Somewhere in backwoods Russia

When the bar owner found out the bear was broke

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Hannah Simpson, of Southland, New Zealand, rides a 7-year-old dairy cow most days. It started when her parents said she wasn’t allowed to have a horse, the then-11-year-old got creative. Now she and Lilac race across fields and master jumps, as documented on Simpson’s Instagram page. Simpson, who works at a dairy farm, says she’s tried to ride other cows but has only had one other that could jump. While Simpson admits she was a particularly adventurous kid when she started, she wouldn’t necessarily advise other people to try riding cows.

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In the United States some rodeos have cow riding for women. These are not docile dairy cows, but mean ornery spinster cows. Hannah should consider joining the circuit. 

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Gizmodo.com

Pakistani nature photographer Atif Saeed managed to capture this stunning shot of a lion — just before it leapt at him.

This photograph was snapped by Atif Saeed at a safari zoo park near Lahore. He got out of his jeep to take the photo, but the sound of the lens’s whizzing caught the lion’s attention. Saeed figures the big cat got as close as 10 feet, before he was able to reach the safety of his jeep.

Once safely inside his vehicle, Saeed started to laugh about what had happened. But after some retrospection he came to realize just how close he came to death — and vowed to never do anything quite as reckless again.

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Falconry has been popular for many centuries around the world. Falconry is the use of Falcons to hunt other creatures. It is especially popular in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in the Middle East.

The sport of falconry began over 5,000 years ago in Iran, and spread over the centuries to East and West. The sport was introduced to Qatar through Bedouin tribes who used the birds as a tool for hunting. They discovered that it was much easier to allow the raptors to take down birds migrating across the Arabian Peninsula than it was to shoot them down themselves. This Bedouin method of falconry set the basis for the modern version of the sport practiced in Qatar.

Although, over the centuries, falconry has virtually disappeared from the European continent, the sport lives on in the Middle East. In Qatar, you can still purchase falcons in downtown Doha at falcon souqs or through private dealers. The best raptors can cost thousands of dollars and may even be issued their own Qatari passports to ensue they are not stolen or taken out of the country without the owner’s permission. Due to these elaborate methods of theft prevention, it is not uncommon for you to be seated beside a full-grown falcon when travelling on a Middle Eastern airliner.

In a Qatar Airways economy cabin of a flight between Baku, Azerbaijan, and Doha, Qatar, a group of Qatari men sit on the plane with their treasured birds. The men practise the art of falconry and to escape the heat of Qatar flew for a week to the cooler weathers of Azerbaijan to let the birds fly. The birds cost over US$10,000 each, have micro-chips in their legs so they can find them if they fly off and documents allowing them to travel abroad.

From Airport Guide Traveller:

Live animal facility

All pets travelling via Hamad International Airport enjoy the comfort of our dedicated live animal facility while they wait for their connecting or departing flights. This is a secure and climate-controlled environment that is supervised by trained animal handlers.

Collecting your pet

An airline representative in  the baggage claim area will deliver your pet to you in person. Please contact the Airline Baggage Service office near Belt 1  (map) if you need any assistance. Once you’ve collected the rest of your checked baggage please proceed to Customs where your pet’s travel documents will be inspected.

Things to remember

• Please inform your airline well in advance to finalize travel arrangements and documentation for your pet.
• Please make sure your pet is secured in a suitable container and has access to food and water.

Falcons

Some airlines, such as Qatar Airways, will allow your falcon to travel with you in the passenger cabin (only in Economy Class). Other airlines may accept your falcon for travel but only as checked baggage. Before starting your journey please consult your airline for guidance.

An amazing specimen from Kazakhstan:

 

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been taking asylum in the London’s Ecuadorian Embassy since 2012 due to rape allegation. No doubt, that gets lonely. How does he manage? Well, the cat’s out of the bag.

Known only as “Embassy Cat,” Assange’s feline companion appeared in a window this morning and watched reporters flock to the embassy door as Assange would be questioned by Swedish prosecutors for the aforementioned 2012 rape allegation. As Assange was interviewed for the rape allegation, the world fell in love with Embassy Cat, who enjoys a fish, balls of yarn, and Hillary Clinton’s email scandals. @EmbassyCat has 22,000 followers on Twitter. If you’re wondering if @EmbassyCat is good at Twitter, it mostly Tweets about emails and Hillary Clinton.

