This is a really good read and shows our connect and importance of our relationship with animals. They are an important link in our evolution on many many levels. Enjoy the read!
"Animalz Rule",
Monday, August 2, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Wolf Philosophy
The Introduction from
Wisdom of Wolves
by Twyman Towery
The attitude of the wolf can be summed up simply: it is a constant visualization of success. The collective wisdom of wolves has been progressively programmed into their genetic makeup throughout the centuries. Wolves have mastered the technique of focusing their energies toward the activities that will lead to the accomplishment of their goals.
Wolves do not aimlessly run around their intended victims, yipping and yapping. They have a strategic plan and execute it through constant communication. When the moment of truth arrives, each understands his role and understands exactly what the pack expects of him.
The wolf does not depend on luck. The cohesion, teamwork and training of the pack determines whether the pack lives or dies.
There is a silly maxim in some organizations that everyone, to be a valuable member, must aspire to be the leader. This is personified by the misguided CEO who says he only hires people who say they want to take his job. Evidently, this is supposed to ensure that the person has ambition, courage, spunk, honesty, drive - whatever. In reality, it is simply a contrived situation, with the interviewee jumping through the boss's hoops. It sends warnings of competition and one-upmanship throughout the organization rather than signals of cooperation, teamwork and loyalty.
Everyone does not strive to be the leader in the wolf pack. Some are consummate hunters or caregivers or jokesters, but each seems to gravitate to the role he does best. This is not to say there are not challenges to authority, position and status - there are. But each wolf's role begins emerging from playtime as a pup and refines itself through the rest of its years. The wolf's attitude is always based upon the question, "What is best for the pack?" This is in marked contrast to us humans, who will often sabotage our organizations, families or businesses, if we do not get what we want.
Wolves are seldom truly threatened by other animals. By constantly engaging their senses and skills, they are practically unassailable. They are masters of planning for the moment of opportunity to present itself, and when it does, they are ready to act.
Because of training, preparation, planning, communication and a preference for action, the wolf's expectation is always to be victorious. While in actuality this is true only 10 percent of the time or less, the wolf's attitude is always that success will come-and it does.
From the book, Wisdom Of Wolves by Twyman Towery, this is a very powerful passage into the understanding of wolves. I want to thank my friend and fellow animal lover, Christine Guba, for making me aware of this book. If only humans, all, practiced the way of the wolf, this might be a better place. Instead of sitting around waiting for someone or something else to make your life, try getting out there and doing it for yourself. Also, I can't imagine a pack of wolves sitting around praying to some deity for guidance, direction and salvation.....
"Wolves Rule",
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Great White Eats Tourist!!
Fatal South African Shark Attack a Rare Encounter
Experts say the shark attack that killed a Zimbabwean tourist off the South Africa coast on Tuesday was a particularly rare occurrence, considering the relentless manner in which the animal apparently attacked the man.
Witness reports of the incident off Cape Town, South Africa, were gruesome , describing what sounded like a scene from "Jaws" – an innocent tourist targeted by a "dinosaur-sized" Great White shark who struck three times, leaving nothing but "a pool of blood in the water."
One official said: "It didn't bite him and let him go. It came back and carried on eating."
After days of searching, Lloyd Skinner's body had not been found.
A deadly shark attack often captures global fascination and attention, but experts say the sort of aggressive attack that occurred at Fish Hoek beach is striking.
"White sharks in general are rare and fatal white shark attacks are even more rare," said George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the state's Museum of Natural History.
He said the majority of human-shark encounters are "investigatory," with the shark detecting the silhouette of a floating object and trying to determine if it's prey.
The attack on Skinner, however, seems to fall into a far more unusual "predatory" category."It appears he was hit very violently, with very high energy," said Richard Collier, noted shark expert and president of the Shark Research Committee.
"In this case, it seems the shark meant to disable or kill its prey on initial contact."
Any number of triggers could make a shark lash out in predatory attack, including a sense of danger or a perceived threat to its territory, according to scientists.
Collier estimates that only 5 to 10 percent of shark attacks are predatory, but Skinner's location did not work in his favor.
