Archive for Sportress of Blogitude’s Wild Kingdom
Yet another example of how a dog can be braver than me. Damn you, Otis! You have emasculated me for the last time! Okay, it probably wasn’t the last time, especially if he intends on skydiving again. Sigh.
In today’s Wake N’ Blog, the odd story of the day which kicks off each link dump highlighted Gamera, a tortoise who, due to injury, had a leg amputated which was later replaced with a wheel. Thanks to the folks at BuzzFeed, I now present you a video of Gamera tooling around with its new mechanical appendage, which upon further inspection, appears to be nothing more than a modified chair caster screwed into the shell of the poor creature. Huh.
Well, at Gamera looks happy. At least as far as I can tell.
While I feel bad for the little critter to a certain point, it did kind of have it coming. After all, it was making the egregious, gastronomical mistake of eating out of a Chef Boyardee can. That’s risky business, even for a scavenging animal.
Still, props go out to the brave person who removed the can. Those raccoons can be vicious little suckers.
[H/T BuzzFeed]
Well, isn’t that just precious? And to think, in some parts of the world, killer whales eat both of these majestic creatures. Terrible people, those killer whales.
[via BuzzFeed]
Ha. It’s funny because nearly every article on the interwebs about a rash of purse thefts from the Sandridge Golf Club in Vero Beach, Florida whose perpetrator turned out to be a raccoon living on the course refers to the thieving cretin as a “masked bandit” or “masked marauder.” You know, because of the color of their fur around their eyes, it looks like raccoons are wearing masks and stuff. Mother Nature’s a mad scientist!
Via msnbc:
The furry bandit was stashing his pilfered goods in the bushes, and when officials found the animal’s hideaway, they found two purses, an assortment of golf balls and empty food wrappers.
But catching the animal is proving to be as difficult as getting out of a sand bunker. So far the animal hasn’t fallen for the bait of food set in a trap.
Maybe they should try putting a purse in there.
The raccoon was recently spotted by a male golfer sitting on a golf cart and it ran off when it was approached. The golfer looked at his bag and saw that it had been unzipped.
The man said his wallet and a few golf balls, which were inside the bag, were on the ground.
Wow. Quite the crafty varmint. Maybe he’s responsible for stealing Rory McIlroy’s game during the final round of the Masters. Ah, who am I kidding? No way a raccoon could travel that far. Or could they?
Masked marauder preys on golfers’ purses [msnbc]
Pictured above is Ambam. He is a 21-year-old, 485-pound Silverback Gorilla who lives at the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent, England. Ambam has become quite the celebrity at the park, because as you can plainly see, he walks on his hind legs. That’s right, folks. What you are witnessing is the gorilla species evolving right before our very eyes. To paraphrase Charlton Heston, “THAT DAMN DIRTY APE!”
Here’s Gorilla keeper Phil Ridges’ take on the unique situation (via msnbc):
“Ambam’s father Bitam used to display the same behavior if he had handfuls of food to carry,” Ridges said in a statement. “Ambam also has a full sister, Tamba, and a half sister … who also sometimes stand and walk in the same way.”
“All gorillas can do it to some extent but we haven’t got any who do it like Ambam and he is quite a celebrity at the park,” he added. “We think he might use it to get a height advantage to look over the wall when keepers come to feed him and standing up can also help him in looking for food generally in his enclosure as it gives him a better vantage point.”
Video of Ambam strutting his stuff follows.
Via the Duluth News Tribune:
Lily the famous black bear gave birth to two cubs today, according to a Facebook post by Sue Mansfield, a biologist at the Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center in Ely.
One cub was born at 1:51 p.m. and the second was born at 3:03.
She wrote on the center’s blog that at 5:08 p.m. Thursday, Lily began clenching her teeth. That was what signaled the beginning of labor last year before she gave birth to her cub Hope while thousands watched on a web camera.
You can watch Lily, her 1-year-old cub Hope and the two newborns on live webcam here. It’s pretty neat, if you don’t mind remaining incredibly patient waiting for something to actually happen.
Hey, it’s not like there’s anything else to watch on TV this weekend, right? Wait…
Ely’s famous black bear Lily delivers twin cubs [Duluth News Tribune]
Oscar Wilcox, a 70-year-old ranch owner living in Fort Pierce, Florida, was minding his own business on New Year’s Day as he set to make some repairs to a fence on his property. That’s when the situation got a little messy, thanks to a “nasty,” “unkillable,” and obviously bloodthirsty cow, and things didn’t calm down until Wilcox ended up in the hospital in critical condition.
