Thought I'd stay on the penguin theme...

This adventurous little chap is now in safety.

And here's another one!

Penguins in popular culture

Here's a nice article about these lovable creatures - beginning with none other than Pingu, of course.

Fur

Oh dear. The moment someone gets a whiff you like wearing fur, you are immediately everyone's worst enemy.

Now, I hear the reason the PETA people are adverse to this fashion trend is because the animals are killed in a rather unsavoury manner in order to obtain their hides. I object to animals being mistreated. I love animals, as you may be able to tell from this blog. As a kiwi though, I find it hard to get worked up into such a song and dance about it.

You see, one of the many animals which were introduced to our little island nation by the invading colonists were opossums, or just possums as everyone calls them. They are a pest. They kill our native wildlife - many different species; they are not selective - and strip and kill our native trees. They reproduce with fervour, and seeing their carcasses on the roadside is certainly not going to produce any sympathy. We have people dedicated to their eradication, but they're fighting a losing battle. Suffice to say, we kiwis have a somewhat negative attitude towards the blighters.

The little critters also tend to possess their own fur coats. And when they've been killed, we tend to make products out of it - hats, muffs, coats... whatever. It's nice that we can get something positive out of the whole thing. Recently fur from those darstardly possums has been blended with merino from our famous sheep, to make 'merinomink', a luxury brand. Apparently it's quite nice. More power to those who can find something to do with all the extra possums - and their fur.

Cute cat link

Stuff like this helps me feed my cat addiction, while I'm not allowed to have one...

http://www.stuffonmycat.com/

Do any cat-loving readers have favourite sites?

Tentative Tiger Matchmaking

A careful courtship at Auckland Zoo started yesterday, but the two Sumatran tigers at the centre of it were sleepily unaware of all the fuss - and each other.

New male Oz is being introduced to his intended, six-year-old Molek, who arrived from Hamilton Zoo on Tuesday.

It is the zoo's first attempt at tiger breeding.

"Putting them together will be a fraught day," said zoo veterinarian John Potter. "Tigers are not always friendly to each other."

Molek made her first foray into the open after keeping an eager crowd waiting for more than two hours.

She poked her nose out of her den, took a slow and slinky walk around and went back inside.

If Oz noticed from next-door, he gave no sign. The 22-month-old male, who arrived from Tel Aviv Zoo last month, snoozed at the farthest end of his enclosure.

Over the next few weeks Molek will be settled in and might manage to attract Oz's attention with a growl or two. A tiger's roar can be heard up to two kilometres away.

But he is the one who will have to make all the moves, as zoo staff get him used to a crate on wheels which will then be rolled into her den area for a few hours at a time.

The next step is to let Oz out of the crate while a a wire mesh separates the pair.

That is when staff will get their best chance to assess the chances of romance.

"We'll be looking for any signs of aggressive behaviour," said zoo curator Brooke Noonan, "but it's an exciting time, slowly getting them together."

If all goes well, Molek will roll around and rub her face against the wire when Oz comes to visit. The best time to give the two an opportunity to mate is at the beginning of her cycle.

"When she's ovulating obviously she'll be more receptive to him," Ms Noonan said.

When the two are put together, staff will have fire extinguishers at the ready.

"You just need anything that makes a noise," she said. 'We won't actually use them on the tigers."

Rare breed

* Sumatran tigers are critically endangered - fewer than 400 are thought to be left in the wild

* Through its tiger programme, Auckland Zoo is financially supporting the Kerinci Seblat National Park tiger conservation project in south-east Asia

~NZ Herald

Runaway otter home safe at last

Fugitive otter Jin has been captured on Motutapu Island in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf.

A Department of Conservation spokesman said the short-clawed Asiatic otter, which escaped from Auckland Zoo on June 13, had been recovered safely in a trap.

The otter had earlier been sighted at Devonport, and Rangitoto Island.

The otter was being returned to the zoo today.

Zoo spokeswoman Jane Healy said the otter was spotted by a yachtie yesterday as he sailed past Rangitoto Island.

Traps had already been laid in Islington Bay on Rangitoto and extra food was put out after the sighting yesterday, she said.

Department of Conservation staff found the otter in one of the traps today.

Ms Healy said the otter would have been in the trap overnight.

She was being brought back to the zoo for a check by a veterinarian.

"She is in pretty good shape. But obviously she will be a little worse for the wear for being out there but she is in pretty good shape."

Jin and two other otters escaped from a new compound in the middle of last month. The other otters were caught but Jin was believed to have swum down a creek and into Auckland's Waitemata Harbour.

She crossed the harbour and made her way to Devonport, around North Head and up to Cheltenham Beach.

She crossed the busy shipping channel to Rangitoto Island where she was spotted late last month but then swam back and was seen at Narrowneck on the Takapuna side of the gulf.