Studies have shown that shark attacks are more frequent in cool water environments where beaches are used more heavily, like Australia and South Africa. According to Collier, South African sharks are also a bit hungrier than their counterparts along United States' Pacific coast.
"There is less available food in the waters off South Africa," he said. "The seal and sea lion prey are smaller by mass than those we see in California
Still, Burgess points out that a person is more likely to die from an insect bite than a shark bite.
"It's hard to balance the human emotion with the scientific reality – that this is an extremely rare event, especially considering the millions of hours humans spend in the sea."According to the Shark Research Institute, of the approximately sixty unprovoked shark attacks reported globally in 2009, only seven were fatal.
"I would be more concerned about my drive to the beach, or stepping on a bottle on the shore than my interaction with a shark," said Collier.
While Burgess acknowledges that any fatal shark attack is a tragedy, he says "the real story isn't shark bites man, it's man bites shark."
"Overfishing is claiming the lives of millions of sharks a year," he said. "It's easy to see who the real threatened species is."
It's really sad and horrific when something like this happens. Especially the way this one did. However, as the article says, they, the sharks, "are the real threatened species"....
"Animalz Rule, Even Sharks",
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Golden Retriever Saves Boy
Angel only recieved minor injuries
Boy calls dog who fought off cougar his 'guardian'
A boy from Boston Bar, B.C., whose golden retriever saved him from a charging cougar says he wouldn't be alive if his dog hadn't stepped in.
Austin Forman, 11, was gathering firewood in his backyard at about 5 p.m. PT Saturday when his dog, Angel, started acting strangely.
Angel started following him to and from the woodshed, Austin said, almost as though she was checking to make sure he was OK.
Suddenly, Angel ran toward Austin and jumped over a lawn mower — right into the path of a charging cougar.
"I knew at that moment that I would have to go get help, otherwise [Angel] wouldn't have any hope," Austin said.
As Angel fought the cougar, Austin ran inside, where his mother called 911.
When the RCMP arrived on scene minutes later, they found the cougar under the back porch of the house, chewing on Angel's neck.
An officer shot the cougar, killing it instantly.
Austin said it was the first time he'd ever seen a cougar in the yard.
"I was shocked and scared at the same time. I wasn't expecting a cougar at all to be in our yard," he said.
"I feel very, very lucky. If it wasn't for my dog, I don't think I would be here."
Austin said he now feels very differently about Angel.
"She was my best friend, but now she's more than a best friend — she's like my guardian now."
Angel suffered some puncture wounds on her head, neck and one of her hind legs. Austin was not hurt.
Boston Bar is located roughly midway between Vancouver and Kamloops.
Just another example to show how much dogs are mans best friend. Hey, anyone that does harm to a dog, should be canceled. If they are that ignorant and non caring, they do not deserve to be here!
"Dogs Rule",
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Do YOU Know Your Veterinarian?
Veterinarian Quits, Disgusted With Profession He Once Loved
Matthew WatkinsonAfter eight years on the job, British veterinarian Matthew Watkinson became disenchanted enough with the profession he once worked so hard to join that he quit, wrote a scathing book about the veterinary industry and penned a shocking Daily Mail article -- "Why I'm Ashamed to be a Vet" -- exposing the money-grubbing ways of unscrupulous veterinarians.
"A whole industry has arisen out of squeezing the most money out of treating family pets," Watkinson writes in the article published by the Daily Mail. Watkinson accuses financially-motivated veterinarians of ordering unnecessary procedures, prolonging a sick pet's life with expensive treatments merely to generate higher fees and even researching a pet owner's home address to determine wealth and how much the client could be charged.
"I'm not saying everybody does it, and it's probably not the majority," Watkinson, 32, tells Paw Nation. "But there are people in this profession who do things like that. There are veterinary practices where a vet is given minimum financial targets and has to make a certain amount of money per consult." Pet insurance can be helpful to pet owners in emergencies, says Watkinson, but "it's an easy excuse for some veterinarians to take advantage of the system." And what about a client who owns a purebred dog with a lot of inherited problems? "It's a potential goldmine," says Watkinson.
