urbpan: (dandelion)
2016-07-07 08:35 pm

A blog you should know:

If you haven't taken a look at Why Animals Do The Thing you should.

"We're here to yell at the bad stuff, explain the confusing bits, and pull out the cutest, coolest, most unknown content - all while putting animal behavior in its own proper context. "

This blog (mostly written by a friend of mine, full disclosure) is an exhaustively researched collection of articles, debunkings, and answered questions. I started showing it to everyone I know when it featured the best description and explanation of the Harambe debacle at Cincinnati Zoo.

There's a lot of debunking of Animal Rights Activism, explanations of pet animal behavior, and answers to questions like "why do lactating elephants appear to have human breasts?"
urbpan: (dandelion)
2015-04-24 06:07 pm

Cartophagy

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There was a radio call. A guest noticed that a zoo map had ended up in the prairie dog exhibit. I was nearby so I went over to check. Sure enough, there it was. I waited for Children's Zoo staff to arrive.

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Before they did, one of the prairie dogs made short work of the map. A guest said "he shouldn't eat that!" I told her not to worry, that the rodent was shredding the map to turn it into nesting material.

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The prairie dog crumpled up the shreds of map and disappeared down a burrow with them. Nice comfy paper nest coming up!
urbpan: (dandelion)
2014-08-27 07:47 pm
Entry tags:

Soul window?

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This photo was taken while the animal, a Baird's tapir, was being scratched and massaged by an affectionate keeper. The species is very nervous, and it was remarkable to watch her slowly settle into being touched in a friendly and gentle manner.
urbpan: (dandelion)
2014-08-20 06:59 pm

Maggie's tender side

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Maggie mostly teaches the foster puppies how to respect the authority of a crazy reactive old lady dog. But she mostly tolerates Turkey. She sometimes deals with her anxiety by licking things (usually human feet or legs) and here she's licking a very confused Turkey.

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This I didn't expect. They slept like this for a good length of time, and Maggie didn't wake up to correct him.
urbpan: (dandelion)
2014-03-02 09:05 am

3:00 snapshot #1557

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This is Gulliver, a Bactrian camel. He is performing a behavior called "urine-flicking," wherein he curls his tail under, urinates on it, then flicks his tail back quickly, smacking himself with it and spraying urine all around.
urbpan: (dandelion)
2013-12-28 07:13 pm

Naples Zoo, keepers and their animals

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One of the great things about Naples Zoo is that there are keeper encounters all day long, so you can plan your visit around them, and enjoy a rich educational experience. This two-toed sloth was brought out after a show that included a half-dozen species, three zookeepers, and a script with entertaining jokes as well as good conservation information.

Read more... )
urbpan: (dandelion)
2013-03-23 03:09 pm

Lemurs and gorillas

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This is Nebuchadnezzar (we call her Nebbie) all curled up to protect and groom her twins, born about an hour before the picture was taken. Don't get too excited, I got exactly zero pictures of the babies. But the rest of the pictures are pretty good, and there's a video of a gorilla doing something interesting too.

come see )