Jay Continutes Relentless Battle Against 3rd Floor Cat

Cat gives blue jay the bird

The eggs have hatched in the fire escape nest built by blue jays on Fifth Street in Manhattan, but that hasn't stopped the blue jay father from obsessing over a cat that lives down the block.


This video compared to the last one shows why you should use a tripod.

The tabby is no threat to him or his brood. But the blue jay is out there every afternoon that I've checked and some mornings, too.
I've also seen the cat hanging out by the window, waiting for his entertainer to show up.

I don't really understand the feeding procedure. The mother blue jay sometimes gapes for her mate. And she also picks up something from the nest and eats it herself.

San Francisco Parties for Return of Runaway Sea Lions (and one of few marine mammal success stories)

Sea lions being admired, courtesy of Pier 39

San Francisco is having a party today to celebrate the return of the best urban marine mammal attractions in the country. The city appreciates its sea lions and is just saying, thank goodness they've come home. When they disappeared from Pier 39 last fall the whole world was worried. (Well, except for those who said that they tend to come and go. Which, it turns out, was right.)

Salty The Sea Lion mascot will be "available for hugs and photos," a press release says. The Pier is also celebrating 20 years of having hundreds of 600-pound predators in a major city. They started showing up after a 1989 earthquake. Instead of getting ousted from valuable real estate, they city enjoyed them as a natural wonder--and created a major tourist attraction.

This could have gone down differently.  The sea lions took over expensive boat docks. Sure, the Marine Mammal Protection Act covers them. But the government is always willing to make exceptions. Oregon fishermen got permission to kill sea lions that hang out at a dam where salmon congregate.

Last year when 1,700 sea lions showed up, they tested San Francisco's tolerance. The harbor drew up plans to keep them away from the nearby Hyde Street Pier.

The population numbers go up and down with weather, currents and food availability, so maybe they won't need to be pushed out. The sea lions' movements are still inscrutable, but the best going theory is that it was good food that brought them in such numbers last year and then herring that took them to the Oregon's Sea Lion Cave over the winter (they usually go south to the Channel Islands).


The California sea lion is making a huge comeback--too big for some. It's one of the few marine mammals whose numbers are healthy and increasing. Of seven sea lion species in the world, only two are not extinct, endangered or threatened, according to the IUCN Red List. The California sea lion is the only one whose population is increasing. Of about 355,000 animals, 238,000 live in California. Even if the disappearance of this crowd was media hysteria over a non-event, that's still something to celebrate.

Where to go to See Seals and Sea Lions 
See the Pier 39 Sea Lion Webcam
Here's where you can see wildlife out West

Arizona Gets its First Wild Ocelot

Sky Alliance 2008 ocelot pix

For the first time ever, an ocelot has been photographed living wild in Arizona, the Sky Island Alliance announced. This small, spotted cat was previously found only in the southern tip of Texas.


The picture was dates Nov. 9, but just physically picked up from a motion-activated wildlife camera last week in Cochise County. That's in the southeast corner of Arizona. Geography buffs will notice that Arizona doesn't even touch Texas. We've got 50 miles of New Mexico in between. "This record from Arizona places ocelots over 200 miles north in latitude from where they are found in Texas," the Sky Alliance says. It looks like its also 200-plus miles west.

IUCN shows ocelots in NE Mexico only

animalfiles show them in SE & NE Mexico

This ocelot may come from a population on the other coast of Mexico. Some rangemaps out there, like this one from theanimalfiles, show the ocelot living in both northeast and northwest, Mexico, but not in between. The preeminent international authority on animal species, the IUCN Red List, shows them only in the northeast and not even touching the United States. It would be a huge boon for diversity of the species if these two prongs of the population could meet up.


Ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) are listed as endangered in both the U.S. and Mexico. They used to range up to Louisiana and Arkansas but were wiped out when farmers cleared out grasslands in the 1930s. Its other big problem is its pretty fur. The IUCN Red List says that worldwide the species is of least concern because it has a big population in Central and South America.

