Wildlife Media Thread

[Marcus]

www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_608.html
The Eagle Has Landed

This 1992 image is one in a series documenting the daily lives of the southern bald eagles that inhabit an enormous nest at Kennedy Space Center.

This 1992 image is one in a series of remarkable photos documenting the daily lives of two of Kennedy Space Center's most famous residents: The southern bald eagles that inhabit an enormous nest on the Kennedy Parkway North.

Each fall, the eagles take up winter residence in the nest to breed and raise a new generation. Thanks to a remote-controlled Nikon camera installed yearly in the same pine tree as the nest, the activities of these magnificent birds are recorded on film.

In 1992, a rare and unique event was captured by the camera when a second clutch of eggs was laid, even though a healthy eaglet was born a month earlier. Although it is impossible to determine if it is the same eagles returning each year, the continued tolerance shown by this pair to the human presence seems to indicate that they are the same couple.

According to wildlife experts at the time the photo was taken, eight or nine pairs of bald eagles inhabit nests at the space center. The nest is particularly well-known because of its huge size and close proximity to a busy road.

Image credit: NASA

[Marcus]

IMAGE OF THE DAY: Image of the Day: Black-shouldered Kite
www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_060906.html

This lithe and beautiful little raptor is checking out a pasture in tropical
Queensland, northeast Australia.

[Marcus]

[Marcus]

The Canada lynx is like a gray ghost of the north — elusive, evading human contact. It is such a secretive animal that scientists really don't know how many are left. They do know that the lynx requires large areas to hunt, and those areas are getting smaller due to development. Keeping forests intact is the only way to keep the lynx population healthy.

www.nwf.org/canadalynx

Such a beautiful animal

[wren]

I love the fox! And, the lynx is beautiful...

[Marcus]

www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070530.html

Like human moms, female mule deer (above) and whitetail deer leap to the rescue when their fawns cry for help. But new research shows they'll also jump into action when they hear a foreign fawn's call—even one from a different specie.

The study showed that recorded distress calls of fawns, similar to responses caused by coyote attacks, caused mule deer mothers to come to the rescue even when their own fawns stood next to them. White moms, however, only responded only to their own species when they could not see their fawn.

As a result, whitetail fawns are less protected than mule deer fawns—and may play a big role in their higher susceptibility to being eaten by a predator.

[Marcus]

Suriname's New Species

www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070605.html

An Atelopus frog (above) in the Nassau Mountains of eastern Suriname, in South America. In addition to the frog with fluorescent purple markings, researchers said that they have discovered 24 new species of wildlife in the remote plateaus of the area including six types of fish, 12 dung beetles and one ant species.

About 80 percent of Suriname is covered with dense rainforest. Thousands of Brazilians and Surinamese are believed to work in illegal gold mining there, creating mercury pollution that has threatened the health of Amerindians and Maroons in Suriname's interior.

[Lady Anastasia]

I'm loving this thread! Thank you so much for continuing to add to it!

[niamh]

awwww i love them all but very much the fox cub jumping
awwww how adorable
thanks for this link mark is greatoooooo
mwah
love you
niamh

[Marcus]

Glad Everyone is liking it!



www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070604.html

Disappearing ice is an imminent danger to polar bears (above), who need it to hunt seals. To better track—and preserve—the bears’ numbers, landscape ecologists are pooling 30 years of satellite data together to better predict where the vital sea ice will be in the future.

"The survival of some polar bear populations depend on the decisions we make within the next year,” said Scott Bergen, a landscape ecologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. “Fortunately, by using available data on sea ice trends over the past few decades, we can make effective decisions that can make a difference for the largest carnivore on earth."

The project will utilize remote sensing satellite imagery on sea ice extent and concentration since 1978 to form a picture of polar bear habitat history as well as where this habitat most likely remain in the future under global warming projections.

[Marcus]

Belugas in Trouble

www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070615.html

The Cook Inlet beluga whale population is in danger of disappearing, with only 300 of the marine mammals left in the population. The precipitous decline has prompted conservationists including the National Marine Fisheries Service to call for the group to be put on the Endangered Species List.

Belugas (above) are small as whales go, reaching lengths of 12 to 14 feet and weighing about 3,000 pounds. While calves are born a gray color, their skin eventually turns to a snowy white when they become adults. They are also known for their vast repertoire of vocal sounds and their ability to swivel their heads independent of their bodies, which they sometimes use to peer curiously at humans.

In an aquarium tank, “they’ll come and kind of cock their heads at you,” said Vicki Cornish of the non-profit Ocean Conservancy.