Unsurprisingly, Watkinson's statements haven't endeared him to his peers. "My [veterinarian] friends are deserting me now because I've criticized the profession," the ex-veterinarian says. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons denounced the Daily Mail article and implied that Watkinson was doing it to publicize his new book, "On the Destiny of Species: by Means of Natural Selection, or the Elimination of Unfavoured Races in the Struggle for Life." In it, he blasts the veterinary profession for supporting a dog breeding industry that produces purebreds with inherited diseases and physical deformities considered "cute," and catering to sentimental -- a dirty word in Watkinson's book -- pet owners, rather than acting in the best interest of animals.
"I've been accused of doing all this to sell books, be sensational and to make money," says Watkinson, who quit the profession a year ago. "But I'm broke. This was done out of a deep respect for the way that nature works and a compassion for animals."
"In veterinary school, there was lots of 'we can do this' [procedure], but not a lot of 'should we do this?'" says Watkinson. "We were taught almost as technicians," he says. "My ethical training was limited to one afternoon in five years. We're not really taught to think; we're taught to do all these procedures. And they get more complicated each year so we have more options to keep all these animals alive. We fight the powers of nature, really, and what we've ended up with is a lot of diseased dog breeds that couldn't survive without us."
A particular incident from veterinary school still haunts him. He was caring for an elderly dog after the canine (whose story is told in an excerpt from "On the Destiny of Species," below) had one of its legs amputated due to cancer. "It was a really old dog and the prognosis was six months more to live," Watkinson recalls. "I sat up all night with that dog, and it screamed all night. I thought, 'We've only done this to massage the emotions of the owner.' It's an old dog. It hasn't got long to live whether you take the leg off or not and it's just going to cause misery by amputating its leg. If we just put that animal to sleep, it wouldn't have screamed there all night."
For the rest of this troubling story and an excerpt from the book, go to http://www.pawnation.com/2009/12/04/why-one-veterinarian-quit-disgusted-with-a-profession-he-once-r/
In this day and age, the accusations and issues brought up in this book do not totally surprise me. That is one of the reasons I am such an animal lover and try in my own small ways to make things a little better for our fellow "earthlings" by awakening humans to their plight. If You are a pet owner and care about animals, "choose your vet carefully"!
"Animalz Rule",
Thursday, November 26, 2009
New Life, Baby White Rhino
Matt Marriott/Busch Gardens Tampa BayJust like you, we're suckers for adorable baby animals, and the new baby white rhinoceros at Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay, Florida, more than fits the bill. Just look at those big feet! She's not even as big as her mama's head!
The 100-pound (yowza!) baby was born last Wednesday, November 11, to Mlaleni and Tambo. This rhino pair's first calf, Malaika, was born in 2004 and was the first white rhino birth in Busch Gardens' history. The newborn female is their fourth calf and brings the park's total black and white rhino population to a total of 12 (nine white and three black).
The baby has yet to be named, but a spokesperson for Busch Gardens tells us that this is totally normal: "Names for baby animals are traditionally chosen after they reach 30 days of age. This allows the animal care team time to see the animal's growth and character traits."
The calf's birth isn't just a big deal to the park and its visitors, but to the rhino population at large. Busch Gardens is a participant in the American Zoological and Aquarium Association Species Survival Plan to ensure genetic diversification among threatened and endangered animals in zoological facilities. The International Rhino Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of rhinos, estimates that there are just over 14,530 white rhinos in the wild, and fewer than 170 live in zoological facilities across North America.
In fact, just last year, the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, which is a registered non-profit organization, donated $5,000 to Friends of Conservation, $15,000 to International Rhino Foundation, $10,000 to Rhino Fund Uganda and $10,000 to Tusk Trust to support rhino conservation efforts in the wild. Since it began in 2003, the Fund has granted five million dollars to more than 350 projects in the U.S. and around the world.
Don't you love it when something this precious also brings a bit more hope to the world?
This is so cool. Gives YOU something else to look forward to on your next trip to Florida and Busch Gardens. Thanks to pawnation.com for this story....
"Animals Rule",
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Wolves, Dogs And Mankind
Did We Domesticate Dogs, or Did Dogs Domesticate Us?