“This ocelot, alive in Southern Arizona, is so exciting to see, to take pride in.  We now know that these incredibly rare cats are here with us, can co-exist with us, and have done so right under our noses,” said Sky Island Alliance biologist Jessica Lamberton.

The volunteers who went out to pick up the camarea were part of Witness for Wildlife and was placed with help from Freedom to Roam, a group that works on wildlife corridors.
 

Where to Go to See Big Cats

Where to Go to See Animals in the West 

Seeing Ocelots in the U.S
They're really hard to see, but the 100-some cats that live in America are mostly concentrated in the 45,000-acre Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, the EDF says. Texas Parks and Wildlife says they're also at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge near Alamo; Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park near Mission; Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area near Edinburg; and Audubon’s Sabal Palm and Grove Sanctuary near Brownsville.

Instead of Going to a Roadside Zoo, Go to the FL Rehabber Who Rescues Their Rejects

Tiger brothers rescued by Wildlife Rehab or Hernando

If you're looking for an animal attraction in central Florida that doesn't make you feel icky about how they treat the animals, check out Wildlife Rehab of Hernando. Jimmy Jablon started out taking in local native wildlife--raccoons, alligators, fox--but demand for exotic animals turned out of homes and those creepy roadside attractions.

When you go to the shelter, less than an hour north of Tampa, you'll get much closer to animals than you would in a zoo and your donation for a tour ($17.50 for adults, $8.50 for kids) will go to help maintain these animals and save others. "We let all the people that come here get close to the animals," he says. "You stand a foot from the tigers and the monkeys are on a fence next to you."

Right now Jablon could use the donations, after spending $8,000 for tests and surgery for a 160 pound lion cub that's now recuperating in his house to ward off infection. Jablon has seen so many of what he calls "photo cubs"--big cats misused to pose for cute pictures when they're young--that he recognized the syndrome. The cat had been underfed and improperly fed and her skull wasn't growing to keep up with her brain. Jablon drained more of his savings from working in the insurance business to pay the vet bills, which he had been hoping to get a break on for rescuing the animal.

Recently he did get a big break thanks to Waste Management and Wal-Mart. Rather than take the retailer's unsold meat to the landfill, Waste Management makes it available to Jablon, who otherwise would have to buy 1,000 pounds of meat a week to keep his carnivores fed. "There's nothing wrong with the meat. Sometimes it's still frozen," he says. Regulations just require removing it after so many days. He's got no such help with produce: he spends about $23,000 a year on fruits and vegetables.

All of his enclosures are about twice the size they need to be, but he wants to give the animals a decent life. He only takes in creatures that he has--or can make--room for. "If I don't I'm just putting them in the same position," he says. He just built a facility for two cats rescued from Vanishing Wildlife, which rented animals out for parties, until the state shut them down.

Native animals only stay if they can't make it in the wild and seem content there. "Don't take an animal that's always been wild and try to keep them behind bars," he warns. He'd rather euthanize the animal than keep it in misery. "If we've got an animal can't be released and it's spending 12 hours a day pacing in his cage, he's just being tormented." 

He keeps an albino raccoon named Stuart Little that wouldn't make it in the wild because predators and other raccoons would pick him out immediately. Stuart has the company of four raccoons with vision, neurological or motor problems. Jablon doesn't ever keep a solitary animal of a social species. He even bought a lemur to keep two rescues company. And he's hoping someone needs a home for a wallaby soon.

The need for an exotic sanctuary just snuck up on him. "Like everybody else, I thought there was somebody else taking care of it," he says. "There's a much bigger need than people are aware of."

He also knows that long-term he can do the most good with education. As a father of a 13-year-old girl who plays a big part in the shelter, he's especially interested in teaching kids about the right way to treat animals. "We try to grab the kids the most," he says. "They put a name or a face to an animals and later they'll say 'Oh, look out, that's a gopher tortoise, don't hit it!'"

