The Australian border collie – appropriately named Jumpy – has received almost universal praise for his exploits.

He is seen performing incredible jumps, running up walls, skateboarding over ramps, surfing, water-skiing, diving underwater, walking on his front legs through a slalom course, and other stunts before speeding off into the distance on a scooter.

Jumpy was trained by owner Omar Von Muller, who trained Uggie, the dog from Oscar winning film The Artist.

Mr Von Muller says the secret to his success was being consistent with the animals.

Hundreds of thousands of viewers have watched the clip on YouTube.

The Darling Downs Zoo in Pilton, Queensland, has posted a delightful video of the pair, named Kwanza (lion) and Honey (dog).

They met when Kwanza’s mother stopped producing milk. Zoo caretakers had to feed the cub themselves, and Honey came along for the ride.

In the video (Scroll further down to watch), the two animals are clearly affectionate toward each other, with Honey wagging her tale as the two wait for a zoo gate to open and allow them to interact. They quickly do, rubbing against each other in a warm greeting before walking off to play, side by side.

Best buddies

However, it’s unlikely they will remain playmates forever. Kwanza, who was born in November, is still very young. When he becomes an adult, he may become too big for Honey (the average African lion weighs between 300 and 500 pounds).

Much like white tigers, white lions are not true albinos but get their distinctly colored coats due to a genetic abnormality. They retain a mythical status in some parts of South Africa, although they are also reportedly subjected to ritualistic hunts that threaten their already limited numbers. Their existence was officially confirmed only in 1975 by animal biologist Chris McBride, who documented a white lion in a South African area known as Timbavati.

The unusual event happened on Saturday and then on again on Sunday, from when the video below was filmed.

Dave Anderson, the boat’s owner, told The Los Angeles Times that throughout his 10 years in business he’s almost never seen a pod of dolphins this large charging through the waters at full speed.

“It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of beautiful and interesting things,” Anderson said.

It’s not clear why this happened, but Anderson guesses that the marine mammals may have been chasing something or were spooked.

“We don’t know. I know they’re not running away from the boat. It seems like they’re responding to something but I just don’t know what it is,” he told the website.

Watch the incredible phenomenon below:

Three dogs were chosen from a group of seven and given daily training exercises to familiarise themselves with the mechanics of driving. After just eight weeks Porter, Monty and Ginny were put behind the wheels of an adapted Mini Cooper and reporetdly managed to put it in gear, accelerate and steer.

So far, the dogs have been driving with the help of an assistant inside the car, but their next challenge is to drive solo on live television.

Auckland SPCA chief Christine Kalin said: “They will hop in, start the car, put it into gear, use the accelerator.

“It’s an off-road raceway track and at all times we have a remote capacity to stop the car should we need to.”

Ms Kalin described the three pooches as “highly adoptable”, adding: “They are very intelligent, but they aren’t any more special than any of the other SPCA dogs.

“Our dream would be throughout our major cities and across Australasia will be people will be proud of owning a rescue dog.”

Raccoons, indigenous to North America, were first brought to Germany in the 1920s and bred in captivity for their fur. Everything went well for a few years but then, in the 1930s, a few of them escaped from a farm near Berlin.

Rumour has it that around the same time, Hermann Goering, the founder of the Gestapo and head of Adolf Hitler’s air force as well as being Nazi Germany’s most senior forestry official, ordered two pairs to be released into the wild near the Edersee Dam in western Germany so that they could be hunted.

However, no evidence has been found to back up that particular claim, but a number of British newspapers have taken to referring to the animals as “Nazi raccoons” as a result. There is no question that they are invasive.

Germany’s current population of 500,000 raccoons derive from that handful of escaped and released raccoons.

Experts say their numbers have been exploding in recent years and will soon reach about one million.

The animals are conquering territory in Scandinavia and some have even managed to cross the Alps into southern Europe.

“They are spreading rapidly. The population was stagnant for a long time but something has happened in the last 10 years to cause them to thrive,” Torsten Reinwald, a biologist at the German Hunting Federation, said

“They’ve adapted to their environment. They eat anything and they aren’t especially particular about where they live.”

Among Native Americans, the sharp-toothed beasts with pointy snouts and bushy striped tails were known for their foxlike cunning.

They are living up to that reputation in Germany, where they are making themselves comfortable in garages, garden sheds and attics. And once ensconced, they are hard to get rid of.

“You’re in trouble if you get them in your attic,” said Mr Reinwald.

“They defecate and urinate everywhere, eat through your insulation, bite through power cables and make a huge noise, especially at night. The cubs are born blind and spend a long time with their mothers during which they get bored and romp around. It’s chaotic,” he added.

Female raccoons tend to have five cubs a year. Hunting figures show how fast the population is expanding. In the 2000/2001 hunting season, just under 8,500 were shot and killed. In 2010/2011 it was 67,700.

Encounters with humans are becoming so frequent that raccoons regularly feature in police reports, and make for entertaining reading. In the town of Moritzburg, for example, holidaymakers called the police one night last week saying that their bungalow was being burgled.

Upon investigation, police officers found a raccoon climbing up the shutters. One raccoon even broke into the headquarters of the Dresden police force last year and was caught taking a nap outside an office. It was netted by the fire brigade and taken to an animal shelter.