Via MSNBC:
When Wilcox’s wife heard him scream, she drove to the pasture and saw the cow attacking him.
The cow, which had already been shot at least once by Wilcox with a .22 caliber pistol, wasn’t going down without a fight.
To get it off her husband, Wilcox’s wife began ramming it repeatedly with her truck. When that didn’t work, she opened fire with the pistol that Wilcox had dropped in the encounter.
The crossbred cow, which sported 12 to 18-inch horns, was shot several times in the face, according to a police report. It was finally contained in the pasture.
“(Wilcox’s wife) stated that the cow has always been nasty and had attacked her about a week ago causing bruises,” the report states.
Yikes. That’s one mean-ass cow. I bet those damn Chick-fil-A cows pictured above would get quite the hoot – or moo – if they ever heard about this evil cow’s antics. But I would like to speak seriously about those Chick-fil-A cows: while an amusing ad campaign, bovine illiteracy is not, nor should it ever be, a laughing matter. Learn to spell, you damn dirty cows.
This is Rebel. He’s an eight-month-old German Shepherd from Desert Hot Springs, California. Rebel got himself into quite the sticky situation by sticking his head where it shouldn’t have been stuck. Obviously.
Rebel’s terrifying ordeal (and its thankfully happy ending (via msnbc):
Luckily, the pooch wasn’t in any serious danger and could breathe OK, officers determined when they arrived at 12:30 p.m. (But we’re sad to say that, yes, that red stuff in the photo above is blood; Rebel injured his “eyebrows” a bit while thrashing around as he tried to free himself.)
It would be too risky to break down the wall, so the two officers helped Rebel wiggle his way out. “Somehow he got in through there, so we knew we could get him out,” said Sgt. James Huffman. One officer gently pushed the dog’s head back through the hole (after Huffman protected the animal’s ears by tucking them back), while the other cautiously pulled and nudged his body.
“He let us know if we were pushing too hard – but he kept working right along with us,” Huffman said in a statement. “He helped a lot. You could see his hind legs stiffen to assist in the direction we were going. He knew we were there to save him.”
Poor Rebel. And you think you were having a bad day.
German shepherd freed after head stuck in 18-inch-thick wall [msnbc]
Help us, Shark Hunter Quint: you’re our only hope. Oh yeah, Quint ain’t real. But that Robert Shaw sure was convincing in that role, wasn’t he? “Cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark’s in the water. Our shark.” Awesome.
Where was I? Oh yeah, a single female whitetip shark is causing quite a ruckus at the Egyptian Red Sea resort in Cairo, as it is suspected that she is the sole shark responsible in three out of five recent attacks on tourists. According to a Reuters report, three Russians and a Ukrainian were attacked in the span of two days last week, suffering serious injuries.
A whitetip seen minutes before the first attacks on two of the Russians has been identified as the shark photographed when the German woman was attacked five days later, said Elke Bojanowski, an expert on the Red Sea’s whitetip sharks.
She said the shark still appeared to be in the area.
“Instead of briefly grabbing for testing or tasting purposes, this female apparently considers human swimmers as a potential food source,” she said.
Wow. You see folks, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that’s all.
Jeepers creepers.
Same shark linked to three attacks [Yahoo!/Reuters]
Get it? As in Charlie the Tuna, the mascot for StarKist? Funny, right? Okay, maybe not right now, but later you’ll be chuckling at it or using it as a pickup line one a lady at the bar. Actually, if I could offer you one piece of advice: don’t make tuna jokes around ladies you don’t know. Actually, don’t ever make a tuna crack around any woman. It’s a taste issue.
Anyway, above is a photo of one proud angler: Californian Mike Livingston, who caught this whopping 405.2 pound tuna last Tuesday off the Baja coast during a fishing trip in Mexico. His catch shattered the previous record of 388 pounds, 12 ounces, and that record has stood since 1977.
Livingston is an accomplished angler in his own right, but never has he dreamed he would ever catch a behemoth like the ginormous bastard above (via The Mail):
Mr Livingston’s previous big catch was a 100-pound yellow-fin, and although he hoped to catch a fish over 200-pounds, he never thought in his wildest dreams he would make a catch so huge.
