When two female royal albatrosses at a New Zealand breeding colony embarked on a lesbian relationship, there were some raised eyebrows. But when the pair successfully incubated a chick, wildlife experts were delighted – and surprised.

The father – one of scores of males at the Taiaroa Head Royal Albatross Centre on the South Island’s Otago Peninsula – appears to have disappeared. He will play no role in the upbringing of his week-old chick and, just like an increasing number of children, this bird will grow up with two mothers.

“It’s quite unusual in the albatross population here at Taiaroa Head to have two females mating together,” Lyndon Perriman, the colony’s head ranger, told Television New Zealand. “Even more unusual than that is that the egg is actually fertile this season.”

While homosexuality is well documented in the animal kingdom, including among seabirds, Taiaroa Head – the only mainland albatross breeding colony in the world – has recorded only two previous instances of females setting up a nest together in the past 70 years. Neither resulted in a happy ending.

The latest pair had tried nesting with a male albatross during two previous breeding seasons, but the threesome did not work out. This time, the two females took turns sitting on the egg.

Sam Inder, the manager of the center, said: “It’s an unusual situation because we’ve had a triangle with one male and two females for the past couple of years, and obviously that hasn’t been terribly conducive to getting on with a breeding program. This year, the male left the trio, but obviously not before he had mated with one of the females.”

The male has not been seen since, and Mr. Inder told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “My personal view would be having to live with two women might be just a bit demanding.”

Initially, rangers at the center were not sure whether the female pair would stay together, so they tried them out with a dummy egg. When they proved to be good parents, the original egg was returned to the nest. Now the ladies are taking turns to guard the chick and fly out to sea to fetch food.

There are about 140 royal albatrosses on the colony with wingspans of nearly 10 feet. This season 17 chicks have hatched from 17 fertile eggs, a rare 100 per cent success rate.

It is not the only same-sex pairing within the animal world on the Otago Peninsula, just south of Dunedin. Currently, two male yellow-eyed penguins – an endangered species like the royal albatross– are incubating an egg.

[Courtesy of TheIndependent.co.uk]

Yesterday was February 2nd, also known as Groundhog’s Day. Some may just be reminded of the 1993 Bill Murray comedy, but all jokes aside, this year’s annual tradition had plenty of surrounding controversy. Special interest group PETA has spent the last few weeks attempting to allow the special groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, to sleep through his hibernation period instead of waking him up to allow him to find his shadow. Their solution to Phil’s extended nap? A robotic stand-in! PETA representatives have stated that it’s unfair to keep the animal in captivity and subject him to bright lights and huge crowds during the annual Pennsylvania festival.

However, much to the dismay of anti-Phil actives, the president of the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, Mr. William Deeley, says the animal “is being treated than the average child in Pennsylvania.” Officials say the groundhog is kept in a climate-controlled environment and is inspected annually by the state Department of Agriculture. Hence, the robo-dog idea is a no-go, and Punxsutawney Phil was awoken for the festival.

And the outcome, of course? Phil says: six more weeks of winter. The Inner Circle announced Phil’s forecast at dawn on Gobbler’s Knob, a site about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

The groundhog’s shadow forecast is rooted in German traditions, stating that if a hibernating animal sees its shown on February 2nd, the Christian holiday of Candlemas, winter will last another six weeks. If not, legend has it that spring will come early that year. Other sources claim that about 1,000 years ago, before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar when the date of the equinox drifted in the Julian calendar, the spring equinox fell on March 16 instead, which is exactly six weeks after February 2. Regardless of the source, this famous Pennsylvanian tradition has been ongoing since 1886.

Visit The Inner Circle’s Official Groundhog Day website for more information.

Sit! Heel! Stay! Pray!

Pray? Okay, so it’s not an actual command, but it might as well be at St. Giles the Abbot Parish Church in England, one of a few churches where you’ll find a set of paws in the pews.

One of the regular congregants there is Zack, a sweet-natured, 7-year-old Alsatian-Collie mix who attends services every Sunday and Thursday, and doesn’t make a peep as he sits happily among other worshippers for the full hour. “He really is a beautiful animal, and the congregation adore him,” the rector, Father Ian Thurston, told the Sentinel. “He loves the church and attending services. He will sit among the congregation and is always quiet and knows what is going on.”

Zack has had a tough life—he was abused as a puppy before being rescued by Edwina Griffiths, who gave him a wonderful home for four years. But then, three years ago, Griffiths died of cancer, leaving Zack to be looked after by her relatives—and by Father Thurston, who remembered Griffiths bringing Zack to Mass.