Visit Wildlife Rehab of Hernando

See more Wildlife in Florida

Visit Other Big Cat Sanctuaries Around the World

Chicagoland Wildlife Refuge Could Be Chance to See Cougar, Trumpeter Swan, Cranes

This week the Fish and Wildlife Service announced they'd study a plan to start a wildlife refuge between Milwaukee and Chicago. What would the Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge mean for wildlife watchers?
A chance to see cranes, trumpeter swan, otter, badger, coyote, deer--and possibly cougar, whooping cranes, a funny kind of squirrel and some threatened bats and turtles.


The Friends of the Hackmatack NWR  who have already been working for years to get this gonig, in part inspired by the fact that when Audubon Magazine boasted that "a wildlife refuge is located within an hour’s drive of every major metropolitan area" Chicago proved them wrong. It's the biggest city without one. This refuge takes note of the need for wildlife watching near where people live; it's designed to be within two hours of Chicago and Milwaukee. Judging by the excited email I got from my friend David Hall and others, I'd say it would be pretty popular.

Hackatack--named after the larch tree--would try to sew together the patchworkd of 88 parks and preserves already there so that wildlife can have some breathing room. The wildlife service wouldn't force anyone out, but they would offer to buy property within the refuge boundaries.

I did some research on what animals we might expect to see if we visited the refuge:


Cougar:  The Cougar Network has two confirmed sightings in the refuge area since 2008, one with physical evidence, the other verified by a qualified pro.

Trumpeter Swan

Trumpeter Swan: Maybe! This endangered native swan is already very close by in Wisconsin and has benefitted from a massive reintroduction program in Iowa. Illinois seems to be doing next to nothing for these straight-necked swans--except accidentally shooting them down south.

Bats: McHenry County has six species of bats. That includes four that Wisconsin is keeping special watch over:  Eastern Red Bat, Hoary Bat, Northern Long-eared Bat, and the Silver-haired Bat.

Whooping Cran © Luther Goldman

Cranes: Sandhill cranes definitely pass through. The site is on the flyway of the flock of 21 endangered whooping cranes that summer in Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin and winter in  Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge. They are famously being taught the route, which makes stopovers in national wildlife refuges, by ultralight aircraft.

River Otter: Yep, it's all over Wisconsin

Franklin's Ground Squirrel © Tom Schultz

Franklin's Ground Squirrel: Wisconsin calls this a species of greatest concern. It's like a small prairie dog, but quiter and less entertaining.




Badger: Badgers are all over Wisconsin, but rarely seen.

Owls : McHenry has 13 species of owl, including the snowy owl.

Blanding's Turtle: This threatened turtle takes 17 to 20 years to reach maturity.

Blanding's Turtle

Black Bear: Probably not, says Wisconsin, who rates appearances here as rare. No way, says Illinois, who says only one black bear has been seen in the state since 1870 and they kicked that one out.

Wolf: Nope

Lynx: No way

American Marten: No, he's all the way up on Lake Superior

 Where to See More Animals Around the Midwest

Jaguars, Extinct in US, Found Within 30 Miles of Border

A jaguar has been confirmed living--or at least roaming--within 30 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico. The Cougar Network, which tracks big cat sightings, sent out word that the Sky Island Alliance has two photos of jaguars eight days apart about 90 miles north of where everyone thought they lived in Sonora.

Conservation groups like the Northern Jaguar Project,  have worked for years to bring back the big, spotted cat that once ranged as far north as the Grand Canyon across California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and possibly Louisiana.

The find would be significant because last year the last known U.S. jaguar died under circumstances that increasingly look dodgy. Arizona Fish and Game caught Macho B in a trap they said was for bears or cougars. They tranquilized and collared him. Days later the then-sluggish cat was euthanized. The capture and drugs may have hastened his death. Just last month investigators found that the capture was intentional, a possible felony since the jaguar (Panthera onca) is endangered.

