How the Phoenix Zoo Keeps Animals and Visitors Safe

There is a distinct difference between what happened at the Cincinnati Zoo when a small child fell into a 450-pound gorilla’s enclosure, and what's happening at the Phoenix Zoo, where the orangutans can walk right up to you.  “We wanted people to get up close and have that experience, but obviously not put them in a dangerous situation,” said Senior Primate Keeper with the Phoenix Zoo Denise Wagner

http://tinyurl.com/h6rxy2e

The Case for Treating Animals as Humans

In the new documentary ‘Unlocking the Cage,’ attorney Steven Wise makes his case for why animals need legal personhood for their own safety.  Earlier this month, when Louisiana’s New Iberia Research Center, the world’s largest chimpanzee research facility, announced it was moving all 220 of its chimps to a sanctuary in Georgia, it’s a safe bet the news made attorney Steven Wise the happiest man on the planet. That’s because two of the chimps, Hercules and Leo, had been the subjects in an ongoing legal battle about the rights of chimps, a legal case brought by Wise, president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, and the subject of D.A. Pennebaker a Chris Hegedus’s Unlocking the Cage, a documentary out now in New York, followed by a national rollout and an HBO broadcast early next year.

http://tinyurl.com/zwlq8o2

Video Shows Lions Licking Tent With Camper Still Inside

A camper in Africa experienced a too-close-for-comfort encounter with nature when she recorded three lionesses licking her tent while she was still inside.  Francie Lubbe was camping at the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in Botswana on May 9 when she recorded the lionesses licking water on the tent leftover from a heavy rain the night before. The lionesses, inches away, were visible through the tent's clear mesh. Drinks and sunblock lotion can be seen on the other side of the tent, directly opposite the lionesses' heads.

http://tinyurl.com/zb3em2t

Could a Child Really be Raised by Animals?

I recently became a first-time mother. In addition to my daughter, Myrtle, I share my home with a motley collection of rescued animals including dogs, cats, horses, chickens, and pigs. This multi-species, multi-generational co-habitation—along with the release of a new adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book—left me thinking about the phenomena of feral children, a topic I had considered in my book about human-animal interactions more generally. Certainly in some exceptional circumstances I can now appreciate how it might be possible for a human child to be cared for by a non-human surrogate.

http://tinyurl.com/hf2v6df

A New Code of Conduct to Protect Animals From Drones

A quick search online will reveal dozens of videos of drone and bird encounters. While it's always impressive to see a bird of prey take down a pesky quadcopter, the disturbance could impact the animal in ways we don't yet understand.  As the commercial drone industry kicks off and drones are increasingly used in conservation efforts, two Australian researchers have developed an animal-drone code of conduct to begin the conversation about how these machines should be ethically used.

http://tinyurl.com/ha4brxu

Secret Life of Animals, Captured on Camera

Scientists trying to learn about the lifestyles of elusive critters (tigers and cougars come to mind) have their work cut out for them.  Many animals will smell or hear a researcher long before the researcher sees them. As for observing nocturnal animals? Forget it. But in the last few years, many wildlife researchers studying animals in their natural habitat have had a technological assist from camera traps. These devices lie in wait until a passing animal triggers their motion sensor.

http://tinyurl.com/jsmwz48

Johns Hopkins Ends Use of Live Animals for Surgical Training

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will end its use of live animals in medical education, school officials announced Wednesday.  For many years, surgical procedures on live pigs have been part of the core clerkship in surgery for Hopkins medical students at Hopkins. But the School of Medicine is now joining the nationwide trend of switching entirely to computer simulations for such training.  "Given that almost all medical schools have stopped using live animals in medical student education and that the experience is not essential, the School of Medicine has decided that the use of live animals in the surgical clerkship should stop," school officials wrote in a message sent to students Wednesday.

http://tinyurl.com/jz5yx7h

What are the World's Deadliest Animals?

What would you say is the world's most dangerous animal? A shark? A tiger? What about a crocodile?  An Australian man was killed by a crocodile this week; his friend escaped with his life after a three-hour ordeal.  Crocodiles are dangerous enough, they kill an estimated 1,000 per year. But the world's deadliest animal, year after year, is a much smaller creature: the mosquito.  Here are some of the world's deadliest animals.