Thurston kept up the practice, and now parishioners don’t merely tolerate Zack’s attendance, they seem to be comforted by it. More than one has said it appears Zack follows along with the service—and gives off an almost spiritual vibe. “He is such a presence,” congregant Joy Lunn told the Sentinel. “He really respects what is going on and is accepted as part of our worship.”

[Photo Courtesy: Zuma]

Using the lush surroundings of his home town of Eastern Shore, Maryland as his muse, Sam’s paintings are attracting a loyal art world following.

Some of his 22 paintings – done using a tailor-made paintbrush held in his mouth – have sold for up to $1700.

“Sam is a regular renaissance dog and his abstract paintings are all the rage with the hip New York galleries,” says Mary Stadelbacher, Sam’s owner.

“He loves his painting and would happily carry on for hours if I left him to it.

“He loves to work in a variety of colours and layers his paintings with darker shades first and then moves on to lighter ones later.”

Mary, who runs Shore Service Dogs, in the United States took in six-year-old Sam four years ago as a rescue dog.

“He had been bounced around a couple of dog pounds, so I couldn’t have that,” says Mary about Sam, who is a bloodhound, sheep-dog cross.

“I took him in and intended to train him up as a fully fledged service dog.”

However, soon after Mary took Sam in she was struck down by a botched operation that robbed her of the use of her right hand for a time.

“I never completed Sam’s training because of my rehab,” says Mary.

“So in the end I decided to keep him on to help me around the house.”

Painting al-fresco in the summer and by the heat of a bright fire in the winter, Sam the painting dog is a pooch for all seasons.

“Using his specialised training as a house-help dog, combined with my amateur art background, Sam is a fully trained artist,” explains Mary.

“He takes the paint-brush mouth piece and will approach the canvas and begin painting on the simple command of ‘paint’.

Inspired to teach Sam to paint after seeing a spate of painting animals, Mary and Sam help to keep Shore Service Dogs centre open with the money made from the art sales.

“I saw dolphins painting and elephants painting, so I thought why not a dog?” explains Mary.

“He has been exhibited in swanky New York galleries such as Denise Dibro’s studio and art collectors have bought his work from as far a field as Chicago.

“We even had one woman buy her dog one of Sam’s paintings as a birthday present.

“He is quite a unique abstract artist.”

[Photo Credit: Barcroft Media]

Apple Sauce, a two-week-old piglet, has spent her first days getting regular feedings, sleeping, and getting photographed by British news agencies. Why all the fuss? The Belgian blue was rejected by her mother, and in an effort to save her life, was given to a rottweiler named Sasha that just had a litter of puppies.

The rottweiler’s owner, Heidi Rhiann, is a pig breeder whose breeding pig, on loan to a friend, had a litter that had dwindled from 13 to seven. Apple Sauce, the runt, was near death when Rhiann decided to try putting her with Sasha’s puppies.

Rhiann first separated Sasha from her puppies and introduced Apple Sauce to the litter, rubbing them all over each other in order to get the puppy scent onto the piglet. She then left the babies alone with each other for an hour when she realized that her 3-year-old daughter had opened the door for Sasha to get back in the house.

The harmonious new family comes as no surprise to Rhiann, who has always loved and worked with animals. She is a horse and dog whisperer, and even used to run a circus with her husband, Joe Peate.

“Lots of people come to my home and say, ‘What is it with your animals? They’re so laid-back and chilled out,’” Rhiann says. “Nothing bothers them. They put up with whatever we all do.”

The piglet will eventually start walking about with the other pigs at the farm in order to be reintroduced to the idea of being a pig. For now, Apple Sauce, whose grandfather Apple was a champion, is enjoying time with her new mom Sasha and hanging out in a big heap with her siblings.

“She’s lovely,” Rhiann says. “Hopefully, she will stay on the farm forever.”
Helin Jung.

Some of us are dog people. Some of us like cats, horses, birds — even pigs. Deborah Cipriani, 51, loves skunks. Yes, skunks — as in black and white, Pepé Le Pew, back-off-or-I’m-going-to-spray-you-with-fumes-so-noxious-it’ll-make-your-head-spin skunks. But Cipriani will tell you that skunks come in a wide array of colors, not just black and white, and that keeping them as pets is no different than having a cat or dog to love.

