Animal news of the week

November 14, 2014 • 3:00 pm

I hadn’t realized that Wired has a weekly feature called “This week’s weirdest wild animal incidents,” but it does indeed, and it’s engrossing reading. I won’t reprise this week’s, but it’s full of bizarre stories interspersed with a few heartwarmers. Lots of animal tales!

And there’s this:

A woman in British Columbia became an Internet sensation after taking a selfie with a “squirrel.” (Be sure to read the link!)

Girl takes selfie with ground squirrel, Vancouver, British Colum
Photo: Stacey Wallace/Rex Features/AP

Here’s one more:

A deer in Ohio, which had a plastic, pumpkin-shaped bucket stuck on its face for at least six days, finally got the bucket off its face when a teenager ambushed and tackled the animal. “It had to be done today,” the teenager said stoically.

Click on the screenshot below to go to the article and the video:

Screen Shot 2014-11-14 at 8.47.30 AM

As lagniappe, here’s a video about lagomorphian sports. Reader Larry called my attention to the fact that rabbit “show jumping” is a regular event in Europe. Here’s a video of one competition (there are many of these on YouTube):

h/t: Barry ~

 

44 thoughts on “Animal news of the week”

  2. Recently here in California we had a headline: “Officials Warn Tourists To Stop Taking #Selfies With Bears, South Lake Tahoe Could Close Down Due To ‘Bear Selfies'”

    The girl and the squirrel are cute, but I am sure it’s just a matter of time before we hear of someone getting mauled in a selfie-related incident. “Red in tooth and claw” is not just a hoary old saying!

    I’m so old I can remember when the concern was keeping away from bear cubs so as not to provoke their mama, or safely stowing campsite food. These kids today!

  3. Orange plastic pumpkins…

    I often wonder what alien archaeologists will make of our leavings when they come calling in 40k years. If all that’s left to excavate is the remains of a *Black Friday* shopping mall they’ll be scratching their sensory segments for eternity. Even methodological naturalists [such as myself & many readers here] should perhaps take a close look at their own little rituals & ask themselves – why? 🙂

          1. Cruziana; Calymenites; Lepidodendron; quite a lot of the form “Well name/ depth/ date/ what was interesting” ; …
            Just because I don’t call the “rover” doesn’t mean that I don’t have interesting tales about their individual personal histories, and how they came to be in my care. Some people might even call me a “curator”, but I prefer to think of them as my pets.

          5. I have rocks that can do furry and soft. Asbestos from the road cuttings along the “Road to the Isles” at Loch Duich.
            Not so good on the comforting though.

          7. I wouldn’t put my asbestos specimens into a sock for cuddliest competitions with Baihu. Baihu wouldn’t understand the risks.
            You., on the 3rd paw ….

          8. …might well repay the gift with non-soft rocksocks…or simply unleash the Baihu….

            (Save for the fact, of course, that I’m sure you’d arrive with suitable PPE, etc., and we’d keep it safely contained and then quaff an appropriate beverage….)

            b&

          9. Ow!
            Ow!!
            Really, ow!!!
            On a scale of “zero” to “that hurts”, “Ow!!!!”
            Gentlemen and Allosaurs (I’m sure we have at least one in the audience) should look away from this report.
            OK, it’s Bob Bakkar, so a stetson full of salt should be applied. But still, “Ow”.

          10. Ow, indeed!

            One of the comments in there is a threadwinner I’ll shamelessly steal: “Ah, the correct way to use a thagomizer!” (P J Evans)

            b&

          3. :-). My daughter (27) and I were just sorting through some of her childhood stuff and found two rocks she had painted maybe 20 years ago, one of which sported one googly eye. We debated what to do with them, and finally settled on throwing them over the back fence into the ravine, where eventually, one hopes, the elements will wear the paint off and they will regress to their natural state. As for the googly eye, who knows? ( thankfully evil eye never entered our minds- i don’t believe that evil eyes google)

          8. Well I was once a Girl Scout. Maybe should keep a set in our hiking backpack, just in case (when my son was young he would always want us to pack a whole bunch of cookies “just in case”…)

      1. That movie was as dire as dire gets. Cute bunnies hopping through some kid’s model railway set with ominous music dubbed in the background…I’ve known pre-teen kids who could have made the film and done a better job at it….

        b&

  7. What is it about evolution that makes us hear the word ,see the word selfie and we have to say it ourselves.I know,I know words like google,tweet, cell phone or worse landline are words we know and use but why does selfie have to be included.Like to swear right now think i’ll take my picture instead.

    1. I don’t mind ‘selfie’ at all. It’s a coined word, obviously, but it doesn’t grate on me like, say, using ‘workshop’ or ‘progress’ as transitive verbs do…

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