Experts disagree on how damaging raccoons are to the environment.

There is evidence they are reducing numbers of the rare pond turtle from the lake region around Berlin, and in Thuringia, they have been scaring off the large Eurasian eagle-owl by climbing trees and making themselves at home in their nests.

“They’re cheeky and forward,” said Mr Reinwald.

The 1979 Bern Convention, an agreement on measures to preserve European wildlife, placed the raccoon on its list of most dangerous species and recommends strictly controlling its numbers.

However, raccoons are hard to shoot because they are nocturnal and cautious.

Hunters often use special traps to catch them, frequently with chocolate as bait.

Animal welfare groups say that even massive raccoon culls wouldn’t stop them spreading.

“Killings will merely improve the living conditions for the remaining animals and they will multiply even faster,” said Jorg Styrie of the Federal Animal Protection Association.

Experts say the priority is to reduce their numbers in nature conservation areas where they do the most damage to vulnerable wildlife.

In residential areas, there are some simple ways to keep the raiders at bay. For a start, resist the temptation to feed them, even if they flutter their eyes and look cute.

“That’s the worst thing you can do. They’ll just come back to beg for more even though they’ve got no trouble finding food on their own,” said Mr Reinwald.

But now matter what us done, it looks as if Europeans will have to learn to live with the little pests.

“The species is firmly established here,” said Ulf Hohmann, a forest biologist.

The comparison of Pale Grass Blue butterflies from different regions revealed that the radiation from the earthquake and tsunami in March of 2011 that caused nuclear reactors to meltdown is affecting the wildlife.

Some of the effects include proportionately smaller wings and development of eyes differently than the same species of butterflies not impacted by the radiation. “These observations of mutations and morphological abnormalities can only be explained as having resulted from exposure to radioactive contaminants,” a University of South Carolina biologist told the BBC.

Other animals are being affected by the radiation too. Bluefin tuna caught in San Diego, California measured levels of radioactive materials ten times higher than in previous years, but still met government regulations for levels of radiation.

Zookeeper Linda Jacobs said: “They have all the intelligence they need to communicate with us.

“But what they don’t have is developed vocal chords and voiceboxes. This gives them a voice.

“Some of them like carrots more than they like beets. And don’t we all want to have that choice?

“I don’t want to eat the same thing every day that someone else picks for me. I want them to have a choice over their lunches.”

As well as empowering the orangutans, it is hoped that the tech-friendly apes will even be able to social network with visitors to the zoo.

The zoo plans to let people communicate with the animals by setting up interactive screens that sync with the orangutans’ iPads.

Taken in Cuyabeno Rainforest, Ecuador, the clip shows the man holding one of the deadly fish tightly in one hand.

As the fish flaps its tail, unable to escape, he slowly lowers a twig into its mouth full of sharp teeth.

The end of the stick is cut away in a flash, to the shock of onlookers heard gasping behind the camera.

The fish is seen continuing to snap its jaw even after the stick has been taken away.

This extremely rare two-faced black cat — appropriately named Harvey Dent after the Two-Face character in the Batman series — was born healthy and adorable in Port Charlotte, Fla., this week, WWSB ABC-7 reported.

Naturally, the kitten’s humans, Nash Hand and his wife Amanda Forsythe, couldn’t believe what they saw.

“[She said] ‘What are you talking about? What do you mean two faces?’ I said it has two faces! This cat has two faces!” Hand said, according to the station.

Forsyth told media outlets that the mini kitty has four eyes, two tiny mouths and two noses — and they all seem to work.

“They simultaneously work together, the two faces,” Forsyth said. “When he eats on one side it looks like he is eating on the other. When he meows it comes out of both sides.”

But when the couple asked for help on Craigslist, they received quite the opposite. Forsyth said people told her to kill the cat, that it was a “beast” and an “abomination.” But Forsyth, like Harvey Dent’s mom, plans on raising the kitty despite veterinary bill concerns.

Two-faced cats, called Janus cats after the Roman god who had two faces, aren’t born often and have the odds stacked against them due to health problems, Local10.com reports.

But there are plenty of cases of Janus cats living through to old age. In fact, the eldest of the two-faced cats is almost 12 years old, according to Guinness World Records.

Author: Andy Campbell | Source: huffingtonpost [February 3, 2012]

You can shoot an arrow through a cat, but it’s still going to land on its feet.

A stray orange tabby in Houston earned the nickname ‘Cupid’ this week after he survived a piercing shoulder to shoulder wound, KHOU reports.

The 2-year-old feline managed to elude neighborhood residents for about three days before being captured by a member of BARC — the city rescue group — and taken to the Brittmore Animal Hospital.

Dr. Amanda Taylor took x-rays and determined that there was no ‘paws for concern’ before surgically removing the weapon.

“This definitely wasn’t an accident. An orange cat doesn’t look like something you hunt for. Luckily, this kitty is a tough one and came out OK,” said Taylor, according to local reports.

Dr. Taylor added that no vital organs were harmed and that ‘Cupid’ is expected to make a complete recovery.

Source: huffingtonpost[January 22, 2012]