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Are We Smart Enough to Understand How Smart Animals Are?

Is a human smarter than an octopus?   “It’s really the wrong question to ask,” says primatologist Frans de Waal. “Because I’m smarter than an octopus in things I’m good at, like language and technology. But the octopus is smarter than me in many other ways.”  Inky the octopus recently made an astounding escape from his tank in the national aquarium of New Zealand. Under the cover of darkness, he squeezed through a crack in the top of his tank, stretched his long body through a drain hole in the floor and slithered down a 50 meter pipe to escape into the sea. Is Inky a genius?

http://tinyurl.com/z35cq6t

Should Animals Be Kept in Zoos?

This post is part of KQED’s Do Now U project. Do Now U is a weekly activity for students and the public to engage and respond to current issues using social media. Do Now U aims to build civic engagement and digital literacy for learners of all ages.  Hear opposing thoughts from a field biologist at the University of York and the president of the Born Free Foundation about keeping animals in zoos for conservation purposes.

http://tinyurl.com/gtmcr9g

Dogs in Flint Also Tested For Lead Toxicity

Humans aren't the only victims of the water crisis in Flint, as pets also may have been exposed to the toxic lead. An effort coordinated by Michigan State University is now helping dogs get tested.  The school's College of Veterinary Medicine has hosted screening events with professors, students and technicians volunteering to draw blood from dogs. State veterinarian James Averill said 266 dogs have been tested so far, with seven documented cases of lead toxicity.

http://tinyurl.com/jpgta2u

16 Cats Trying to Play Hide-and-Seek

Cats are terrible at hide-and-seek.  Reddit page r/CatsHiding is proof, as countless featured felines are completely failing at finding a well-concealed hiding spot.  Below are 16 kitties who absolutely suck at hiding. Jury's out on whether they're better seekers.

http://tinyurl.com/h6ncduo

Humans May Have Killed All But 3 Of These Animals In The Wild

There are only three Saharan addaxes — corkscrew-horned antelope native to the sandy deserts of eastern Niger and western Chad — left in the wild.  The startling new finding comes from a comprehensive survey of addax habitat led by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In March, researchers were only able to identify three addaxes in the region the animals are known to inhabit. They characterized the animals as seeming “very nervous.”

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Animals Can Get PTSD

Eslom, born in Uganda in 1994, had an adolescence marked by trauma: His mother died with he was 13; at age 15, he suffered a serious injury to his arm. He disappeared for a few months afterward, cutting himself off from his community. When he returned, according to case reports, he was different: quick to anger, easily irritated, taking an unusually long time to calm down. He was more fearful, had a harder time sleeping. He pulled away from his old friends.

http://tinyurl.com/jqkhgsv

What Are the Smartest Animals on the Planet?

Humans aside, chimpanzees would have to be at the the top of any consideration about relative intelligence of animals. They are most like us, sharing 99% of the same DNA, as we have have descended from the same ancestor species that lived 6-7 million years ago. 

http://tinyurl.com/h6x8lva

Loyal Dogs Refuse to Leave Side of Dying Baby Girl

A family’s loyal basset hounds have refused to leave the side of a dying baby girl who suffered a major stroke.  Nora Hall’s parents have taken the heartbreaking decision to turn off their five-month-old daughter’s life support after the stroke caused brain damage and left her in a medically-induced coma.

http://tinyurl.com/za4egyu

At JFK, Animals Get Their Own Bathrooms

Despite being routinely ranked as one of the worst airports in the U.S. by travelers, New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport has made notable gains in the past few years, opening a much-beloved Shake Shack in Terminal 4, an outdoor rooftop lounge on top of Terminal 5, and gleaming new club quarters throughout the airport. But it's not just humans who are getting more comfortable: The airport just debuted "pet relief facilities"—yes, pet bathrooms.

http://tinyurl.com/hdmamfq

Collar Finally Gives Your Cat a Human Voice

Since the dawn of time, humans have been confounded by cats, those mystifyingly aloof creatures whose inner thoughts are famously inscrutable. But no longer! Temptations Cat Treats has invented a cat collar that lets your feline speak in a human voice—so you can finally understand (though probably not) exactly what she is trying to tell you.

http://tinyurl.com/jzqsx8q