Results tagged “animals”

    

This week's Adoptable Pet from Second Chance Animal Aid, Shanghaiist's favorite adopted animal charity.

In this video, a hapless zookeeper is outwitted by two mischievous panda cubs. One playfully distracts him long enough for the other to open the zoo gate. Both then make a dash for the real world. Oh pandas, if only you knew how ill-adapted to the real world you guys really were.

So we stumbled upon one of the longer articles we've seen on China Daily lately and it's about... a BBC presenter that doesn't like pandas. Wildlife expert Chris Packham told Radio Times magazine that he reckoned they should “pull the plug... Here's a species that, of its own accord, has gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac. Unfortunately, it's big and cute and a symbol of the World Wide Fund for Nature and we pour millions of pounds into panda conservation.” After controversy reared its ugly head, Packham apologized for his statements. Oh geez, if people could get Packham to retract his comments, maybe we've got to tone down on our panda hate too.

Feel like walking on the wild side for the upcoming October holidays? Then check out the new Shanghai Wild Animal Park exhibit that just opened yesterday. Called "The Carnival of Animals," the new exhibit has over 1000 types of nine rare species, all there to help celebrate the 60th Anniversary. If you go between now and October 30th, you'll be able to see:

One of the first idioms you learn in Chinese class is "Hua She Tian Zu 画蛇添足," which tells the story of a man who lost a snake drawing contest by painting feet on his picture and means something along the lines of "adding too much to something ruins it." Well, this guy probably wouldn't lose the contest in this day in age now that a snake with a foot has been discovered in Southwest China. A 66-year-old woman named Duan in Suining found "this monster" crawling along her wall. Mrs. Duan then grabbed a shoe, beat the snake to death and threw its carcass into a bottle of alcohol to preserve it. We wonder what other Chinese idioms will be rendered moot by weird mutations. Source: Telegraph UK

Remember when we told you about the city-wide dog cull? It's getting more serious - the municipal government is currently drafting more stringent laws regarding dog ownership.

   

According to Netease, around 5am yesterday morning, a 1.5-meter long crocodile was found in the construction area of Subway Line 10, Dongfang Mall stop in the Yangpu district. Workers immediately called the police and, with the help of firemen, the croc was caught and carried away safely.

Dog owners watch out! According to Second Chance Animal Aid, Shanghai authorities are planning a dog cull from July 27 to September 15. Between 4 to 9pm each of those days, officers will send teams out onto streets and compounds to hunt for unlicensed dogs. They aren't very forgiving - at least not when its an ayi walking your prized pups - so please get your dog licensed immediately or, if you have one, carry your license everywhere. We nearly had a German Shepherd put down in front of his owner during our Independence Day party (he didn't have a license) and we don't want to experience that scare again.

We've mentioned before that we will continue to support the baby tiger cause on this site, if only because we feel they always get second billing to baby pandas, despite being evolutionarily superior. China Daily has an absolutely adorable photo gallery up on its site of South China tiger cubs that were bred in Henan province. Four cubs were born at the Wangcheng zoo in Luoyang in April, and now that they're two-months-old and doing very well, they are being called “a major breakthrough in the artificial breeding technique of the endangered species.” The LATimes had more info about this specific tiger breed, noting that South China tigers are physically smaller than their Bengal and Siberian tiger cousins and with more widely spaced stripes. Chairman Mao was not a fan of them, ordering them eliminated because they were "pests." Their number plummeted in the following years and they were thought to be extinct until one was spotted in the wild for the first time in decades in 2007. Go tigers!

A group of cat lovers saved over 300 furry friends last night from being sold to restaurants in Guangdong Province after rescuing them from a cat dealer this weekend.

Get ready to say goodbye to Fido... if he's the second dog you have.

What’s causing these wing-like appendages is still a mystery, but theories have been aplenty since the first incidence of winged cats appeared in Sichuan. Cat owners there reasoned that the province's hot summer spell and a stressful love life for their felines were causing wings to appear. Scientists were not convinced.

Just two days ago, a four-year-old Siberian Tiger at the Changchun Zoo in Jilin gave birth to a healthy little cub. Since we've never quite understood why Tigers were the redheaded stepchild to Giant Pandas in this country (their diets actually make evolutionary sense, for goodness sake!), we've made it our mission to publicize it whenever these furry little creatures take a step back from extinction. Hurrah for Siberian Tigers!

