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“ The larger a shoal is, the smaller is the proportion of it that needs to know what is actually going on for it to feed and avoid predation effectively. Indeed, having too many leaders with conflicting opinions results in confusion. At least, that is true in the model.”
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Touched by a Wild Mountain Gorilla (small version) (par aleutiandream)
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pour mettre son âme en paix et résoudre le paradoxe de la viande, le carnivore humain “démentalise” les animaux de boucherie (alors même qu’il “anthropomorphise” les animaux de compagnie). Ce déni d’esprit, disent les auteurs, n’est probablement pas le seul outil dont il dispose dans ce but : le poids de la tradition culturelle est sans doute aussi présent, ainsi qu’une faculté à occulter le lien viande-animal. Ces psychologues suggèrent également de reproduire ce genre de tests dans les pays où l’on mange les animaux, tabous chez nous, que sont le chien et le chat.
~ Comment concilier goût pour la viande et amour des animaux ? | Passeur de sciences -
Posing as black market gorilla buyers, the rangers recovered the infant male unharmed inside a backpack and arrested three poachers, who were seeking to sell the gorilla—now named Shamavu after his rescuer-for as much as U.S. $40,000, according to park authorities.
Shamavu is the fourth baby gorilla Virunga rangers have recovered from poachers in 2011—the highest number on record in a single year, suggesting that baby-gorilla trafficking may be on the rise in the region.
(via Pictures: Baby Gorilla Rescued in Armed Sting Operation)
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~ Do dolphins mourn their dead? | MNN - Mother Nature NetworkDuring one expedition, the researcher and his team witnessed a heartbreaking scene between a mother dolphin and her deceased newborn calf. The mother could be seen repeatedly lifting the corpse to the surface, presumably in an attempt to get it to breathe.
“This was repeated over and over again, sometimes frantically, during two days of observation,” said Gonzalvo. “The mother never separated from her calf…. [She] seemed unable to accept the death.”
Gonzalvo experienced a similar scene a year later, when he came across a pod of dolphins that appeared to be assisting a 2 to 3-month-old dolphin that was having difficulty swimming.
“The group appeared stressed, swimming erratically,” he said. “Adults were trying to help the dying animal stay afloat, but it kept sinking.”
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![They gazelles ain’t gonna catch theyselves.
(via The Savanna[pic] - Digg)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqswk2NS5p1qanjy6o1_250.jpg)
They gazelles ain’t gonna catch theyselves.
(via The Savanna[pic] - Digg)
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Visiting a national park in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, award-winning photographer Mr Slater left his camera unattended for a while.
It soon attracted the attention of an inquisitive female from a local group of crested black macaque monkeys, known for their intelligence and dexterity.
Fascinated by her reflection in the lens, she then somehow managed to start the camera. The upshot: A splendid self-portrait. (via Black macaque takes self-portrait: Monkey borrows photographer’s camera | Mail Online)
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Almost 200 dead bottlenose dolphin bodies have been found since mid-January through this week along shorelines of Gulf coast states, including Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, Reuters notes. About half of the carcasses are newborns or stillborn infants.
~ Obama administration restricts findings on Gulf’s dead dolphins
That number is around 14 times the average numbers recorded during the same time frame between 2002 and 2007 and has coincidentally occurred during the first calving season since the BP Deepwater Horizon debacle last year in the Gulf. -
A remarkable achievement in late Victorian publishing, The Living Animals of the World was once the most thorough popular guide to global wildlife: a laivishly illustrated periodical that brought the world to the reading public at the rate of one dime for every 40 pages — and a half-dozen or so species. Today, it stands as a vital reminder of a time when the documentation of animals in their native habitat was mostly left to the men who had come to kill them. (via ‘These animals make a peculiarly plaintive cry when molested in any way’: 1901’s amazing, disturbing Living Animals of the World - Kansas City News - Plog)
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Most of the drugs used in animal agriculture and in human medicine are functionally identical. That’s one reason why the overuse of antibiotics in animals is such a concern: When organisms become resistant on the farm to drugs used on livestock, they are becoming resistant to the exact same drugs used in humans.
~ Update: Farm Animals Get 80 Percent of Antibiotics Sold in U.S. | Wired Science | Wired.com -
Seven elephants have been killed by a speeding freight train in eastern India, after two baby elephants strayed onto the tracks and older ones followed to try to save them.
One of the elephants was dragged for about 400 meters (yards), while the other four died on the spot,” district official Kalyan Das told India Today. Two others were severely injured and died hours later, he said. “It is a ghastly sight,” forest conservator S. Patel told the same paper. The baby elephants were among the dead.
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Millions of killer giant squid are not only devouring vast amounts of fish they have even started attacking humans. Two Mexican fishermen were recently dragged from their boats and chewed so badly that their bodies could not be identified even by their own families. No wonder the giant squid are called “diablos rojos” - red devils. (via Giant Squids Depleting Fish Populations, Now Turning Their Hungry Tentacles To Humans - Geekologie
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