Pictures tell the story

So much has happened...One of the biggest things has been the Australian bush fires in Victoria. We all know about the tragic loss of lives and it deeply saddens me. I'm happy to see the strength in people pulling through and helping each other.

Our wildlife has taken a huge blow during this time as well. It is estimated that the wildlife death toll could top one million or more. Owners have been parted from their pets during the panic and rush to leave their homes.

Volunteers have worked around the clock to save the surviving wildlife and companion animals. They have treated burns and infections, respiratory conditions and worse. I shed many, many tears over the loss of people and animals in these fires. I only wish there was more I could do to help. I have no income I cannot donate. I wish I could donate my time and effort to help.

Bless you, all of you hero's and angels donating your time, money, effort, energy to helping fight the fires, save lives of all kinds.

Good luck to all. Here are some photos of the lucky ones to make it through...I think they tell the story better than I can.











If your touched you can help here:
http://www.wildlifevictoria.org.au/
http://www.rspcavic.org/
http://www.redcross.org.au/default.asp

Back to blogging world

Just wanted to say thank you all for your support in comments and reading my blog.
I am sorry I have been away for about a month. I have been going through a tough time of late, I'm no longer at my job, I haven't been well. I am back however and feeling strong.

I have been reading your blogs but have not been commenting as much as I would like to, so my apologies.

Here's to many more stories to share

x

12,000 reasons to desex your cat!

This story tells it how it is. straight out. Please be a responsible pet owner... desex, microchip AND register your cat/dog!

story from brisbanetimes.com.au

This woman has killed 100 cats this week.

She had to.

Euthanasing cats and kittens is her business.

Melanie "Minnie" Layton is an animal attendant at the RSPCA's centre at Fairfeld.

Recent moves by the State Government to force councils to make it compulsory for people to register their cats by July 1 may be one small way of making her job easier.

However, if councils don't strongly encourage ratepayers to desex their cats - with hefty discounts for desexed cats in the new cat registrations - her job will continue to be as hard as it really is.

On the day we spoke it had been a hard day.

"The other day we had to euthanase 32 cats, primarily because there are just too many cats," Minnie said.

"And these were beautiful cats. There was nothing wrong with them - they were healthy, really beautiful cats," she said.

"And that is really hard to deal with because they don't deserve that.

"They deserve to live and be happy and healthy."

The irony for the Queensland's peak animal welfare organisation, the RSPCA, is that too many Queenslanders and certainly Brisbanites think cats and kittens are cute, but easily disposable.

When they become an inconvenience, they are dumped.

The RSPCA receives 18,000 cats and kittens each year and kills 12,000 of them by legal injection.

Minnie Layton's job is to clean up that mess.

For five days straight in a month-long roster, Minnie Layton puts cats and kittens to death.

Stray cats have a three-day shelf life, but if someone surrenders their own cat, they have just 24 hours.

And it is not pretty.

Unfortunately, it is pretty necessary.

The RSPCA would choke if she didn't do her job.

Minnie Layton might spend three days looking after cats and kittens and then, on the fourth day come and collect the cats that the vet marks with a big "C" on the chart above their stall.

They all go off to "Central", the centre at the RSPCA's Fairfield home where they are killed.

After that, the cats get an injection in the stomach with a legal mix of barbiturates.

And then there is the disposal.

"After the euthanasing we have to check to make sure that they have passed away," Minnie explains.

"And after that we have to look after each body and dispose of each correctly."

That part gets serious.

Every animal attendant has a soft side.

Later, Minnie says the euthanasing is a hard, but necessary part of her job - something that effects all her colleagues.

"They have images of cats they have euthanased going through their heads at night," Minnie said.

"And they always question themselves. Why? Why that cat?

"You just question the owners of the cats. Why didn't you get your cat de-sexed."

Perhaps surprisingly, Minnie does have pets.

"I have two cats, a dog and a fish."

help out here: RSPCA

Happy Australia Day

Change In Koala Habitat

Firstly is a map of the Koala population in 1788 and 2008.

See it for yourself… the huge impact our urbanised lifestyle has had on our country and the devastating loss the land has felt since Europeans settled in Australia.


These maps depict more than just the trees that we have lost over the last three centuries, they show the mass deterioration of the habitat of over 400 endangered species.

The koala is our nation’s icon and is one of the many species that have been left to survive amongst our toxic urbanised world.

Over $8 million of science simply and powerfully demonstrates the devastation that Australian biodiversity has faced since1788.

This is the hard evidence we can use to awaken the world’s decision makers and ensure they take immediate action to protect the koalas and the rest of Australia’s biodiversity.

Don't take my fur!

I do think it looks better on you.

mimicking human behaviour

An interesting story from national geographic.com

Bonnie's whistling isn't so surprising to her caregivers. The 140-pound (63.5-kilometer) orangutan at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., has been whistling for about two decades.

Now a new study suggests that the sounds she makes could hold clues about the origins of human language.



"The assumption is that someone was whistling and she probably picked it up from them," said animal keeper and study co-auther Erin Stromberg.

Lisa Stevens, the zoo's curator for great apes and giant pandas, said the key point is that the orangutan was not trained to whistle.

While orangutans can be taught new sounds with extensive training, Bonnie is the first indication that the animals can independently pick up the sounds from other species.

"It's something she spontaneously developed," Stevens said. "It wasn't a trick."

Mimicking Motions

Orangutans are known to imitate humans. Bonnie, for instance, sometimes sweeps up after herself, just as her caretakers do, even though the zookeepers don't encourage this behavior.

Lead author Serge Wich of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, said orangutans in Indonesia have been seen pretending to wash clothes.

"We know they are capable of imitating these motor skills, but we never had any good indication of sounds for vocalization," said Wich, who presented his research on December 18 during a symposium at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Bonnie the Orangutan Whistling