Big Eye Deer

Bear-faced theft

2008-03-14T08:00:00.002Z

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.

Six arms to hold you

2008-03-04T13:47:00.002Z

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.

Elk saved from icy death

2007-12-22T14:28:00.000Z

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

Please, go to sleep

2007-11-17T23:03:00.000Z

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

The cow in the ditch

2007-08-14T13:37:00.000+01:00

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.

Freddy in a fix

2007-08-10T18:03:00.000+01:00

Poor Freddy. His owner's left his flat, but nobody can persuade the cat to follow.

Butterfly 'can look after itself'

2007-05-03T09:39:00.000+01:00

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.

More ratty

2007-04-25T16:14:00.000+01:00

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.

Clucking well

2007-04-23T08:40:00.000+01:00

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.

Too many bunnies

2007-04-23T08:34:00.000+01:00

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..."

Like living in a sheepfold

2007-03-28T13:57:00.000+01:00

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.

Cats: You can't trust them

2007-03-25T22:49:00.000+01:00

Let's hope cats keep on our side: They've worked out how to crack security and break into unattended computers.

What's a cat worth?

2007-02-27T23:30:00.000Z

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.

Bigs Bunny

2007-02-14T13:47:00.000Z

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

Furballspace

2007-02-09T12:49:00.000Z

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.

Baby tigers

2007-02-09T12:47:00.000Z

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.

The bears ate the house

2007-01-10T11:34:00.000Z

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

bears gingerbread house

Please, go to sleep

2006-12-02T13:19:00.000Z

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

hedgehog

When pumpkins attack

2006-11-10T14:22:00.000Z

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

deer

Ferret-ari

2006-11-02T17:16:00.000Z

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

ferret

When... squirrels attack

2006-11-02T16:44:00.000Z

Never mind dogs, the new challenge to postmen is squirrels. Angry, attacking squirrels.

Barb Dougherty, a 30-year Postal Service employee, said she was attacked and bitten Monday by a squirrel while delivering mail in Oil City, about 75 miles north of Pittsburgh.

"It was a freak thing. It was traumatic," Dougherty told The Derrick newspaper. "I saw it there on the porch, put the mail in the box and turned to walk away and it jumped on me."

The squirrel was shot, so that it could be tested for rabies. They don't have any plans to test the postie in the same way.

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

squirrels

If you're feeling ppp-peckish, ppp-pick up a pigeon

2006-10-25T12:48:00.000+01:00

It's apparently "almost unheard of" for a pelican to eat a bird rather than fish. Not totally unheard of, though, as that's what happened to an unfortunate pigeon in St James Park.

Source: BBC News

pelican pigeon london

Hamsters on the axis of evil

2006-09-30T13:13:00.000+01:00

An Austrian Airlines jet was forced to make an emergency landing after a hamster went missing on the flight. The hamster had been smuggled on board, which shows just how tight security is right now.

Source: Daily Mirror

hamster

Monkey freaking kids banned

2006-09-30T13:11:00.000+01:00

Tycross Zoo in Leicester has banned kids with painted faces from the monkey house, on the grounds not that most facepainting is rubbish, but something more pressing. The marmosetts were freaked by the kids.

Source: Daily Mirror

monkeys

Say your prairies

2006-09-23T23:41:00.000+01:00

Having tried to find new homes for them - and oddly enough, nobody wanting them - Fort Collins, Colorado, is going to go ahead and fumigate three colonies of Prairie Dogs.

Source: 9News

prairie dogs