A new book by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Jon Franklin concludes that man's best friends may have been responsible for our emergence as the alpha dogs of the animal kingdom.
We wouldn't be who we are without them. So we rewarded them with a lifetime supply of Snausages and Purina Puppy Chow.
Well, it's a little more complicated than that.
Franklin's book, "The Wolf in the Parlor" (Henry Holt, 2009), traces "the eternal connection between humans and dogs" through the millennia. His 20 years of research convinced him that we couldn't have made it without each other.
Dallas critic Bill Marvel calls the author's deductions a stretch. "Franklin seems to suggest that while we were taming the dog, the dog was civilizing us," Marvel wrote. "He reminds me a little of the dyslexic churchgoer who worshipped Dog.
"But biological anthropologist Forrest Smith, a professor emeritus at the University of Akron, isn't troubled at all by the results of Franklin's detective work.
"I agree with him 100 percent," Smith said. Wolves and man were once virtually equals at the top of the predatory food chain, he said. It's logical to believe that the species had to collaborate to survive.
He said it's much the same conclusion that Michael Pollan reached in his book about plant life, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." "Did we domesticate corn or did corn domesticate us?" Smith asked. "We needed each other."
Franklin's book is a blend of emotion and science. Which is a lot like his career. His book "Writing for Story" taught a generation of journalists to bolt past details to the emotional center of the story. Yet he's equally respected among scientists. "I've been carrying around something he wrote about the importance of science for more than 10 years," said Dr. Emilie Clemmens, a professor at Cascadia College near Seattle who has a Ph.D. in bioengineering. "It defines who I am."
In an interview with Sphere, Franklin that he's shown the book to scientist friends and received little resistance to his results or his methods. "Science begins with emotion. Something triggers an emotional response, and then we investigate it."
His emotional response was triggered when he met the love of his life, Lynn, in the late 1980s. "Love me, love my dog," was their unspoken pact.
That's how the descendant of the wolf, a standard poodle named Charlie, came into his parlor.
The marriage and his relationship with Charlie flourished. The feelings that grew toward the dog piqued his scientific curiosity about the link between the species.
A decade earlier he had seen a photograph of the fossilized remains of a man who had been buried with a small dog or wolf cub in what is now Syria some 12,000 years ago. The man was reaching furtively toward the small creature.
Franklin stuck the picture in a drawer until he met Charlie. Two more decades of research led to the book.
Scientists generally agree that the first domesticated dogs appeared around 15,000 years ago, give or take a few dozen centuries. In those days, humans, as they still do, left a mess as they wandered about the planet. Some wolves found it was easier to follow the garbage buffet than to hunt for them.
Dr. Ray Coppinger, an animal behaviorist expert, argued in the book "Dogs" that the wolves began to domesticate themselves as they learned to live around humans. "It was natural selection," he said in the New York Times several years ago. "The dogs did it, not people."
Franklin suggested, though, that humans did play a role in the selection process. Sometimes, the wolf cubs made for a convenient dinner. The cuddly ones were less likely to meet the end of a club.
He noted something else unusual was happening then. The man in the photo's death occurred near the end of the ice age. About the same time, fossils show, the human brain was shrinking by as much as 10 percent. Yet we got smarter. "Suddenly and inexplicably we began to herd, dig, build, draw, plan and invent ... we became uncontested masters of the planet," he wrote.
He believes that our evolutionary dance with the wolves made it all happen. As wolves became dogs -- as the genetic research of Dr. Robert K. Wayne of UCLA has shown -- they herded our flocks. They warned us of nearby predators. They helped us hunt more efficiently. That gave us time to think.
Dogs, Franklin reasons, made us better people.
Just as Charlie nurtured him during their dozen years of walking together. It's a lesson for us all.
"Just remember," Franklin said, "there's an animal on both ends of the leash."
If there is any animal our equal, it is the wolf. I have said this for years, yet, idiots and insecure humans think that they should be hunting and destroying the one creature that probably is responsible for where we are in this time and space on this planet. It never fails, if it can get screwed up, "humans will do it without a doubt".
