News + Videos: Land Mammals

[The Peregrine Chick]

Cool Raccoon ...

The Weather Network - Special Raccoon Visitor

[The Peregrine Chick]

Panda Surprises

The Weather Network - Cute Countdown: Surprise Pandas

[The Peregrine Chick]

Another hot story from Manitoba - seems the moose do love Brandon!!  (love to see video of the "escorting"!)



Moose spotted in Brandon, police herd it out of city
Winnipeg Free Press / 2 Oct 2014

BRANDON -- Brandon police successfully herded a loose moose out of the city, Friday morning.  They tweeted out at about 8 a.m. that several officers were "wrangling" the moose around Rosser Avenue East and trying to escort it out of built-up residential areas.  They asked that people be cautious in that area.

Just a few minutes later, they tweeted "Success!"

The moose had crossed the river just northeast of the 1600 block of Rosser Avenue east and was out of the city, police said, "with a full police escort!"

It's the second moose-sighting in Brandon this week. On Tuesday morning, residents of Marquis Crescent were startled as a young moose trotted through the green space behind their yard before wandering off.

[The Peregrine Chick]

Short video of the two orphaned polar bear cubs now at APZ



Orphaned polar bear cubs settling in at Winnipeg zoo
CBC News / 2 October 2014

A pair of orphaned polar bear cubs from northern Manitoba are getting to know their new home at Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo this week.

The 10-month-old male and female cubs were spotted by Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship staff travelling by helicopter along the Hudson Bay shore near York Factory, Man., on Sept. 24.  Crews had waited 48 hours for the cubs' mother, but she did not appear, so the brother and sister were flown to Winnipeg over the weekend.

The zoo posted a YouTube video on Thursday of the wee bears checking out their new enclosure at its International Polar Bear Conservation Centre.  The male cub weighed in at 50 kilograms, while the female was about 46 kilograms, Dr. Stephen Peterson, the zoo's head of conservation and research, said in the video.

"All new bears come into the facility and undergo [a] 30-day quarantine, and this allows them to get a bit more used to the keepers and the veterinary staff. We give them vaccines and monitor their health," Peterson said. "We're looking forward to them going into the transition process and eventually being introduced to the other bears that we have here in Journey to Churchill," he added.

story & video:  www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/orphaned-polar-bear-cubs-settling-in-at-winnipeg-zoo-1.2785799

[The Peregrine Chick]

The World from the Polar Bear's Perspective
USGS / 2014 Research Project on the Beaufort Sea



cool video, interesting research ...
http://www.ecanadanow.com/science/2014/06/10/new-video-footage-shows-the-life-of-a-polar-bear/

[The Peregrine Chick]

Crews Rescue Litter of Wolf Pups from Funny River Fire
KTUU TV / Alaska



ANCHORAGE - The residents affected by the Funny River fire come in many shapes and sizes and a litter of wolf pups found Tuesday near the fire line were no different.  Huslia crew member Jefferson Sam said he and his crew knew about a wolf den of abandoned pups on the line and did what firefighter would do for someone in need.

“Well they’re helpless, you know,” Sam said. “We kind of knew the mother was around there." One of the pups actually came out of the den, Sam said, and to him it looked like the pup, a female, was asking for help. “We thought she was the smart one,” Sam said.

The pups were treated by a field biologist and given sugar water to help their hydration.

“They would have died if we didn’t pull them out,” Sam said. “For me, it was the right thing to do.”

The five pups were transported to the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage where they are being cared for, said Zoo spokeswoman Jill Myer. It's uncertain whether the pups will remain at the zoo, but it wouldn't be the first time abandoned pups were brought there, Myer said. "A pack of wolves came in two or three years ago, all from one den, all abandoned," Myer said. "Those are our wolves now."

View short (great) video here

[Kinderchick]

Made me itchy just watching the bear scratching his back on the tree. LOL!

[Doreen]

Great video! 

[RCF]

What goes on when you're not there - deep woods shindig ...  

http://youtu.be/AihvuZiDhsg

Now that's what you call pole dancing!  

[The Peregrine Chick]

What goes on when you're not there - deep woods shindig ...  

http://youtu.be/AihvuZiDhsg

[RCF]

This morning in Brandon we had a couple of Moose at one of our schools.  I think one was just a baby.  