Just last month the Fish and Wildlife service reversed a 2006 decision and determined that the jaguar deserves a critical habitat. Even the known population in the Northern Jaguar Preserve, 135 miles south of the border, is cut off by hundreds of miles from the the main population.

The motion-activated game cameras showed the jaguars from different sides, so no one is sure if it's the same cat, Sergio Avila, an alliance biologist in Tucson, told the Arizona Daily Star. A handful of jaguars have been spotted just over the U.S. border in recent decades. Where the sex was determined, it was always males, probably pioneering out to find new territories.


Carlos Elias, co-owner of El Aribabi ranch where the photos were taken, his wife and biologist Avila exploded with joy when they reviewed the pictures and found the jaguar. They "began hugging and cheering - a celebration of three years working together to preserve the excellent ecological conditions on the property so that species like the jaguar have a place to roam and thrive," the Sky Island Alliance reported.

"Our family has worked hard to restore ecological processes in this land," Elias said. "We hope this gets the attention of government agencies and foundations, so we can establish a sustainable model that protects biodiversity and supports landowners and their families at the same time."
Where to See Big Cats Around the World

Survivor China: 3 Kids Camp Out with Tigers in a Safari Park

In China 667 people competed to spend three days in a safari park's tiger compound, enbar.net reports. Three twenty-somethings will get to stay in a cage/cabin at Qinling Safari Park to kick off the Year of the Tiger, which starts February 14.

This is the kind of thing you'd never see in an American safari park, what with the liability issues and common sense we have. From 10 a.m. Sunday to 11 a.m. Wednesday, the two men and one woman will stay in "a 10-square-meter cabin made out of a cage which has been placed at the center of the 'tiger mountain area,' the habitat of 48 wild tigers. The cabin has no electricity, heating or furniture and is covered only with straw to protect the three from the cold."

It's like Survivor, Chinese-style with tigers thrown in. The three bring their own food and tents and keep track of the tigers, with cameras, sound recordings and writings. Li Hang, a 25-year-old TV reporter, also brought his guitar to "kill time and hopefully communicate with the tigers." Oh, he'll be the first one they'll want to eat.

The park claims this stunt is supposed to promote protection and study of the tiger. They could certainly use the help; China recently said it had only 50 wild tigers left. Qinling Safari Park (in northern China's Shaanxi province) seems to be more about gimmicks than protection. This Chinese zoo tourist shows pictures of circus tigers at Qinling. They also had a chimp addicted to cigarettes for 16 years. It's like they're living in 1970s Florida. Still, if given the chance, I'd love to be one of the people in the cage.

Read More Posts about Tigers

Where to Go to See Tigers and Other Big Cats

  Photo Courtesy of Tree of Life Web Project

China Says It Has Only 50 Wild Tigers Left

China's own wildlife officials estimate that only 50 tigers survive within its borders, Xinhua News reports. And those shockingly low numbers include four subspecies. The World Wildlife Fund figures they'll go extinct within 30 years, an estimate which seems optimistic. The IUCN range maps show that tigers are doing much better outside China, sometimes just outside its borders.

China's State Forestry Administration (SFA) says only 20 Siberian tigers remain in China's northeast, 20 Bengal tigers in Tibet, and 10 Indochinese tigers in the southwest. And you can pretty much forget about the South China tiger. Zhu Chunquan, conservation director of biodiversity at WWF China, told AFP: "After the late 1970s, there has been no concrete evidence to show that there are any left."

Siberian Tiger (Pantera tigris ssp. altaic) : endangered (20 in China)

What's weird here is that there's a Siberian Tiger Breeding Center in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, that brags that it's bred 1,000 cats (some pictured here).

The center combines breeding and tourism, but has come under fire for animal cruelty. Specifically, it got in trouble for feeding the tigers live cows and sheep. That wouldn't be bad if they were training tigers to hunt in the wild, but the videos show it's more to make a buck off tourists. The bigger the animal killed, the more the tourist pays. Tourists on this video paid $60 (1,500 renminbi) to see a sheep slaughtered, not splurging $180 to witness a cow death.

