Monday, December 28, 2009

Standard Operating Procedure 13

photo by cm0rris0nWhile in our nortwestern states, the gray wolf fights for survival, a little-known subspecies, the Mexican Gray Wolf, fights a very desperate battle. As far as we know, there are only 52 Mexican Gray Wolves left in the wild.

There has been a re-introduction plan to help the species survive. But at the same time there was Standard Operating Procedure #13, which dictated that any wolf that is accused of killing any livestock three times must be shot.

Two and a half years ago, Alpha Female 924, one of only 3 breeding females in the entire Mexican Gray Wolf population, reached her third strike, and was killed.

Fortunately, outrage over that killing led to a change in procedure. Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took control and ruled that SOP13 will not be in force in the future.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is also coming up with new programs to help local ranchers to coexist with the wolves.

Alpha Male 923 and the pair's four offspring could not be reached for comment.

But this is definitely a step in the right direction.

More information can be found at BiologicalDiversity.org and the Washington Post, which also has a beautiful picture of a Mexican Gray Wolf.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas!

Here's a couple of videos for Christmas. Happy animals! I hope your Christmas is happy as well.





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Thursday, December 03, 2009

Playtime!

There's probably a couple of things going on here that the cats like. I know that a couple of my cats really enjoy smooth textures; one goes for shiny hard plastic, another for nylon fabric. They'll just sit and paw at it, claws out, but their claws have no traction, and they enjoy the sensation very much.

In this video, the kittens have a huge amount of smooth plastic they can go at with all four feet. The smooth surface plus the challenge of beating gravity probably add up to one of the best cat play areas ever.

And it's just a darn cute video. This is the full unedited version, not tricked up with unnecessary cuts or repeats.