‘I listened to the crew and took instructions. Someone asked me if it felt like two and a half hours, and I said it really didn’t it felt like 45 minutes really.
‘I just leaned back in that harness and took what the fish gave me. I didn’t even break out into a sweat. I didn’t have to put the reel into second gear until the last 45 minutes of the fight’.
Mr Livingston’s tuna is not only the biggest ever landed by an angler, but it also is the largest ever caught without any back-up reels or assistance from the crew.
Amazing. But here’s the question: can you imagine how many tuna cans it would take to properly store this bad boy? I’d be in tuna fish sandwich heaven, I’ll tell you that much.
Man catches 405-pound tuna shattering 33-year-old world record [The Mail]
Thank goodness! How would I have been able to choose the winer between the University of Washington or Washington State University in their annual matchup, cutely referred to as the Apple Cup, if it wasn’t for Chai, the prognosticating pachyderm!
Via the Ballard News Tribune:
On Thursday, Dec 2nd, Female Asian elephant Chai will predict the the winner of the 2010 Apple Cup.
Crimson and gray or purple and gold don’t matter much to the elephants at Woodland Park Zoo, but apples do. Chai will choose a heap of apples from either one of two boxes decked out in Dawgs and Cougs gift wrap. The first apple the 31-year-old elephant takes a bite from marks her pick for the winner of the Apple Cup.
The pachyderm prediction is a part of the zoo’s special Apple Cup admission discount. Now through Dec. 5, Huskies and Cougar fans get half off zoo admission if they’re sporting any gear from the University of Washington or Washington State University, such as a jersey, sweatshirt, hat or gloves, or by showing a valid student ID from either university.
The event takes place on Thursday, Dec. 2 at 2:00 p.m.
Well, how do you like that? The psychic, game-predicting animal fad has spiraled completely out of control. Thankfully, Paul the Octopus Oracle isn’t around to see this, although he’s probably rolling over in his grave as we speak. Or parts of him are getting tossed around in a heavily-buttered Sauté pan. What? Do you have any idea how much cash that German aquarium is raking in selling individual servings of that poor creature? Pan-Browned Buttered Cephalopod Clairvoyant is a delicacy to those Eurotrash bastards.
Woodland Park Zoo Elephant to predict winner of Apple Cup [Ballard News Tribune]
Ha, dog beer puns. Good stuff.
A little bird tweeted me a link to this post on Slashdo regarding Happy Tale Ale, a beer brewed specifically for man’s best friend:
Every dog owners knows there is nothing more pathetic than watching your dog beg for a sip of your delicious beer. Now, thanks to some forward thinking brewers, you can finally drink with your dog. Australian pet deli and boutique Paws Point, and American brewer Dog Star Brewing Company, have designed beers especially for dogs. Both beers are non-alcoholic, non-carbonated, and infused with meat flavor, making them less than ideal for all but the most troubling family Christmas.
Awesome.
Beer Made Just for Dogs [Slashdo]
Holy mackerel, would you get a look at the size of that fish? Quite impressive. And I have to say, my “just for the halibut” line is pretty impressive as well, but just so you know, I’m not angling for compliments, if you catch my drift.
Via The Mail:
A 70-year-old angler will have no need to visit his local chippie for the foreseeable future – after reeling in a record-breaking halibut that weighed more than 34 stone.
Gunther Hansel spent more than two hours battling with the 8ft 2in flatfish while on a trip to Iceland’s Western Fjords.
And when he finally got his prize alonhgside his fishing boat, the German pensioner needed the help of five crewmates to haul the beast aboard.
The monster fish weighed in at a mighty 482lbs 13ozs – big enough to serve up almost 1,000 individual fillets.
Impressive feat, especially for a 70-year-old man. So much so, in fact, I am floundering to come up with a worthy complimentary statement. What? Hey, you can carp on the bit all you want, but coming up with these fish puns ain’t easy. Further, I know for a fact there are lots of folks out there who come from the same school of thought as I do regarding well-crafted puns who will find it nearly impossible not to take the bait and want to play along, in a manner of speaking.
Well, a skunky beaver can be a pretty formidable thing to deal with as well, but that’s a different story altogether. A scorned muskrat to their credit, is capable of being a devilish bastard as well, but I suppose you could have figured that one out on your own. You know, given how passionate those critters can be, a fact which can be surmised courtesy of the lyrical stylings of Captain & Tennille. I’ve said too much.