She swam back to Rangitoto where traps had been laid before she was caught overnight.

Zoo staff were worried about her because she had been bred in captivity, and being out in the wild was a new experience.

However, they said she seemed to be getting good food.

- HERALD STAFF, NZPA

Goldfish wanders 2km from pond

A chubby wee goldfish dubbed Nemo was miraculously found 2km from his Mosgiel pond after he was washed away by floodwater last Wednesday.

A neighbour was walking his dog along a road on Sunday morning when he saw a flash of gold in a mud-walled ditch.

As a farmer collected eels stranded by the flood on a nearby paddock, the man and his dog stopped to see the colour in the mess.

He recognised it as his neighbour's 2-year-old goldfish, one of three lost when the devastating Taieri flood rushed through their properties, and all along the road.

"It was just incredible, in the middle of all that destruction was a goldfish everyone thought was dead - that should have been dead," Ab Oskam said yesterday.

"He had been taken away by that horrible brown water, and there he was, about 2km away, swimming in the debris and happy as can be."

Mr Oskam, 66, made the long walk home to tell neighbours Julie and Craig Struthers that a "little surprise" waited down the road.

"We couldn't believe it, it was like a miracle, that such a delicate wee thing could survive the flood and all the rubbish caught in it," said Mrs Struthers.

"All of our other animals managed to survive, but we were sure that our three goldfish would never be back."

The trio returned to the ditch, where the newly named Nemo was scooped to safety and taken to the pond, lined with polythene rescued from the debris, back home.

Mr and Mrs Struthers then fruitlessly searched neighbouring ditches for his two companions - another coloured orange, and one white and blue-black.

The fish remained the only casualties in a menagerie of 12 sheep, nine hens, seven rabbits, two dogs, a cat and a pig - many helped to safety by Mr Oskam on the day of the flood.

Pleased to have added to the collection, Mr Oskam said Nemo seemed as well as he was before the flood; but, even after a 2km swim, he might have put on some weight. "He must have spent all that time eating the worms caught in the flood," Mr Oskam said.

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES

Fainting Goats

This is quite cute.

Auckland gets its own star ape attraction

A big ape might have hogged the limelight in Wellington yesterday but the real thing is about to take up a starring role at Auckland Zoo.

Baby Bornean orang-utan Madju is just over a month old and slowly stepping into the public eye by spending longer periods in an outdoor enclosure with mother Melur.

The mother-baby bond in great apes, which share 97 per cent of their genetic make-up with humans, was "breathtakingly human-like", said zoo curator Maria Finnigan.

"She looks at him adoringly, like any proud and doting mother."

But the zoo took no chances on motherhood being too much for Melur, whose first baby died soon after birth in 2002. The 17-year-old attended "antenatal classes" which included a video of female orang-utans with their babies and a visit from a woman who was breastfeeding a baby.

While the birth of Madju was something to celebrate, the outlook for the family of endangered great apes was bleak, Ms Finnigan said.

"The fact that almost 90 per cent of both Bornean and Sumatran orang-utan habitat has been decimated by illegal logging and the growth of palm oil plantations is anything but positive," she said.

"It's an appalling situation.

"But with the right intentions and actions we don't have to see this magnificent species go extinct in our lifetime."

Orang-utans are found only on the part-Malaysian island of Borneo and on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Malaysia and Indonesia are the world's largest exporters of palm oil.

Used in everything from margarine to beauty products, palm oil is predicted to become the world's most traded edible oil by 2012.

The destruction of forest to make way for palm plantations has pushed the Sumatran orang-utan to the brink of extinction. With only about 7000 left, conservationists fear it could be gone from the wild in 20 years.

Bornean orang-utans number between 12,000 and 20,000 and are listed as endangered by the World Conservation Union.

Fully grown, Madju is likely to weigh around 90kg and reach a height of around 1.4m (4 ft).

Great ape

* Orang-utans bend tree branches to make nest-like platforms to sleep on.
* They are the largest tree-living mammal in the world.
* In dry periods, they chew leaves into a sponge and use it to soak up water from tree cavities.

From the Herald.

Business Class Kitty Home For Christmas

A cat that ran away from its Wisconsin home in September was found in France recently, and was due to fly back home this week flying Continental Airlines business class.

It's believed the cat had wandered onto a sea container in Wisconsin destined for Belgium, before eventually being found in Nancy in France.

Source - Reuters.

New White Tiger Cubs!

Must get up to Whangarei at some stage to see them!!



The birth of three white tiger cubs in Whangarei has boosted the animal's fragile numbers worldwide - and helped save a fellow feline in the process.

The latest litter of royal white Bengal tigers at the Zion Wildlife Gardens run by "Lion Man" Craig Busch is crucial because the cats have been extinct in the wild since 1958, and only 120 survive in captivity worldwide.

