magicalnaturetour:

Photographer Samir Kurtagic:)

magicalnaturetour:

Yellowstone’s popular alpha female wolf was shot dead by hunters outside park. Gray wolves at Yellowstone are tagged in an effort to study their habits and population spread. Photograph: Dawn Villella/AP via guardian.co.uk
R.I.P. dear one ♥

Hunting makes me sick. 

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magicalnaturetour:

Photo “***” by Vadim Trunov 

allcreatures:

Koalas under threat in Australia - in pictures

The Australian government has listed the koala as a threatened species in parts of the country for the first time. It says the species faces numerous threats including climate change, disease and habitat loss.

(via magicalnaturetour)

I try as hard as possible to not be preachy about vegetarianism because I find it just as annoying as being preachy about your religion/other lifestyle choices, but today I’m feeling particularly enthused, so I’ll just post a bit.

I was a pescatarian for about four and a half years and have been a true vegetarian for about six months (though I’ll probably tell you that I’ve been a vegetarian for five years because it makes everything less complicated). I changed my lifestyle because I always have been and always will be an animal lover. While I don’t remember this, my mom always tells me that she knew I’d probably choose to become a vegetarian one day because even when I was little I pestered her about why chicken the food was called ‘chicken’ like the animal, and when she told me I got upset. BUT I DIGRESS, THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT.

As many vegetarians know, once you tell people you don’t eat meat you have to start learning how to field questions. “What if you were alone in the woods and starving and there was plate of meat in front of you?” “What are you going to feed your kids?” “You still eat meat SOMETIMES, right?” It’s natural, but sometimes intrusive and annoying. I found this especially hard because I made the decision kind of on a whim after a family reunion where everyone was feasting on venison, meat from a deer that my uncle had personally shot and killed while sparing the rest of the family no details as to how he went about doing so. I was thirteen, so I wasn’t stupid, I knew WHERE meat came from, but hearing it made me sick. So I packed up my food and said ‘NO MORE’ without doing any real research. Thankfully my mom’s a nurse (and also, you know, a mom) so she was super careful and made sure I ate a balanced diet and whatnot. And I don’t regret my decision for one second. It’s better for the environment, and better for my psyche. 

I know that most people aren’t as sensitive to these issues as I am, so I’ll never be one of those people that blathers on about how a vegetarian lifestyle is the only way that anyone should live, because that’s a ridiculous expectation. If I could get people to make a change, though, I would tell them to buy locally raised meat. I wish more people would do this, because it’s WAY better for the environment (given that it doesn’t have to be shipped across the country in gas-guzzling trucks), the animals are still raised for slaughter, but at least they aren’t tortured and beaten for their entire lives. In a book I recently read, the process is described as going like this: “Once the transport cages are loaded, the trucks hit the road and take our [chickens] to the processing plant, where they will be dumped from their crates, shackled by their legs with metal cuffs, and hung head-down from a conveyor belt. Then, upside-down and wings flapping, their heads will be passed through an electrified water bath. For seven to ten seconds, electricity will travel through their bodies, hopefully stunning the animals. The next stop is the neck-cutting machine where sets of rotating blades sever the chickens’ carotid arteries”. This comes a 300 page, well documented research journal called ‘Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat’ and not PETA propaganda or something. And again, I’m not advocating for everyone to suddenly stop eating whatever they have been for the last twenty years, but shit like this is honestly unnecessary. 

So there. That’s me, my story, and my hope for anyone reading this. Even if you just make a concerted effort to buy locally raised meats (and produce, too!) then you’ll have my stamp of approval (because I’m sure that means a whole lot to you….) I don’t usually do this, but I figured I’d just throw it out there. 

Peace. 

magicalnaturetour:

firepaw:

Dogs of the Titanic: a Dozen Aboard, Three Survived

April 15, 2012, marks the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the ship touted as unsinkable, during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, en route to New York. Much research has been done on the passengers, crew, and the ship itself over the years. But little has been reported about one group of passengers — the dogs of the Titanic. Many think of their pets as part of the family, and it’s evident that that sentiment was as true 100 years ago as it is today.

Widener University, named for a prominent Philadelphia family that had three members on board, will honor the memory of that fateful voyage with an exhibit, a part of which will feature the dogs on board.

I spoke with the producer and curator of the exhibit, J. Joseph Edgette, Ph.D., on the telephone last week. He shared his knowledge of the Titanic and her four-legged passengers.

Dr. Edgette, you’re known as an authority on the Titanic. How long have you been researching and working on this exhibit?

Dr. Edgette: I’ve been researching the Titanic for about 20 years, but working on this particular exhibit for approximately eight months.

How many dogs were actually on board at the time of sailing?

Dr. Edgette: There might have been more, but based on eyewitness accounts and ship’s records, there were 12 confirmed, only three of which survived.

I’ve seen pictures and read that the ship’s captain, Capt. Smith, had his dog aboard. Was he one of the dogs that survived?

