation is that he’s obviously not allowed to have any kind of enrichment he can break and eat, or that he can’t be fed in the same place as Tintín and Anthares so he doesn’t swallow any of their food or bones. That means that when his friends are finished eating we also have to make sure that there are no bones or food rests in the enclosure before giving all of them access outside.

He’s definitely a tricky and time consuming animal to look after but this is actually one of the things I loved the most about starting to work in this rescue center, how devoted they are to help animals even if some of them are a difficult and challenging rescue.

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Panthera leo - Sarabi 

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Rescuing two lions from a circus

After what apparently takes lots of arrangements and paperwork, yesterday we could finally retrieve two lions from a Spanish circus.

The usage of exotic animals in circuses is still legal in most regions of Spain, although it’s slowly getting banned throughout the country. I don’t know the reasons that made this circus decide to donate the animals to a rescue center instead of selling them, but I’m glad they did it.

Two days ago we started preparing the (super heavy) box and the van for the rescue. Then yesterday a volunteer and a caretaker drove to the circus to pick up the first lion while we stayed and started setting up for the arrival.

The rescued animals are two male lions, brothers, that were castrated very early and that’s why even though they’re adult male lions, they don’t have manes.

The smallest one arrived first, still very dizzy from the sedation, and after setting up the box with all the security protocols needed he got in the enclosure quite easily.  The second one was a bit harder, he actually was quite resistant to the sedatives so it took a little bit more time to get him out of the box, but now they’re both together getting used to their new home. 

These next days are gonna be hard because they’re in a new and completely different place with new people and a new life. But once they pass the quarantine period to make sure they’re completely healthy they’re gonna be able to finally go outside and we’ll try to do everything we can to make sure they get a better life being what they actually are, lions.

(The dizziness from the sedatives did not prevent Simba from enjoying his new scratching log ♥)

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Panthera leo - Ziggie - Enrichment

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Weighing a big cat

Today we tried to weigh Zazu, Ryta, Sarabi and Aissa, four beautiful lions from AAP Primadomus for their first time.

The procedure was to prepare little pieces of raw meat, bring a huge scale made to weigh big animals to their inside enclosures, and try to made them stay on the scale while feeding them the meat.

It was quite harder than it sounds, big cats are still cats and they were kinda freaked out about the new big metal thingy inside their enclosure. Zazu and Aissa were impossible to weigh, they never stepped their four paws on the scale at the same time, Ryta was a little bit hard, and Sarabi was very easy, like it’s shown in the pictures ♥.

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Today in Cool Animals: The African Civet

The African civet (Civetticis civetta), that could actually be described as a huge wild cat with the head of a raccoon (and it’s not related to any of them at all), is the largest African species of the Viverridae family.

They’re nocturnal animals found in a variety of habitats all across the Sub-Saharan Africa, usually in areas with dense vegetation which provides a great cover to sleep during the day.

One of the reasons they have such a big habitat range is that they’re opportunistic animals with a broad diet. They’re omnivorous and can adapt easily to eat whatever the environment offers them.

They’re also solitary animals that use their scent to mark their territory. They like to find things with strong smell and mark them with their scent, which sometimes can get a bit obsessive like in this video with a poor little pangolin.

If threatened, they emit very deep growls and can even double in size by fluffing out its fur and erecting a crest of long hairs along its spine.

Even though they’re listed as “Least Concern” by the IUCN, African civets are still hunted for their meat, skin, and especially for their scent, which when diluted provides a powerful ingredient in very expensive perfumes.

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Pithecia pithecia

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Today in Cool Animals: The Sand Cat

Even though it looks like a kitten, this beautiful creature is an adult Sand Cat.

Sand cats (Felis margarita) are one of the smallest species in the Felis family and the only cat species that lives primarily in the desert. They can live in both sandy and stony deserts and they are found in the deserts of northern Africa and southwest and central Asia. 

They are crepuscular and nocturnal animals that live alone in small burrows not usually longer than 1.5 m (4.9 ft). Like most solitary animals they only meet to mate, and they communicate through scent, claw marks, and urine spraying. Although they can meow like domestic cats, they can also make bark-like sounds, especially when seeking a mate.

Physiologically sand cats are small cats with short legs, a flat, wide head and big ears. They also have their foot pads covered with thick hair, enabling them to move easily through the sand and insulating them from the surface heat. Their claws are not very sharp because of the lack of places to sharpen them in their surroundings but they are very good diggers and they often bury large kills in the sand for later consumption.

Their triangular ears and wide ear canal allows them to detect their prey underneath the ground. Small rodents are usually their primary prey but they can also hunt birds, insects and reptiles, including venomous vipers and other snakes. They’re known to be good snake hunters, stunning the snakes with rapid blows to the head before going for the killing blow.

Despite their size they are capable of sudden bursts of speed and can sprint at speeds of 30 to 40 km (19 to 25 mi) per hour. They can also survive without water for a long time using the body fluids from their prey instead.

Sand cats are one of the hardest cats to study in the wild, they leave nearly invisible footprints, shut their eyes when a light is shone on them (which prevents the light from reflecting their eyes for tracking), bury all of their excrements, and thanks to their protective coat color they blend easily with sand and desert rocks.

Habitat loss and disease are their biggest threat but, despite that, last year (2016) they were downlisted from ‘Near Threatened’ to ‘Least Concern’.

(Two short but interesting and cute videos can be found here: [x])

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Panthera leo

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Today in Cool Animals: The Dhole (or Asian Wild Dog)

This creature that looks like an hybrid between a fox and a wolf is actually an Asian Wild Dog, or a Dhole! The dholes (Cuon alpinus) are canids from Central to Southeast Asia. They are highly social animals that live in clans similar to wolves but with less of a dominance hierarchy. They’re about the size of an adult German Shepherd, with reddish fur, black tail, and a very athletic body, perfect for hunting.

Like their distant cousins, the African wild dogs, dholes are expert hunters. They hunt as a group with one lead dog in charge and use sounds to communicate and organize. Through this synchronized hunting they’re able to take down big prey and, even though they’re obviously not their usual victims, they’ve been known to kill leopards and even tigers.

One of the sounds they make has granted them a funny nickname, ‘Whistling dog’, since they sometimes make very peculiar whistle-like noises, as you can see in this video.

Sadly the dhole is endangered, it’s estimated that there are less than 2.500 adult dholes in the wild. They were prosecuted through India for bounties until the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, and they still suffer greatly from diseases (mostly transmitted by domestic dogs) and habitat loss.

Really hope the conservation projects succeed and the dhole can be saved, because they’re a fascinating and awesome animal.