The best hope for the Siberian tiger seems to be Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, who fancies them a national symbol.

South China Tigers (Panthera tigris amoyensis) critically endangered and possibly extinct 虎

No one is sure if these cats live in the wild anymore. WWF's estimate that there are zero South China tigers contradicts the group's estimate on its Chinese website of 30-40.

The IUCN says reintroduction is sketchy, but progressing. The UK group Save China’s Tigers, is releasing cats in Zixi, Jiangxi, and Liuyang, Hunan. The controversy is that they're retraining captive, closely-related tigers on private reserves in South Africa. About 70 captives survive, but they're not even 100% genetically South China tigers. The range map shows the animal does much better just outside China.

Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) -Endangered (20 in Tibet)

Most Bengal tigers now live in India. The rangemap tell the story best: The animals live in many countries bordering China to the north and east, but have been wiped out in China.

Indochinese Tiger (Panthera tigris ssp. corbetti) - (10 in the Southwest)

In the IUCN's count, they don't even bother listing China as a habitat anymore. Most live in Thailand.

View AnimalTourism.com Big Cats in a larger map

Where can you see Big Cats?

Siberian Tiger Disappearing But At Least Putin's Cat is Okay

Just when news is breaking that Chinese poachers are wiping out 10-16% of the critically endangered Siberian tiger population each year, Vladmir Putin's tiger went missing. Russians had grown to love (or at least geographically track) this female tiger through Putin's tiger website. But her collar hadn't pinged in three months, exciting worries of poachers, who are wiping out tigers worldwide. The Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) is in special trouble from  poachers who use tiger parts for traditional medicine.

But, Putin's spokesman announced, the only thing that died were the batteries in her collar. She's fine and so is a cub she had recently. 

Which of Putin's tigers is this? It's hard to keep track since Putin has a special relationship with (at least) two tigers. This is the 5-year-old female one he shot with a tranquilizer dart last summer while touring the Usuri Reserve. The other one was a two-month old tiger he got as birthday present.

The first incident with this tiger -- it apparently escaped from trap just as Putin approached, was hit by another dart, but not felled till Putin shot her again -- prompted speculation that it was a dramatic stunt to show off Putin's toughness. But no one questions his fondness for tigers, which he sees as a symbol of Russia. While this tiger slept he talked gently with her, shook her paw and then said good-bye by kissing her on the forehead.

It's certainly good news for the tigers to have Putin as a friend. The Russian Academy of Sciences  (near Vladivostock) is tracking the Siberian or Amur tiger, the world's largest subspecies of tiger. Once considered a big environmental success story because the population recovered to about 500 from only 50. But now scientists fear the number has dropped down to 300 because of Chinese poachers, who leave explosives smeared with fat for the rare cats to swallow. (As usual, no one is sure about the numbers.)

Putin is going to host a worldwide tiger summit in Vladivostock next year as part of a $1 billion drive with the World Wildlife Foundation to double the world's tiger population to 6,500 by 2022. The tigers (and even more endangered Amur leopards) live in a tiny area near the Sea of Japan.

Wanna visit? Russian travel agencies do offer a few options--but not the type of ecotourism Americans may be used to with spas and massages. If you don't get a tip from a park ranger on where a tiger is, this tour guide warns you may have to wait for days in an isolated "hide-out tent" for the tiger to show. Well, at least there's room for ecotourism to grow to support the Amur Tiger.

