$US32 from Pig & Company (plus $US10.50 shipping to Australia).

The director of the Little River Zoo (pictured with a lynx similar to the one that scratched the little boy) has said that the lynx will be monitored by a veterinarian for potential dangerousness, but that she believes the cat was just trying to play.

Freya has also been moved to an inside enclosure, around which a solid fence has been built.

Although the boy recovered quickly from both his tears and the wound, I wonder how, if at all, the experience will affect him later on. Most of us know someone with a dog phobia due to one bad experience as a child. There are certainly worse things than having a deeply-ingrained fear of full-grown lynxes, but I think it’s likely the fear could extend to other animals as well. In any case, I’m glad that no one is playing the blame game here, and everyone is just relieved that the boy was not seriously hurt.

Photo: theanimalfiles.com

During the wildfires that have been plaguing Southern California for the last several months, it’s not only homeowners who get displaced, but the thousands of animals who live in the woods. Animal rescue teams work night and day to rescue injured or orphaned animals, such as this bobcat kitten and fawn, both of whom were dehydrated and near death when they were taken in by the nonprofit Animal Rescue Team.

According to Animal Planet, “Although wild animals, especially of separate species, are never placed together due to regulations, in this emergency situation, they had no choice. During the mayhem of the fire, they were forced to put animals anywhere they could, since they had run out of crates large enough for the fawn. The kitten ran to the fawn, and it was instant bonding.”

Clearly:

I hope that those baby animals who have undoubtedly lost their parents in the more recent San Bernadino fires have also been able to find comfort in unlikely companions.

Photos: shoppingblog.com and jaxonbrooks.com

Each morning the giraffes saunter up to the breakfast room to get a morning treat. Sticking their heads in to be fed by the human guests. The couple bought the estate, in part as a conservation project to save the Rothschild giraffes (there are only a couple hundred left on the planet). They have since opened it up to the public as the Giraffe Manor where guests can stay in one of their six rooms. If you just happen to be in Kenya anytime soon, you can stay there yourself, details here. Otherwise just check out the pics below, show your kids and you can all just dream of befriending these beautiful beasts.

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Does your baby understand the language of dogs? A human baby may not understand English yet but new studies say they may know how to find meaning in a dog’s bark. And this doesn’t just go for babies sharing a home with a pet pooch. The study claims that little ones, with little or no previous exposure to canines, can interpret the meaning of various dog vocalisations.

According to Science Daily infants as young as six months can make a match of the sounds of a mean snarl or a nice little yap to photos of dogs displaying those emotions.

“Emotion is one of the first things babies pick up on in their social world,” said the lead author of the study – BYU psychology professor Ross Flom,. He continued to say, “we chose dogs because they are highly communicative creatures both in their posture and the nature of their bark.”

Why would they perform this study in the first place? Experiments like this one help researchers discover how it is that babies learn so rapidly and how they understand the tone of things around them.

Does your kid speak dog?

Source

The opposite seems to be true for baby animals, which come out of the womb/egg/what have you looking so scrum-diddly-umptious they give you a toothache. Hence my new obsession:

Zooborns is a site devoted to pictures of “the newest and cutest exotic animal babies from zoos and aquariums around the world.” Ok, stop your drooling.

They’ve packed the site with video, news, pictures and bits of info about animals so it’s an educational exploration for your kids as much as it’s a guilty pleasure for you. They’ve got the site broken down by type of animal and by zoo/aquarium too – so it’s worth checking out to see who’s been born at the facility near you, so you can better plan your itinerary (and prep your kids for the visit).

And now for some seriously cute animals . . . just because:

Now go check out more over at Zooborns!

Images: Zooborns

A Colorado mother called animal control after she discovered that her 15-year-old son had 53 baby birds in his room. He had stolen the newborn swallows and sparrows, some of which hatched in his room, from numerous nests in his neighborhood. He and other neighborhood kids had tried to feed the motherless creatures, but with little success. Only 13 of the birds survived, and they are being cared for at a wildlife rehabilitation centre.

How, we might wonder, did this boy manage to keep nearly 60 birds in his room for over 24 hours without his mother’s knowledge? And what would possess a 15-year-old to mess with birds’ nests, a wildlife no-no that even four-year-olds respect?

It seems we will never get the answers to these questions, since the boy was simply ticketed for animal cruelty and offered no explanation for his behavior. His mother was equally tight-lipped, though she offered that she was “concerned” about her son’s misdeed.

Am I going too far in believing that this mother should have been given advice from a counselor? Endangering the lives of numerous animals is not exactly your average teenage rebellion. And being ignorant of the fact that there are 50 birds in the house is not exactly your average level of parental involvement.

Photo: The Longmont Times

The petite primate is treated not unlike a princess… has her own bedroom, sits at the dinner table for meals and has oodles of outfits. In the clip available of the film, Jessica is shown in a frilly pink dress getting lipstick in a bright shade of red applied to her lips while ‘Mom’ utters in baby speak, “now you look so purdy!” ‘Mom’ said, when commenting on being a ‘parent’ to a ‘monkid’, that “she was going to be a baby I was going to have forever.”

Lori already had two human daughters – who are both grown adults- but apparently she yearned for some sort of arrested development in an offspring. She opted to harness all her motherly instincts in raising a monkey that has a lifespan of forty years. Would you want to raise an “eternal toddler” for that long? Can a monkey, or any other animal, be a ‘child substitute’?

Check out a clip of the show here.

This Animal Alphabet Silkscreened Poster could compliment a nursery or playroom. Printed on 18×24 inch uncoated paper, the artwork uses three colors made of water-based ink. The frame is not included which is too bad since the one pictured here looks suitable. The price is $US50.

According to police, Natasha understands Russian when spoken too, but would only respond with the animal sounds and gestures.

From the BBC:

“When carers leave the room, the girl jumps at the door and barks,” the police said.

A police statement said the girl was unwashed, dressed in filthy clothes and had the “clear attributes of an animal”.

“For five years, the girl was ‘brought up’ by several dogs and cats and had never been outside,” the statement said.

The police said the girl had managed to master “animal language only”, but seemed able to understand Russian.

Natasha has been placed at an orphanage. Though she’s five, caregivers there say she looks more like she’s two years old.

Natasha isn’t the only Russian child to have a dog for a mom. Here’s the story of a three-yeary-old found back in February.

Photo: gnokr.com (story on other feral children)