With the three latest additions, Mr Busch now has seven in his Northland sanctuary.

He said two of the as-yet-unnamed cubs would be sent to a reserve at the Cradle of Humankind, a world heritage site in South Africa. The other cub would be kept at Zion for its breeding programme.

Sending the cubs will complete an agreement Mr Busch had with the South African reserve to exchange four white tigers with four white lions, which are a similarly endangered species.

Tigress Rewa's first litter of two are already in Africa, and her second litter of two males and a female, born on October 2, are doing well.

The cubs now weigh an average of 5.5kg, up from a birth weight of just 1.2kg. They are suckled and bottle-fed at the moment, but Mr Busch expects them to graduate to solids such as chicken in a fortnight.

Unlike the first birth, where Rewa rejected her cubs - quite common among first litters - "this time she was the best mother in the park".

Royal whites are a subspecies of India's Bengal tiger. A double recessive gene causes the animal's striking coloration of cinnamon stripes, blue eyes and pink noses.

Mr Busch said the public would be able to see the litter in a week's time, and the cubs would also have names by then.

The Whangarei big cat sanctuary is now home to the southernmost pride of white tigers and lions. The four white lions will play a vital role in the sanctuary's breeding programme, and for breeding programmes worldwide.

The lions originate in Southern Africa's Timbavati region, although, like white tigers, none exist any more in the wild.

The animal is not an albino nor a subspecies, but an African tawny lion with a recessive gene. Mr Busch said its origins were shrouded in mystery.

"It's always been a legend or myth - no one ever thought they were real. It's quite a big thing, really. In the African eye, the white lion is the most spiritual of all of Africa - a sacred animal, I should say."

Mr Busch said many people worldwide were trying to preserve these endangered creatures.

"The biggest thing is to teach people what's going wrong in the world. It's what we're here for."

From the Herald.

Test Rat Outsmarts Scientists

A cunning rat released on a deserted island off New Zealand outsmarted scientists and evaded traps, baits and sniffer dogs before being captured four months later on a neighbouring island, researchers said.

Scientists from the University of Auckland in New Zealand released the Norway rat on the 9.5-hectare (23.5-acre) island of Motuhoropapa to find out why rats are so difficult to eradicate.

They got more than they bargained for.

"Our findings confirm that eliminating a single invading rat is disproportionately difficult," James Russell and his colleagues said in a report in the science journal Nature.

Despite all their efforts, including fitting the rat with a radio collar, they couldn't catch the crafty creature.

After 10 weeks on the island the rodent decided it had had enough. It swam 400 metres, the longest distance recorded for a rat across open sea, to another rat-free island where it was eventually captured in a trap baited with penguin meat several weeks later.

The Norway rat, which is also called the brown or sewer rat, is a husky rodent that weighs about 11 ounces (312 gram) and has a long tail.

Invading rats on remote islands off the coast of New Zealand have been a recurring problem. Norway rats have invaded the uninhabited Noises Islands at least six times between 1981 and 2002.

"Our results may help in the design of conservation strategies to keep islands free of invasive rodents," Russell and team added.

From XtraMSN

Kitten dials 111

Tabby the cat may be only four months old but he already knows what to do in case of an emergency.

In fact, there was no apparent emergency when he was left home alone on Saturday night, but Tabby dialled 111 anyway - sparking a police callout that saw officers break into the Mt Eden home of the Abhayaratne family.

Arriving home to what appeared to be a break-in, the family were stunned to discover that nothing was missing. The smashed glass door was the only sign that someone had been inside until a note revealed the police were the culprits.

It explained that a 111 call had been received and officers had no choice but to break in after getting no response from inside the house.

"It [the note] said the cat had called 111. We thought we had been burgled at first and couldn't believe it," said 14-year-old Harindu Abhayaratne.

The telephone, which is also a fax machine, sits on a desk in the lounge. Its big buttons would easily be triggered by a kitten strolling over them.

Tabby has been known to turn on the television with the remote, but this was his first phonecall.

Harindu's mother, Mihiri, said she had sometimes scolded the children for not turning off the TV, before realising Tabby was to blame.

She said insurance had paid for replacing the glass, and the family would now be extra careful about where they left the phone.

Police spokeswoman Noreen Hegarty said police were called to the house on Saturday. "We answered the callout and entered the property, but there was only the cat there."

*From the Herald

Something Fishy

An Aussie woman was caught with 51 live tropical fish on her body as she arrived at Melbourne Airport on a flight from Singapore, after customs officials became suspicious of “flipping” noises coming from her skirt. The woman was wearing an apron of plastic water-filled bags containing the fish, under her clothes.

Wow. Imagine how long it would have taken for her to get that outfit ready. Did she really think no-one would notice the flipping?