Dr. Edgette: The dog seen in those photos was indeed Capt Smith’s. Benjamin Guggenheim did a lot of traveling, often on ships skippered by Capt. Smith, so he knew him and his family well. Guggenheim, although originally scheduled to sail on another vessel, ended up on the Titanic, and brought a large Russian Wolfhound as a gift for the captain’s daughter. The day before sailing, Smith had his photo taken on board with the dog that he named Ben in honor of the man who gifted him. The dog remained overnight, but was taken home to his daughter the next morning, so he was not on board when the ship got underway.

Why were the three dogs saved when there was so little room in the lifeboats for people? Was there a public outcry that dogs were rescued when so many people perished?

Dr. Edgette: The dogs that survived were so small that it’s doubtful anyone even realized they were being carried to the lifeboats. Two were Pomeranians and the third was a Pekinese, all tiny dogs. One Pomeranian named Lady, bought by Miss Margaret Hays while in Paris, shared the cabin with and was wrapped in a blanket by Miss Hays when the order was given to evacuate. The Rothschilds owned the other Pomeranian, and the Pekinese, named Sun Yat-Sen, was brought on board by the Harpers (of the N.Y. publishing firm, Harper & Row).

It seems only prominent families had dogs aboard the Titanic. Is that true?

Dr. Edgette: Yes. Only first class passengers had dogs on the voyage. One family even received an insurance settlement for their two dogs that didn’t survive.

I’m surprised that family pets were insured back then. Do you have more background on that?

Dr. Edgette: Another wealthy passenger, William Carter of Philadelphia, was traveling with his wife Lucille and their two children. Carter insured his wife’s jewelry and other items of value, including the 1912 Renault automobile purchased in Paris. A replica of that vehicle is what appears in Jack and Rose’s steamy love scene in the 1997 movie. The vehicle was insured for the full purchase price of $5,000; their daughter Lucy’s King Charles Spaniel was insured for $100, young Billy’s Airedale for $200. The children begged to take the dogs when evacuating, but Carter insisted that they were too big and that they’d be fine in the ship’s kennel. Both dogs perished and the insurance company paid the settlement.

What other dogs didn’t survive the tragedy?

Dr. Edgette: A toy poodle belonging to Helen Bishop, a Fox Terrier named Dog, millionaire John Jacob Aster’s Airedale named Kitty. Robert Daniel brought Gamin de Pycombe, his French Bulldog, on board, and there were several others, whose names aren’t known. Although a few of the animals shared the cabins of their owners, most were kept in the ship’s kennel and tended to by crewmembers, so they were considered more as cargo and not on any passenger manifest.

One particularly sad story involves a Great Dane owned by 50-year-old Ann Elizabeth Isham. Miss Isham visited her dog at the ship’s kennel daily and when she was evacuating, asked to take him also. When she was told the dog was too large, she refused to leave without him and got out of the lifeboat. Several days later, the body of a woman clutching a large dog was spotted by crew of the recovery ship, Mackay-Bennet, and dinghies were dispatched. Eyewitness accounts by crew and ship’s log confirm the sighting and recovery, and the body recovered is assumed to be Miss Isham.

Of the photos that have been circulated about the ship, were any taken of the dogs aboard the Titanic?

Dr. Edgette: There are two photos of dogs taken on board, one of crewmembers walking the dogs, and another of a group of dogs tied to a rail. The photos were taken by amateur photographer, Fr. Frank Brown, who disembarked the ship in Queenstown, Ireland before she embarked on her transatlantic journey. Interestingly, Fr. Brown’s are the only photographs of the interior of the Titanic known to be in existence, as the White Star Line had contracted with the Rochester firm, Eastman Kodak, to take photos upon the ship’s arrival in New York, which of course never occurred.

I’ve heard a tale of a cat who survived the voyage. Do you have any knowledge of that?

Dr. Edgette: Crew often had at least one cat on board each ship to help keep the rat population down. It’s said that there was a cat with young kittens aboard the sea trials of the Titanic but when the ship arrived in Southampton from Belfast, she was seen disembarking. Up and down the gangplank she went, retrieving one kitten at a time that she deposited on the dock. She and the kittens quickly disappeared and it was later said that had some sort of premonition that the voyage wasn’t going to be a good one.

The Widener University exhibit will be open from April 10 through May 12. Admission is open to the public at no cost.

Since this is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic I would once again like to remember the dogs of the Titanic. :)

Respect to the cat. Got her ass in gear and peaced. Also, the humans survivors only had a 7% higher chance of living than the dog ones. 

(Source: magicalnaturetour)

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magicalnaturereblogs:

earth-song:

A sloth has photobombed a holiday picture in the jungle. A team on an International Student Volunteers expedition had gathered in Costa Rica to help cut paths in the woodland. After completing their work, they posed for a photograph, only to be gatecrashed by the inquisitive creature. Manuel Ramirez, 44, anthropologist and tour guide, said: “As I looked through the camera lens I could see something creeping in to the frame. When I realised it was a baby sloth I clicked the button as fast as I could, not that he was going anywhere fast “Picture: Caters News Agency

This is so cute! :)

(via magicalnaturetour)

(Source: magicalnaturetour)