Check the right side of page for pictures
http://www.ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=641051&cat_id=3

Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Av7TfaodivM

[Kinderchick]

Seriously cute alert is an understatement!

[The Peregrine Chick]

SERIOUSLY CUTE ALERT - Baby polar bear at Toronto Zoo

One of three cubs born in October 2011 to a 10 year old female named Aurora, she rejected all three cubs and this little male is the only survivor.  He was hand-raised, is about 3.5 months old now and outside playing.  Check out the photos and video clips.  And yes, there is a "name the polar bear cub" contest

http://www.torontozoo.com/polarbearcub/

[The Peregrine Chick]

Ice posing polar problems
Warmer weather means bears can't hunt properly: scientists
By: Melissa Martin and Kevin Rollason
Posted: 01/11/2012 1:00 AM


SEAN KILPATRICK/ THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES  


Even though the ice came early to Hudson Bay, it took too long for that ice to stay -- and experts say its slow formation sent some of Canada's polar bears to the brink of starvation.

Polar bears weren't able to get onto the ice to hunt seals until early December this winter, which observers say is becoming the norm.

"Those bears are all lining up along the coast line waiting for the ice to form," said David Barber, who holds the Canada research chair in Arctic science at the University of Manitoba. "They're basically all starving. They are really at their limit biologically."

Polar bears depend on winter seal hunting to build up enough fat to carry them through the lean summer months on land. The bears lose at least one kilogram of fat a day when they aren't on the ice. Given they are off the ice for up to 150 days, the hefty bears can lose well over 100 kilograms -- leaving some emaciated by the time the ice freezes again.

Andrew Derocher, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta, and a science adviser with Polar Bear International, said he has been studying polar bears around Churchill for more than 30 years and the last few years have been the hardest on the animals.

"Sea ice has been declining globally," Derocher said. "It's not quite there for the failure of the polar bears on Hudson Bay -- will it be five, 10 or 50 years? I think it will be before mid-century."

Derocher said 30 years ago the ice on Hudson Bay stayed until early August and the water was iced over again by Remembrance Day.

But Derocher said scientists have followed the polar bears this year using radio transmitters on their collars and found some of them were having to come off the ice in June and they weren't able to get back on the ice until the first week of December.

"It used to be three months on land and now it is longer," he said. "This affects the pregnant female bears the most. They have already gone eight months without food and now it would be nine months. The longer the total ice-free goes the higher the mortality rates will be.

"If it is ice-free for 160 days or longer the mortality rates will go up dramatically."

In Churchill, tundra buggy tour operator John Gunter watched a "bizarre" season take shape along the shore. "The ice actually closed up earlier than it typically does, and we were really searching hard for bears," said Gunter, the general manager of Frontiers North. "The following week, the ice had broken up and a number of bears were forced back to shore."

Each season, Frontiers North works with researchers from institutions such as Polar Bear International and the World Wildlife Fund to keep tabs on the bears around the bay. One of the researchers, Peter Ewins, director of species conservation at World Wildlife Fund Canada, watched starving polar bears nosing around old grain stores and garbage dumps while others were found dead.

The odd berry patch and goose egg nest isn't enough to sustain the massive mammals, Ewins said. "The weaker individuals, the ones who are less proficient at hunting, they were in poorer condition and it was visible this year," he explained. "It's just an indicator that those less fit, poorer quality bears were really up against the wall already."

Familiar temps on the horizon

While conditions near Hudson Bay seem to be approaching normal, the forecast for southern Manitoba also calls for temperatures to dip back down to where they usually are.

But first, one last push towards record highs in Winnipeg -- Tuesday's highest recorded temperature, 5 C, virtually tied the record high for Jan. 10 set back in 1990, when the thermometer struck 5.1 C.

Environment Canada predicts that today's temperature is expected to plummet to -17 C during a snowfall. Sunny skies are forecasted for the rest of the week, but even then we may not see the melting side of zero: Thursday's high is predicted at -18 C.

original article & photo: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/ice-posing-polar-problems-137076833.html

[Kinderchick]

This is very sad, indeed. While we may be enjoying warmer winters, I have often thought about the global warming effect on animals, particularly polar bears who depend on winter ice for hunting.