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Year Archive
Visitors since November 17, 2004:
View Article  Zoo cheetahs are still cheetahs

A Belgium woman climbed into a cheetah cage in a zoo in Brussels and was mauled to death by the cheetahs.

In what has to be one of the dumbest quotations I have ever heard about animal behavior, a zoo spokesperson said

"Karen loved animals. Unfortunately the cheetahs betrayed her trust," he said.

Er, what?  Since when did the cheetahs 'betray' her?  The cheetahs did exactly what a cheetah is going to do in the wild--kill a prey animal.  How is that a betrayal?  As far as I know, no cheetah has ever signed a contract to the do the opposite. 

Not to say I don't feel sorry for the woman or her family, but she took a bad risk when deciding cheetahs were big kitty cats, not wild animals.

View Article  Two hermaphodite deer logged in two days in Florida

A Florida wildlife techician says that he logged two hermaphodite deer in two days--and he has only logged a total of three in all the 27 years that he has been logging deer.

Though deer are not an indicator species, it is odd that there are two of these very rare malformations shot in a very short period of time.  Certain indicator species, like frogs, show these types of changes when there are significant environmental pressures (such as sewage and farm runoff into their grow ponds).  Could mammals in Florida be showing these changes too?