This weekend, support both your local amateur artists and Shanghai's favorite pet charity with a fun lunch at Café DuMonde 咖啡杜梦in Pudong. Second Chance Animal Aid (SCAA) will be holding the awards ceremony for their art contest there on Saturday, April 25.

      

Sure, we already gave it a first visit last year, but this is a museum that virtually commands us to try it again.

According to Netease, a pig farmer in Zhejiang province found this little porker amongst a litter of eight by his 4-year-old sow. The piglet has three eyes and two mouths and the ability to make anyone who looks at its picture squeal.

Second Chance Animal Aid, that awesome organization that helps stray or abandoned pets find loving homes in Shanghai needs you... to get creative! They're calling all artists - of any age - to submit work for the 2009 SCAA Art Contest.

Danwei recently wrote an excellent post an on a new graphic novel we would love to get a peek at called Tibetan Rock Dog by rock star, Zheng Jun. Zheng Jun, combines his interest in animals, cartoons and music to create a graphic novel that he hopes will "give ourselves the decent childhood we missed, a deluxe childhood that a healthy, happy individual ought to have." Zheng Jun sees the graphic novel as a medium for adults to "enjoy the storied benefits of childhood."

By Richard Yu

    

One of the many things we like about living in apartments in a Longtang (those classical Shanghai lanes) is the chance to spy on our neighbors - especially when they engage in activities we thought had all but disappeared.

If you ever find yourself in Ningbo (about a two hour distance from Shanghai), check out their zoo. The staff have reportedly trained a sea lion to write a word in Chinese. Peter, a six-year-old male, can now write 牛 (bull), and sign off on his work with a special "sea lion" stamp. Cute! No word on whether the trainers will teach him anything else, since 牛 took him a good three months to master. Source: Ananova

Photo from arndalarm

Get it on with Durex.

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

A farm dog in Fujian Province has found itself an unlikely helper for raising its newborn puppies: a chicken. The hen reportedly moved into the kennel after the dog gave birth last month and has refused to leave since. She watches over the puppies all day, only walking outside when the dog is nursing, and refuses to let anyone else near them. Talk about mother henning. Source:Ananova

According to the following report, a panda has mauled a man at the Beijing zoo. The cause for the violent outburst appears to be stupidity: a man was trying to recover a toy his child dropped in the bear cage. Though there are many that think it's silly to give a child your seat on the subway, jumping into a bear cage has to be considered a major victory for the xiao huangdi camp.

This Chinese shepherd has found a novel way to both save money on a sheep dog and to keep his flock in line at the same time — by showing his flock a picture of a wolf! Ananova quotes a man from Xi'an by the name of Du Hebing who tells Huashang Daily he shot the picture by chance:

"After visiting Qinling Wild Animal Park, on the way home I saw a group of sheep walking along the road with a man holding a picture following behind them," he said.

Continue reading "Shepherd keeps flock in line by showing them wolf picture"

Zookeepers at Polar Land in Harbin, China have observed a pair of gay penguins trying to dupe other straight penguins by placing stones in front of them before waddling away with their eggs thinking no one was watching. Eventually, the straight penguins realised what their gay friends have been up to and started to actively ostracise them from their social club. Keepers had to intervene by segregating the pair of three-year-old male penguins (how cruel!) "to avoid disrupting the rest of the community during the hatching season". The odd behaviour of the gay penguins has been explained as being a manifestation of the strong paternal instinct of male penguins that exists irrespective of sexual orientation.

As we mentioned earlier, a temporary permission allowing guide dogs in public places has now run out of time. For the seven people in China who have seeing eye dogs, it's back to pre-Paralympic times. However, we've noticed that bakery chain Café 85 C has understood the use of these dogs. Smoking, outside food and photography are not allowed at the chain and neither are pets, unless they are guide dogs.

• Take note, all you kinky bastards out there. Novelty chocolate body spreads manufactured in Zhongshan, Guangdong and sold in sex shops across Britain have been found to contain melamine. In New Zealand, chocolate body pens and spreads have also been taken off the shelves. Edible toys from your local sex store are not a good idea. Make a trip to the organic food store instead.
• In Korea, melamine has been found in processed egg products from China such as duck’s yolk powder, egg power, albumen power and yolk liquid. Authorities have ordered the immediate destruction of 23.2 tons currently held by importers.
• 2 more made-in-China biscuit products manufactured under the Korean brand Lotte have been found to contain melamine in the Philippines.