Animal Report

About 30,000 wild horses and burros that roam the open range in 10 Western states, are causing the federal government a lot of grief.  The Bureau of Land Management announced that it was struggling to manage it’s wild horse program and that the horses would either have to be euthanized or sold for slaughter.

But thanks to the help of billionaire T. Boone Picken’s wife, Madeleine, the horses will get the chance to live out there lives free to roam the range.

Her plan includes buying 1 million acres for the horses, although a site has yet to be announced pending negotiations. The BLM has publicly stated it is on board with the Pickens plan and fully supports her efforts. Mrs. Pickens said she plans to make the refuge accessible to the public and that no horse will be turned down from the program.

About 33,000 wild horses and burros roam the open range in 10 Western states; that’s an excess of about 6,000 horses according to the BLM. An additional 33,000 horses that have been gathered from public rangelands are currently awaiting adoption, although the sluggish economy has left these animals lingering in holding pens across the country. The cost of keeping the wild horses in these holding facilities has caused the BLM to consider exporting the animals for slaughter or euthanizing them.

“You shouldn’t be coming to this country to see Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck,” Mrs. Pickens continued in her comments to The Dallas Morning News. “We are more than that. We are a country that was formed on horseback and we should enjoy it, not slaughter it.”

Check out the whole story here.

This adorable little guy is called the Axolotl.  It lives in the murky waters of Lake Xochimilco, a Venice-style destination for tourists, near Mexico City.  Underneath the gondolas and brightly-painted boats, this foot-long salamander, with plumage-like gills has survived Mexico’s urban sprawl, until now.

The Axolotl’s survival is being threatened by non-native species that eat the salamander’s food, and their babies.  Pollution and draining of the canals is also contributing to the desimation of the water monster.

According to the AP report, if conditions don’t change fot he Axolotl, it could very weel be extinct within five years.

Poor chickens!  At a farm in the Wyre Valley, Herefordshire, approximately 30 chickens have lost their lives from a fatal infection.  But it isn’t a virus or disease that is causing the animals to die- the culprit?  Hot-air balloons.

You maybe wondering what hot-air balloons have to do with the death of these hens, the answer is very simply that the balloons frighten the chickens to death.

Since the summer, hot-air balloons have been flying over Caplor Farm, where flock owner Abbi Vincent-Lloyd reports 30 of her 300 chickens have died from panic.

Miss Vincent-Lloyd said: ‘When the chickens see the balloon they go crazy, they think it’s a giant monster coming to eat them.

‘Hot air balloons might look pretty but the chickens are terrified of them especially when they hear the hissing of the gas being put into the balloon.’

An autopsy revealed the cause of death was peritonitis.  The poor chickens run around in a panicked frenzy, desperately seeking shelter, but colliding with one another, causing them to smash their un-laid eggs inside of them.  The broken shells get into their tissue and create a fatal infection.

It definitely sounds like a terribly painful way to go.

The company operating the balloon tours is taking measures to steer clear of Caplor Farm.

“The company’s flight operations director Sandra Hossack said: ‘We obviously work a lot in the countryside and obviously we want to make sure we do not harm or distress any animals we fly over.

‘Our pilots have now updated their aviation maps so that Caplor Farm is marked as somewhere they should avoid or only pass over at high altitude.’”

A hard lesson to be learned for the farmer and her flock.  Big hot-air balloons are no good for little chickens.