Date: 27-Jan-10
Country: THAILAND
Author: REUTERS

Photo: Sukree Sukplang

Three Baby Pigs Rests Next To Their Adoptive Mother, Sai Mai, An Eight-Year-Ancient Tiger, At The Sriracha Tiger Zoo In Thailand’s Chonburi Province

Three baby pigs rests next to their adoptive mother, Sai Mai, an eight-year-ancient tiger, at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Thailand’s Chonburi Province, nearly 100 km (62 miles) east of Bangkok January 26,2010.

Tiger numbers have fallen by more than 70 percent in slightly more than a decade in the Greater Mekong, with the region’s five countries containing only 350 tigers, according to a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report released on Monday.

http://planetark.org/wen/56491
(Submitted by Tim Chapman)

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Tuesday, 24 November 2009

The world’s oldest sheep has died in Australia at the age of 23 – twice the normal life expectancy – after succumbing to a record heatwave.

Lucky hit the Guinness record in 2007 and was a celebrity in her hometown of Lake Bolac, near Melbourne.

The ewe had died on Monday at the farm where she had been found as a small lamb, her owner Delrae Westgarth said.

Lucky was hand-reared from birth after being abandoned by her mother. She went on to have 35 offspring of her own.

“She used to come and howl at the back gate, torment the dogs and that sort of thing,” Mrs Westgarth told public broadcaster ABC.

Lucky, a Polwarth-Dorchester cross, succumbed to a weeklong heatwave, as temperatures soared above 30C (86F).

“We brought her into the shed where she was reared and place air conditioners on her,” Mrs Westgarth said, but she did not survive.

Lucky – who became toothless and arthritic in her ancient age – had been buried under her favourite nectarine tree, Mrs Westgarth added.

A copy of her Guinness World Record certificate is on the wall of Lake Bolac’s tourist information centre, which carries Lucky postcards, bookmarks and wool samples for sale, the Melbourne Herald-Sun reports.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8376053.stm

(Submitted by Tim Chapman)

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Wednesday, 4 November 2009

Six sheep belonging to a farmer who lives near Ardboe in County Tyrone have been targeted in a paint attack.

The man, who is a Protestant and wants to remain anonymous, said his animals had been daubed with tricolours.

The farmer said he would usually have sold the sheep by this stage but he cannot bring the animals to market covered in the indelible dye.

He said he will now have to wait until next May when their fleeces can be shorn.

Conor Macauley reports.

See video at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8342601.stm

(Submitted by Tim Chapman)

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