"Animals, Especially Wolves, Rule",
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Humans & Chimps Mourn Together
When a loved one dies, it's not only humans who grieve. This was proven when more than a dozen chimpanzees gathered to witness the burial of a member of their ape family, reports the New York Post.
Dorothy, a chimp in her late 40s, died of heart failure at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in West Africa, and according to the New York Post, was a respected member of the chimpanzee community there. When her caregiver brought Dorothy's body to her final resting place, the group of apes came to the edge of their enclosure to watch.
The chimps quieted their usual chatter and simply stood, holding one another silently as they bid goodbye to their friend. Understandably, human onlookers were touched, particularly since they knew this wasn't the first emotional separation the chimps had experienced.
All the chimpanzees are orphans whose mothers were killed by hunters for illegal bushmeat, reports the Post. According to the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force, "the practice of commercial, illegal and unsustainable hunting is causing widespread local extinctions in Asia and West Africa." Hard to believe hunters can be so cruel and irresponsible, especially after seeing just how "human" these chimps can be.
The photo can be seen in the November issue of National Geographic magazine, on sale now.
This is such an incredible story and one more event to show just how close humans and animals really are. It is such a shame that more humans do not realize this and appreciate our relationship and connect with our fellow inhabitants of this planet.
"Animals Rule",
Sunday, September 6, 2009
4 Great Whites In Cape Cod
CHATHAM, Mass. (Sept. 6) - The sightings of several great white sharks have prompted a swimming ban for the rest of the Labor Day weekend at some oceanside beaches in Massachusetts.
I had to do something with this story because, there are too many questions. Number one is, "great whites very seldom frequent these waters". Number two is, "great whites are pretty much territorial, why then, are there four of them in an abnormal setting"? Could this have anything to do with the coming "polar shift"?I will be trying to follow up on this story.
http://news.aol.com/article/great-white-shark-sightings-prompt-cape/657870?icid=main|main|dl1|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fgreat-white-shark-sightings-prompt-cape%2F657870
Animals Rule,
Bobby Sharpe
Thursday, July 9, 2009
White Stripeless Tiger & Blue Lobster
Fareeda
Stripeless White Tiger Is 1 in 100
Fareeda is one cool cat. The white Bengal tiger cub was born without stripes.
Fareeda astonished her keepers when she was born on Christmas Day 2008 without traditional markings, but they knew stripes could still appear as she aged. Now, at over 6 months old, Fareeda isn't expected to develop them, the Daily Mail reported.
The cub is thought to be one of fewer than 20 white Bengal tigers in the world today without stripes, and all the others live in captivity. Fareeda is part of a breeding program in Cape Town, South Africa, aimed to increase the endangered species and eventually return them to the wild.
Fareeda was part of a three-cub litter, but both of her siblings have stripes, as do her mother and father. The odds of Fareeda being born without stripes are 100 to 1, according to the Daily Mail.
"Most white Bengal tigers are bred in the U.S. from a single male captured in India in the 1950s, but Fareeda is the first to be born in Africa, which is very special," Cango Wildlife Ranch employee Odette Claassen said.
There are currently only a few hundred white Bengal tigers alive in captivity worldwide.
"It's clear that Fareeda is truly one of the rarest of her kind," said Claassen.
Blue Lobster Is 1 in 2 Million Find
A blue lobster is likely feeling anything but after his rare color saved him from being served as dinner.
The blue-hued crustacean, named Donald, has been displayed in a tank at a restaurant in Charlottetown on Canada's Prince Edward Island for several weeks, CBC News reported.
The 2-pound lobster is attracting a few visitors to the Water-Prince Corner Shop and Lobster Pound, some more interested than others.
"We have been asked for a certain time or two to serve a blue lobster," store owner Shane Campbell told CBC News. "We wouldn't bother doing it, because it's more valuable to us to either have (it) mounted or put back in the ocean."
Donald is a truly rare find: Only one in 2 million lobsters is blue.
Two more great living species that beat the odds. Stripeless tigers and blue lobsters, who knows what else is out there waiting to be discovered or born.
"Animalz Rule",
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