After some time of watching the media from, Embassy Cat made a costume change and returned with a red and white stripped tie around its neck. It’s cute, but maybe not cute enough to forget that Assange was currently being interviewed about a rape allegation, which he has been evading since 2012.

Anyway, here’s the cat!

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BBC

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Officials in India have “arrested” 18 lions as they try to find a man eater suspected of killing three people.

Forest officials in Gujarat state will test the lions’ prints and excrement in an attempt to identify the killer.

The “guilty lion” will be kept in a zoo for life while the others will be released back into the Gir sanctuary, the officials told BBC Hindi.

Six attacks on humans have been reported recently near the sanctuary, the only habitat of the Asiatic lion.

Gujarat’s top forest official, JA Khan, said that the lions had been “arrested” over the past two months and were now being held in separate cages while tests were carried out.

“We think we have pinpointed the guilty lion, but we are still awaiting the results of nine more animals,” he said.

Innocent lions will be released back into the Gir forest

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Wildlife expert Ruchi Dave told the BBC that the “tests” involved studying the pug marks and faecal matter of the lions.

“The officials are also studying the animals’ behaviour. Man eating lions usually get aggressive at the sight of a human being,” she said.

Another wildlife expert Revtubha Raizada said the man-eating lion would be caged for the rest of its life, as it was too unsafe to release it back into the wild.

Some experts feel that the thriving lion population in Gir forest is to blame for the “unusual” behaviour by the lions.

Govind Patel, the former chief wildlife warden of Gujarat, told the Indian Express newspaper that Gir could accommodate only 270 lions, forcing some prides to settle outside the boundaries of the sanctuary.

India’s Supreme Court has ruled that Gujarat needed to relocate some of its lions to other states to avoid the possibility of disease or other disaster wiping out the entire population.

However the state has expressed reluctance and has not yet complied with the order.

 

Six cases of lions attacking humans have been recently reported near the Gir forest

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The Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), also known as the Indian lion or Persian lion, is a lion subspecies that exists as a single population in India’s Gujarat state. It is listed as Endangered by IUCN due to its small population size. Since 2010, the lion population in the Gir Forest National Park has steadily increased.

In May 2015, the 14th Asiatic Lion Census was conducted over an area of about 20,000 km² (7,700 sq mi); the lion population was estimated at 523 individuals, comprising 109 adult males, 201 adult females and 213 cubs.

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Asiatic lion at Gir Forest National Park.

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After a video was posted to Facebook that showed a man attempting to cuddle with a Kodiak bear, over 11 million people had a logical response: Click.

Presumably, because human-bear encounters are not known for ending well, these millions of viewers wanted to see what happened next. Whatever they were expecting, it was probably not a love fest between 59-year-old Jim Kowalczik and a 22-year-old bear that Mr. Kowalczik raised from an injured cub into a 1,500-pound, 9-foot-tall pet.

In the video, the bear, named Jimbo, licks Mr. Kowalczik’s face while giving him a literal bear hug. Mr. Kowalczik reciprocates with a loving back rub. As you do.

This video and several others were posted by the Orphaned Wildlife Center, a rehabilitation center in Otisville, N.Y., that Mr. Kowalczik, a retired corrections officer, and his wife, Susan, 57, formally started as a nonprofit in 2015. The footage posted by the group provides a rare and intimate glimpse at an animal that is best viewed at a distance.

Jimbo, also called Jimmy, is one of 11 bears that live at the 100-acre facility about two hours north of New York City. Jimbo and the others were brought in as cubs suffering from injuries that rendered them unable to survive in the wild, Kerry Clair, a director for Orphaned Wildlife, said in an interview on Tuesday. Along with bears, the group rehabilitates horses, deer and squirrels. But this is not a zoo: Since the main goal is to rehabilitate the animals, the public can’t visit, Ms. Clair said.

“Our primary purpose is to release these animals into the wild,” Ms. Clair said. “We only keep them if there’s some problem.”

The bears that remain on the grounds are as friendly as Jimbo, she said, because they were raised by humans from an early age. The downside is that once they become close to humans, they cannot return to the wild.

In many ways, the scene at Orphaned Wildlife goes against nature. First of all, it is a rare communal living situation for an animal that normally travels alone. The males and females are separated, but the members of the group, comprising Kodiak bears, brown bears, Syrian brown bears and a black bear named Frankie, all roam near one another.

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