Bear-faced theft
Trouble for a bear in Macedonia: It's been convicted of stealing honey and fined £1,700.

Because, you know, it's a bear and doesn't have a regular job, it's going to have it's fine paid for it by the government.

Labels: bear, bears, crime, honey, theft

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 8:00 AM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Six arms to hold you
CNN reports from the Blackpool Sealife Centre where an octopus has been born. Sort-of born - he's actually a six-tentacled octopus named Henry. Or a hexapus, as they're apparently calling him.

Labels: blackpool, octopus

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 1:47 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Elk saved from icy death
Ironically, while one part of the Rocky Mountain National Park is going to be opened up for a culling session, in another part, fire officers, wildlife experts and police put together an effort to save three elk who had fallen through ice into a frozen pond.

Source: Rocky Mountain News

Labels: elk, elks, rescue

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Please, go to sleep
Colorado is hoping that the bears will hibernate soon - a combination of a lack of food and a warm autumn has seen bears turning up looking for food where people are. Not a happy combination.

source: 9News

Labels: bear, bears, colorado

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 11:03 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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The cow in the ditch
A cow found itself trapped in a ditch just outside St Leonards.

Someone raised the alarm; two fire engines and an animal rescue specialist team rushed to the scene.

Just in time to see the cow emerge under its own steam.

The moral? Sometimes a stuck cow is just ruminating.

Labels: cattle, cow, rescue

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 1:37 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Freddy in a fix
Poor Freddy. His owner's left his flat, but nobody can persuade the cat to follow.
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Butterfly 'can look after itself'
You might think a butterfly which is found in only one location - a location used by people who like to drive their cars over nature - would deserve some sort of federal protection.

The US fish and wildlife service doesn't, and has decided to not off legal protection to Nevada's Sound Mountain Blue Butterfly.

Labels: butterfly, environment, protection, sand mountain, threatened species

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 9:39 AM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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More ratty
Cheshire Zoo is currently preparing to release 48 water voles into the wild.

Well, not quite the wild; just the zoo grounds - to protect them from American mink, apparently.

Labels: water voles

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 4:14 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Clucking well
Having said which, I actually got an animal for Easter, Miss Matthews. She's a fluffy white hen who's retired from farming and moved off to live in a lovely country idyll just outside Nottingham. She was adopted through adoptahen.co.uk, who even provide webcams for you to keep an eye on what your chook is up to.

Labels: charity, chicken, chickens, eggs, hens

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 8:40 AM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Too many bunnies
There's something depressingly inevitable that, with the 'don't give dogs as Christmas presents' message finally making it through, people are now looking at rabbits and thinking "hmm... they've never said 'don't give rabbits as Easter gifts, so that's probably alright, then'.

So the Scottish SSPCA are now up to their eyes in unwanted rabbits, after people have realised "oh... they shit and eat all year round. That wasn't mentioned at the pet shop."

Presumably we're now going to face a summer of a idiots thinking "so if dogs die in hot cars, it must be okay to leave cats in warm jeeps, otherwise they'd have mentioned that as being a bad idea, too. And I think John must have just been unlucky with his cockatoo he left in a sweaty Transit van..."

Labels: animals, charity, rabbit, rabbits, welfare

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 8:34 AM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Like living in a sheepfold
The saddest aspect of the man who shared his North Carolina home with 80 sheep is not just that some were so ill they had to be put down; it's that some were so hungry they ate plastic decorations in a graveyard.

Labels: animals, cruelty, sheep

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 1:57 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Cats: You can't trust them
Let's hope cats keep on our side: They've worked out how to crack security and break into unattended computers.

Labels: cat, cats, ibook, macs, security

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 10:49 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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What's a cat worth?
The cat which got stuck stuck at the top of a Denver telephone pole would still be there now, left to the fire service - they wanted $250 to get the moggy down.

Luckily, a tree cutting service happened by, and did the job as a comp.

Labels: cat, cats, rescue

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 11:30 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Bigs Bunny
There's not really a story here: just a photo of an enormous rabbit

Labels: big animals, bunny, rabbit, rabbits

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 1:47 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Furballspace
This is quite cute: Catster, a MySpace for cats. You might say that it's a pointless website, bringing together creatures which can't communicate in any meaningful way. And I'd say, yes, I said it was like MySpace.

Labels: cats, myspace, social networking

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 12:49 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Baby tigers
It's an "aah, bless" moment: Rare white tiger cubs born in Buenos Aires zoo. They represent more than 1% of all their species in captivity.

Labels: babies, buenos aires, tiger, tigers

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 12:47 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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The bears ate the house
Helen Beltran won first prize for her gingerbread house in a competition in Tahoe. Everyone admired the building she made from cookies.

Nobody enjoyed it quite so much, though, as the bear which broke into her house and ate the whole thing.

Lucky it chose the day after judging, although it does make us wonder if it went to see who won the competition, trailed them home and then ate the house. We all know how sneaky bears can be.

Source: Sierra Sun

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 11:34 AM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Please, go to sleep
Worrying times for hedgehogs: apparently, the mild autumn hasn't persuaded them to start hibernation, so they're wandering around in the equivalent of a late-night fug. And you know what they can be like.

A British Hedgehog Preservation Trust spokesman said: "A huge number had to be rescued in late 2005 and this year is looking even worse.

"Hundreds of people are calling to say they have found small hedgehogs struggling to survive."

Source: Daily Mirror

Help: British Hedgehog Preservation Society

Buy: Hedgehog house for your garden

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 1:19 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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When pumpkins attack
Over in Michigan, a young deer has had its face wedged in a plastic jackalantern since Halloween. They're hoping to be able to rescue it today; they're just thankful they don't have Guy Fawkes as well...

Source: CNN

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 2:22 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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Ferret-ari
You've probably already seen the tortoise with a wheel for his back leg, but have you come across Scooter the Ferret? Born with paralyzed back legs, Scooter is able to get about thanks to, erm, a scooter which his owner Bill Higbee has built for him:

Higbee built him a wheelchair "so his little legs can hang off the side and get stronger and things."

"We ran the aisles of Ace Hardware with this scooter," said Higbee.

Source: 9News

- posted by Simon Hayes Budgen- 5:16 PM - permanent link to this post - click the envelope to email to a friend:

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