Giant Crocodile Takes to Surf In Australia

It’s hard to imagine a creature more menacing than a great white shark swimming in the surf, but a giant crocodile comes close.  An estimated 12-foot crocodile was spotted cruising in the swells this past week at Cable Beach in Broome, Western Australia, prompting officials to close the beach to swimmers and surfers for a day.  It’s unclear what lured the reptile into the surf zone, but the unusual sighting generated quite the spectacle.

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Most Adorable Thing in Baseball Is a Stray Dog Named Hank

The most inspiring attendee at this year's Major League Baseball spring training isn't a scrappy utility player or long-shot minor league lifer.  But he has good legs - four legs, in fact.  And a strong clubhouse presence, too.  A stray dog nicknamed "Hank" has secured a place with the Milwaukee Brewers after wandering into the team's camp in Phoenix, AZ.  The dog arrived Feb. 17, "looking a little grubby but ready to play," the team wrote online.

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‘World Spay Day’ Observed

“World Spay Day” was proclaimed Tuesday in Seattle, a city known for its advocacy of family planning for both two-footed and four-footed residents.  The observance comes with the offer of free spay/neuter packages for pets, complete with vaccinations, through Friday at the Seattle Animal Shelter.The purpose of World Spay Day, as explained by Mayor Ed Murray, is to control pet populations, and keep dogs and cats off the streets and out of shelters.  Murray took a firm stand on animal population control, on which he is not likely to take heat.

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When Elephants Get Sad: A Touching Tale

When life gets stressful, Asian elephants help each other feel better by trumpeting sympathetic noises and using their trunks to touch their friend's - um - private parts, according to new research.  In a study published on Tuesday in the journal PeerJ, animal behaviorists observed 26 captive elephants in a sanctuary in northern Thailand. The researchers said they recorded a number of elephant behaviors that they concluded were specifically intended to comfort distressed herd members.  The behaviors included touching the distressed elephant's genitals with their trunks, putting their trunks in the distressed elephant's mouth, or making a high-pitched "chirping" noise.

http://tinyurl.com/lj3j8zk

Tigers on the Rebound

WWF launched the Year of the Tiger campaign in 2010 and rallied global commitments to double the number of wild tigers by 2022. In early 2013, 120 tiger researchers fanned out across some of the wildest sections of India and Nepal to assess the status of that work. That team completed the first joint tiger and prey-base survey of the entire Terai Arc, a 600-mile-long transboundary landscape that boasts one of the highest densities of tigers in the world.  Using camera traps and lots of legwork, the surveyors identified individual tigers by their unique stripe patterns and found something amazing: Tiger numbers in Nepal have risen by an estimated 63% in four years.

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Video: Cat And Bird Play Together

Looks like the kitty had a long night and just wants to get some rest… But someone wants to play! The bird is talking to the cat (in some alien language!) non stop and all the kitty wants to do is get some sleep! Make sure your speakers are turned on so you can hear the bird and please share with other kitty and doggie lovers! Everyone should see this!!

http://tinyurl.com/lhdv7lu

Sochi's Olympians Vie for Puppy Love

Forget official Sochi Olympics merchandise. U.S. athletes at the Winter Games are corralling much more cuddly souvenirs: stray puppies. Gus Kenworthy, the silver medalist in the 1-2-3 U.S. sweep of the men's ski slopestyle competition Thursday, spent the past two days buying kennels and leashes for a brood—four young pooches and their mother—he plans to bring home. The dogs had made their home under a security tent near a media center in the mountains.

http://tinyurl.com/n5hz445

Lost Boy Cuddled With Dog to Stay Warm

A 7-year-old Tennessee boy, lost and shivering in the cold, cuddled with his dog to stay warm before rescuers reached them.  Dominic Jeffries was out with his pooch Coco when they became caught in a space between bushes and a wall near their home last week in Cordova, Tenn.  Temperatures dipped below freezing but Dominic held on right with Coco, his family’s black Shih Tzu, officials told ABC News.

http://tinyurl.com/n2uyjbm

Meet Pickles The 20 Pound Cat

Pickles the giant cat once didn't have all that much going for him.  Nicknamed "Catasaurus Rex" for his impressive size, Pickles was found abandoned in a cat carrier on the side of the road. The hefty animal, who reportedly weighs more than 20 pounds, also suffers from feline immunodeficiency virus -- a condition that can eventually lead to heavily weakened immune systems in infected animals.