Want to see big cats? Here's an AnimalTourism.com map and guide to places to see lions, tigers and cougars around the globe

Map of Russian Tiger Hotspots

The jaguar photo was contributed by the Russian Academy of Sciences’ permanent exhibition


View AnimalTourism.com Big Cats in a larger map

Oh, the Silly Things We'll Do To Rescue a Cute Kitten

Skip about 40 seconds into this video from Wildlife Education and Resource Center and you'll get to see some grown women dressing up as a giant (though somewhat disheveled) bobcat and playing with a bobcat kitten. The women rub themselves in bark and sticks to get a nice earthy, non-human scent. Then the lucky ladies step into this homemade costume, which has been pre-scented with bobcat urine.

The WERC center in Morgan Hill, CA (near San Jose), pioneered the technique in 1994. It's all in an effort to prevent the kittens from getting used to the idea of hanging around humans. These lynx turn out fine--as long as they don't stumble upon a mascot convention.

For Sure It's a Cougar in Kansas--Let the Cougar Hysteria Begin

Cougar caught in NM Camera Trap Photo courtesy of J.N. Stuart

A century after the cougar officially disappeared from Kansas, an alert hunter on a tree stand got several photos that for the first time since 1904 prove there's a live mountain lion in the state since 1904. This may set off another round of what Jeff Beringer, a biologist with the state of Missouri, told the Wall Street Journal was "cougar hysteria." As the population of mountain lions grows in the west and expands east, biologists at the Cougar Network are mapping the stunning number of confirmed sightings that now hit every state west of the Mississippi and eight states east of it, including Illinois, New York and Maine.

The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks made the confirmation just through the photo--they didn't find any scat, hair, tracks or other traces. The hunter snapped seven pictures in the brief moments the cat examined bait corn--moments in which most big cat witnesses don't think clearly enough to grab their camera. A Department spokesman Mark Shoup says the cougar never stopped walking and left the area after he looked up at the hunter. According to McClatchy newspapers, the hunter took the pictures on Oct. 12 in northwest WaKeeney in Trego County.

Many cougars have been seen by people in Kansas in the last couple decades, even though the closest established population is in Colorado, hundreds of miles away. Audubon of Kansas has been keeping track of all the potential mountain lion sightings and rumored shootings. One big cat was confirmed (legally) killed a couple years ago. But one dead cougar doesn't mean that there are any left in the population. Especially since bachelor cats are known to roam hundreds of miles looking for a female.

Other states are sure to get more of these successful sightings as years go by. Kansans have been so firmly convinced that they had mountain lions already, they're probably not going to go cougar hysterical about it.

Really Rare Jaguar Euthanized

Arizona Game and Fish had to euthanize a jaguar they caught and collared just a couple weeks ago. We've known jaguars were back in the U.S. since the mid-1990s from pictures on motion-detector cameras. But this was the first time North America's only roaring big cat had been caught in the U.S. And it was by accident--they laid out leg snares for bears and mountain lions. So they'd seen this guy, known as Macho B, for a long time. In fact, he was the oldest jaguar in the wild.

The department made a big show of not telling where this cat was caught. But, given that it took them 13 years to capture this one, I don't really imagine anyone trying to do it in a day on a lark. Since they describe the area as southwest of Tuscon and fitted the collar with a device to go off over the border, I would assume the area was right around Nogales--where the department shows a bear population on their map.

The biologists noticed the jaguar not moving, so they recaptured him and noticed that he'd lost a lot of weight. Tests showed severe kidney failure, something they think takes weeks not just days. But the first blood samples they took from Macho B were only for DNA use, they say, so they won't be able to tell how sick he was when they caught him the first time.

I would think that it would be an incredible coincidence if this wise old cat's death and its collaring happened within two weeks of each other. I don't think there's anything the biologists could have done that would have caused kidney failure. (Though catching an animal in a leg snare wouldn't help.) I think it's more likely that the cat was weakened and that's why he somehow missed one of these traps that he'd been avoiding for all these years.

Macho B was one of only two individuals they knew about in Arizona. The population in northern Mexico is still illegally hunt and caught and is cut off from the rest of the jaguar population. The border fence threatens to divide the territory further--maybe leaving no jaguars on our side. So it would be an incredible feat to get them re-established.