Belugas are found in Arctic waters all around the world, near Russia, Greenland and North America, and migrate with the seasonal sea ice. The beluga whales in Cook Inlet are a distinct population in that they don’t leave the area and mix with other belugas.

The first surveys of the Cook Inlet belugas in the 1970s found about 1,300 individuals, but since then, subsistence hunting by native Alaskans has dramatically decreased the population size. This harvesting stopped in the 1990s, but beluga populations haven’t recovered, mystifying conservationists.

“I think they’re having a hard time saying what’s contributing to the decline of the belugas,” Cornish told LiveScience.

Cornish added that increased development around the 39,000-square mile inlet is a likely culprit. Oil and gas exploration and development of ports is disturbing the whales’ habitat, and ships are creating noise pollution that can interfere with the whales' ability to find food and each other.

“There’s a fair amount of activity that the belugas are being confronted with,” Cornish said.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has listed the whales as “depleted,” and is currently reviewing their status to consider putting them on the Endangered Species List, Cornish said.

“We hope that decision will be made as soon as possible,” she said.

[Marcus]

www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070619.html

She came into the world rolled up like a tube and measuring six-feet-long.

A Japanese aquarium says it believes the newborn giant manta is the first ever born in captivity. Her mother gave birth after more than a yearlong pregnancy.

An aquarium official says little is known about the life of manta rays, and the record of pregnancy and the birth would provide valuable information.

Aquarium cameras recorded the birth. which was broadcast nationally on Japanese TV.

The mother was netted off Okinawa and has been living in the aquarium for nearly a decade.

[Marcus]

Rare Albino Goat Spotted


www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070626.html

Forest rangers in the northern Italian Alps have confirmed for the first time the existence of an albino mountain goat and named him "Snowflake."

Rangers took photos of the albino capra ibex climbing with its mother Sunday at about 10,000 feet above the Les Laures valley in the northwestern Val d'Aosta region, said Christian Chioso, a regional wildlife official.

"This is the only one ever documented, the only one ever seen," Chioso said by telephone on Monday. He said albinism is rare in any species and has not been previously documented among the capra ibex, a type of wild mountain goat with large curved horns that lives in mountainous areas.

Chioso estimated the albino animal is about a year old.

Hikers had been reporting seeing a white animal at higher elevations for months, and forest rangers have been keeping a lookout, Chioso said.

The goat was seen near the boundaries of the Big Paradise National Park, which was established to protect the species. Chiaso said about 4,000 wild mountain goats populate the park.

[Marcus]

Tiny Pygmy Hippo Born



www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070627.html

Aldo looks, eats and lazes like a hippopotamus — but he's only about as big as a human baby, at 21 inches. The pygmy hippo, born this month at the Paris Zoo, is one of only a few dozen in Europe, bred in a special program to boost the rare species.

There are no more than 3,000 around the world, mostly concentrated in west African countries such as Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau or Liberia, said Juliane Villenain, a biologist at the zoo in the Bois de Vincennes, a park on Paris' eastern edge. According to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, pygmy hippos have already disappeared from Nigeria.

Pygmy hippopotamuses are, unlike their bigger brethren, lonely animals, except during reproduction season. The female takes care of the newborn by herself, as little Aldo's mother Anais did, Villenain said.

His older brothers, now 7 and 6 years old, live in Spain and Britain.

Aldo likes alfalfa, carrots, apples and all sorts of vegetables. When captive, pygmy hippos also enjoy grainy feed specially made for them.

The fact that Aldo is a male is good news to the European breeding program. Since the project started in the early 90s, there have been 46 males born and 66 females. Aldo is the 47th male of the species.

Aldo, born June 5, was kept away from the public eye immediately after his birth. He will be on view to visitors starting Wednesday afternoon.

[Marcus]

Giant Panda Twins Born in China



www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070709.html

A panda gave birth to twins in southwest China, surprising researchers who were only expecting a single cub.

The first born was male and sex of the second born was unknown because the mother would not let it out of her grip after the Thursday birth, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

"The mother and her babies are all well," Zhang Zhihe, director of the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center in Sichuan Province, was quoted as saying.

Female pandas normally become sexually mature between 4 and 5 years old. They can get pregnant once a year and usually give birth to one or two cubs at a time.

More than 20 pandas were born in captivity in China last year, the report said.

The panda is one of the world's rarest animals, with about 1,590 living in the wild in China, mostly in Sichuan and the western province of Shaanxi. Another 180 have been bred in captivity.