http://tinyurl.com/meas68k

13 Signs You're "Dating" Your Pet

If you're too preoccupied with dating apps for a dinner companion, you might not realize that the answer is already curled up in your lap.  Waiting for Mr. (or Mrs.) Right can be a depressing and long journey. Friends help, but when they start pairing off like Noah's Ark is coming, it's good to know we can count on our four legged friends to remain loyal.

http://tinyurl.com/ljs9cxj

Olympic Skier Gus Kenworthy Saving Puppies in Sochi

Now this is how you win the Olympics — or at least our hearts.  Team USA skier Gus Kenworthy is spending his free time in Sochi rounding up adorable stray puppies in hopes of keeping them safe. Olympics officials were outed before the games for killing stray dogs there in an attempt to maintain a clean image. 

http://tinyurl.com/ka8d3k2

Video: Missing Cat Lived in Food Factory for 3 Years

Helen and Phillip Johns of Cornwall, England were saddened when their cat, Woosie, went missing in 2011. Well, this week, almost three years later, they received a call from a vet saying they had Woosie and he needed to be picked up. So where was Woosie for those three years? Living at a food factory 30 miles away.

http://tinyurl.com/m6yvqqs

Animal Care and Control Launches Mobile Adoption Center

New York City pet lovers can adopt their next pooch without even visiting a shelter.  The city’s Animal Care and Control, with the help of the ASPCA, has launched their first mobile adoption center which will drive around the five boroughs to bring their cuddly creatures to a neighborhood near you.  “We’ve long had a need for our own mobile adoption center,” said Risa Weinstock, executive director of Animal Care and Control. 

http://tinyurl.com/kh7q9dg

Internet Sensation Lil BUB Ready For Her Closeup

At a recent red carpet event in midtown Manhattan, a Sundance Film Festival star makes her grand entrance. The throng of photographers and journalists gasp and drop to their knees, while spectators push and shove each other out of the way to get a peek.  Lil BUB has arrived at the party for Animal Planet’s “Puppy Bowl.”

http://tinyurl.com/kvtg435

These Mutts Are Best In Show

As it does every year, the Westminster Kennel Club show is doggedly pursuing purebreds in its quest for canine perfection. But as Post readers have shown us for the second year in a row, there’s nothing like a mutt.  Hundreds wrote in from as far as Brazil with pictures of shnoodles, goldendoodles and every variation on a pit bull you can think of. Many of them were rescued from shelters.

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Racing to Save the Stray Dogs of Sochi

A dog shelter backed by a Russian billionaire is engaged in a frantic last-ditch effort to save hundreds of strays facing a death sentence before the Winter Olympics begin here.  Already, hundreds of animals have been killed, with the local authorities apparently wanting the stray dogs cleared from the streets before Friday’s opening ceremony.  While the authorities say the dogs can be wild and dangerous, reports of their systematic slaughter by a pest removal company hired by the government in recent months have outraged animal rights advocates and cast a gruesome specter over the traditionally cheery atmosphere of the Games.

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Saving More Than Just Snow Leopards

The cold and rugged mountains of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and China seem an unlikely place to find a flourishing combination of new community institutions and international diplomacy. Few people live there. Those who do are mostly desperately impoverished livestock herders. They have been largely isolated from the rest of humanity on these enormous mountains where the Indian subcontinent once crashed into Asia, buckling the earth’s crust and raising peaks over 20,000 feet.

http://tinyurl.com/o6l8u8b

Las Vegas’ First Animal Sanctuary to Open

“Look into their eyes and tell them ‘I’m sorry, you have to die, but I need to eat.’  Look into their eyes and tell them, ‘I know there is an abundance of plant-based foods I could eat, but I would still rather eat you.’  Look into their eyes and tell them, ‘I know I don’t NEED to eat you, but I am going to pay someone else to murder you anyway.’  Look into their yes and tell them, ‘I’m sorry you lived a short, enslaved, abused, and tortured life, but I don’t’ care because I am selfish.’  Look into their eyes and tell them ‘I love my cat/dog, but your life doesn’t matter much.’ Go ahead and take a look in their eyes and tell them that.”   – Jenn V Keller-Lowe

http://tinyurl.com/mupcvz2

Video: Ivory Coast Elephants Get New Home

Conservationists in Ivory Coast have been hunting, trapping and transporting a dozen extremely rare elephants to a new forest home, in an unprecedented operation that is crucial for both the animals and the local population.

http://tinyurl.com/lfysho2

Cats Taking Selfies

Hilarious cat selfies.

http://tinyurl.com/ppb3z5l