Jenna: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Well, it’s kind-of both. It’s 1,000 hens flying in planes to a sanctuary in California from a farm in Iowa. Alternative Press reported on the efforts of the California sanctuary, called Animal Place, to save these hens from a closing farm. The hens will become adoptable after their rescue and a few weeks of rehabilitation.
AJ: Egg-celent news. Animal and conservation activists are also celebrating the second year in a row that whaling in Iceland has halted, as covered in this article by World Animal News. In addition, after years of fighting, the ‘Meet Us Don’t Eat Us’ anti-whaling campaign has gathered the support of thousands to help put an end to whale meat consumption. These steps are certainly whalecomed by animal advocates around the world.
Jenna: As parks have been shut down due to the current state of the world, animals were given a chance to stretch their legs and wings and enjoy some room. According to this article by NBC, bears and other animals have become accustomed to not sharing their space with visitors. This means extra caution is needed by visitors when national parks reopen. The article makes another interesting point; park visitors not only can disturb wild animals but camping can impact vegetation and soil. Camping activities can cause unnatural erosion in some areas. It’s important that we are mindful of every step in these parks so we can maintain them.
AJ: We all know that our furry friends have some amazing noses and are able to smell things unimaginable to humans. According to this piece by The Guardian, dogs might have the ability to detect COVID-19. With the right training and patience, dogs can do some amazing things from rolling over to rescuing people from a burning building. If this training is successful dogs can test about 250 people an hour, helping save lives around the world.
Jenna: Some dogs are truly disciplined and talented. My dog has “sit” and “stay” mastered, which is only slightly less impressive than sniffing out viruses. Let’s wrap up this week with an investigative sea turtle checking out some divers. This video from Yahoo! News shows a sea turtle inspecting a diver’s camera and giving the camera a quick taste-test. Speaking of sea turtles, Fanimal will be hosting another Animal Chat Time this Friday with Nora from Animal Experience International. This week’s topic is sea turtles. Find more details and register here. See you next week!
This week’s animal news:
National park closings gave wildlife room to roam. Rangers advise caution amid reopenings. from NBC
Guys Carry A Baby Cow For Miles On The Beach To Save His Life from The Dodo
Fuzzy, Blind Cow Has A Seeing-Eye Best Friend from The Dodo
Great News! Icelandic Whales Will Be Safe In 2020 As Iceland Stops Whaling For Second Year In A Row from World Animal News
Doing the Bump With the Belugas from New York Times
UK researchers hope dogs can be trained to detect coronavirus from The Guardian
Wild white storks hatch in UK for first time in hundreds of years from The Guardian
Video: Grown-up orphan kangaroos meet orphan joeys at sanctuary from ABC News
Endangered species could be saved with this tech-based solution | Living from Euronews
Meet the güiña—the little ‘mystery’ cat that marks a big milestone from National Geographic
Spiders Use Earth’s Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles from The Atlantic
One of the world’s smallest cats chirps like a wee bird, first-ever audio recording reveals from Live Science
California rescue flying 1,000 Iowa hens back to sanctuary from Alternative Press
Tapirs may be key to reviving the Amazon. All they need to do is poop from Science News
Disaster interrupted: How you can help save the insects from Mongabay
Curious sea turtle nibbles and investigates scuba diver’s camera from Yahoo! News
Thank you to John Delconte for sending in articles!
Photo credit to George Walker from Unsplash
Creature Feature 