Tag Archives: Animals

Antarctic Views: Emperor Penguin Chicks Early Life

Narrated by Kate Winslet, Snow Chick – A Penguin’s Tale tells the story of an emperor penguin chick’s first precarious months of life as it grows up in the world’s most extreme nursery.

Emperor penguins are the only animals to breed in the Antarctic winter, and after months of blizzards and temperatures of -60C, male emperor penguins are watching and waiting for their chicks to hatch. Snow Chick is the last to emerge into this harsh, frozen world.

As he takes his first steps, he tries to fit in with the baby penguin gang, but when you’re so small it’s hard to be accepted by the bigger chicks. Soon he ventures too far from his mother for comfort and gets lost in a storm. Later, he’s chased by chick-snatching penguins and escapes a scavenging petrel by the fluff of his back – all the while slipping and skating on treacherous ice. With the arrival of the comical and pugnacious adelie penguin, colony life is turned upside down. But it signals a bigger change – the parents who braved long and treacherous journeys across the sea ice to bring back food eventually return no more. With his band of penguin brothers, Snow Chick has no choice but to make his own way to the sea. A few more adventures lie ahead before he gets tossed unceremoniously into the open ocean – his new home for the next four years.

An enchanting and action-packed dramatised Christmas treat, featuring one of the cutest and toughest creatures on Earth. Filming over a whole Antarctic year, the crew endured some of the toughest conditions on earth to capture these astonishing moments of intimate behaviour.

Nature Views: Pronghorn Antelope In Montana (CBS)

“Sunday Morning” takes us among pronghorn antelope at play near Virginia City in Montana. Videographer: Brad Markel.

The pronghorn is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not a true antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American antelopeprong buckpronghorn antelopeprairie antelope, or simply antelope because it closely resembles the antelopes of the Old World and fills a similar ecological niche due to parallel evolution. It is the only surviving member of the  family Antilocapridae.

Views: Protecting Brazil’s Golden Lion Tamarin

Concerned by a recent drop in population numbers of the threatened golden lion tamarin, conservationists in Rio de Janeiro state have built a bridge across a busy highway to help the monkeys circulate over a wider forested area.

The golden lion tamarin, also known as the golden marmoset, is a small New World monkey of the family Callitrichidae. Native to the Atlantic coastal forests of Brazil, the golden lion tamarin is an endangered species.

Views: ‘7 Daring Animal Migrations’ (Smithsonian)

From one million wildebeest crossing croc-infested waters to a manatee’s journey to warmer waters, here’s a closer look at 7 daring animal migrations.

Video timeline: 0:00 Intro to 7 Daring Animal Migrations | Smithsonian Channel 1:00 1 million wildebeest cross these croc-infested rivers 2:51 The largest mammal migration in the world 4:19 The pragmatic way African buffalos organize their herds 7:06 Thousands of monarch butterflies take flight 11:03 A manatee embarks on an inland journey to warmer waters 14:05 Yellowstone bison are built for winter survival 18:00 Why birds flock to this South African nature reserve

Culture: The Importance Of Camels In Somalian Life

They are valued for their milk, valued for their meat and valued as well for their strength. #Camels are at the heart of traditional #Somali life as nomadic populations rely on them more than ever with the #climate crisis.

New Books: ‘The Golden Retriever Photographic Society’ By Bruce Weber

The Golden Retriever Photographic Society is Bruce Weber’s first career-spanning collection of his famed photographs of man’s best friend, and one he describes as his most personal. This book celebrates the human-animal bond, illuminating how connection to one’s pets can fuel creativity, provide companionship, and foster an abundance of joy.

TASCHEN

Friends for Life

Bruce Weber’s photographs of the dogs always by his side

The photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber is associated with a wide array of imagery: humanist portraits of artists, actors, and athletes; fashion spreads charged with emotion, irreverence, and nostalgia; lyrical tributes to eroticism and an arcadian vision of the American landscape. All these things—and golden retrievers, too. Since the very beginning, Weber has been accompanied on his travels by a pack of these benevolent canines, who have populated his photographs for fashion campaigns, prominent magazines, and the pages of his personal scrapbooks in equal measure. 

The Golden Retriever Photographic Society is Weber’s first career-spanning collection of these photographs, one he describes as his most personal. In the introduction to the monograph, Weber remarks, “People sometimes say to me, ‘In my next life, I want to come back as one of your dogs.’” Paging through this volume, we understand the sentiment. For five decades, these golden retrievers have been foils for Weber’s imagination, storybook characters in the expansive life he has created with wife, Nan Bush. This book celebrates the human-animal bond, illuminating how connection to one’s pets can fuel creativity, provide companionship, and foster an abundance of joy.

The photographer and author

Photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber first rose to international prominence in the early 1980s on the success of images that combined classical styling with more visceral underpinnings of mood and sexuality. His ability to construct a seamless sense of romance and drama created the central public images for fashion houses like Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Versace, and Abercrombie and Fitch, as well as earning him an enduring presence as a contributor to magazines at the very highest levels in the industry. Throughout his career, Weber has worked in various forms–he has directed seven short- and feature- length films, published more than 37 books, and has held more than 60 exhibitions worldwide–extending his lifelong exploration of the nature of human relationships.

The author

Jane Goodall is the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, which she has been studying for 60 years in what is now Tanzania. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats, and for the past 30 years has been speaking about the threats facing them, as well as other environmental crises, and of her hope that humankind will solve the problems it has imposed on Earth. In 2002, Goodall was appointed to serve as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and in 2004 she was named a Dame of the British Empire.

The designer

Dimitri Levas has been designing books since 1985, working on many Robert Mapplethorpe books and catalogues as well as numerous book projects with Bruce Weber. Levas is vice president and artistic director for The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.

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Views: How Sperm Whales Outsmarted Hunters

The sperm whale is the world’s largest toothed predator. It also has the biggest brain of any animal on earth.. This mind has helped them outwit their natural predators, but what happened when sperm whales came up against humans?

The sperm whale or cachalot is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus Physeter and one of three extant species in the sperm whale family, along with the pygmy sperm whale and dwarf sperm whale of the genus Kogia.