Every morning, Cipriani rises at 6 a.m. to feed her pet skunks before leaving for work. “I have an office job that supports my skunk habit,” she jokes. Cipriani politely declines to reveal exactly how many skunks she currently has, but will say that she has 40 to 50 litter boxes strewn around her house that she cleans twice a day. It takes close to an hour to feed each of her skunks a breakfast of 1/3 to 1/4 cup of frozen vegetables and their supplements. At night she feeds them holistic dog food mixed with an array of fresh vegetables, fruit, chicken, yogurt, cottage cheese or cereal. “Between the food and the supplements, it costs about $600 a month,” Cipriani tells PEOPLEPets.com. “You have to feed skunks the right diet, including calcium, or else they’ll lose bone density and start crawling.”

Why the fascination with skunks? “When I was a kid, I got a huge stuffed skunk, which I loved,” Cipriani says by way of explanation. While on a camping trip in her twenties, Cipriani recalls being enchanted by a family of skunks who surrounded her picnic table. “I started talking to them,” she says.

In 2000, Cipriani bought her first skunk after seeing a few running around a pet store. “They were so cute,” she says. Some states make it illegal to keep skunks as pets, but the practice is allowed in Ohio, where Cipriani lives. “You have to buy the skunk from a legally licensed breeder who will de-scent them at 3 to 4 weeks of age,” she explains. “And the skunk owner has to get a permit.”

Cipriani named her first skunk Daisy. “Skunks are nice and they’ll really bond to you,” she says. In 2002, Cipriani went to a breeder and bought 10 more skunks. “I was like a kid in a candy store,” she recalls. “There were so many different colored skunks.” In addition to the classic black and white color scheme, skunks also come in a variety of hues, including apricot, champagne, smoke, lavender, mahogany and albino.

When Daisy fell ill, Cipriani realized that little was known about caring for skunks — even by veterinarians. Cipriani began working with a local vet to establish normal parameters for a skunk’s blood levels, body temperature, heart rate, and to study the bacteria inside of a skunk’s nose. When a pet skunk died, Cipriani sent it to a pathologist at a state diagnostic lab to have a necropsy performed. “We wanted to know why the skunk died, so that we could help others while they were living,” she says.
[For more: Click here]

[Photo Credit: Deborah Cipriani]

Not only do dogs enrich the lives of their humans; they may also be trying to save our lives without us even realizing it! Dogs are detecting cancer; some are trained to do so, and others instinctively know something is not quite right.

Gill Lacey, who was featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes in 2005, was saved by her Dalmatian, Trudi. Trudi began sniffing a tiny mole on Gill’s leg. That mole was a malignant melanoma, which could have easily spread and put an early end to Gill’s life, had it not been detected so early.

Just because your dog is intently sniffing you does not mean you should run with alarm to your doctor. A dog’s nose is 10,000 to 100,000 times more sensitive than that of a human. A dog also has a larger portion of brain and nervous system devoted to the olfactory sense. Thus, a dog’s interpretation of his surroundings is greatly affected by the information obtained from his nose.

[to read more, click here]

After nearly three years of litigation, the case of Dexter has come to an end.

When Doreen Houseman and Eric Dare ended their relationship in May 2006, a New Jersey court ruled Eric could keep their pug since it was in his possession at the time. However, earlier this year, an appeals panel reversed the decision saying the judge neglected to consider the dog’s “subjective value”, making him more like a family heirloom or work of art that cannot simply be awarded to one party for a face-value payment (Doreen received $1,500).

A New Jersey judge ruled Monday that Eric Dare and Doreen Houseman must take turns caring for the dog in five-week rotations.

Houseman, who hadn’t seen Dexter for two years, seven months and three weeks at the time of the ruling, welled up with tears when she heard the news.

A 200 pound stray bear wandered onto the campus of Pace Brantley Hall School near Altamonte Springs earlier today, causing the school to go on lock down for several hours.

The bear had been rummaging through the leftovers in the school’s dumpster.

Seminole County deputy sheriffs tried to chase it away, but instead of leaving, the bear went up a tree. Later it came down and sat in a breezeway for a while before climbing about 30 feet up a tree and perching over a portable classroom, said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Joy Hill.

Wildlife officers were waiting the bear out when it decided it was tired of school life.

“The bear came down from the tree, ran across the school yard, jumped a fence like it wasn’t there and disappeared,” Hill said.

The school plans to replace its dumpster with a bear-resistant one.

A dispute over a reward for a missing Chihuahua has unleashed a lawsuit in Ohio.

Two Cincinnati women sued the dog’s owner and two others for refusing to pay an advertised $1,000 reward for the small dog named Wilfred.

A defendant, Lynn Creech, says they won’t pay because the dog her daughter owns was stolen.

The lawsuit, filed by Carmen Dominguez and Sheila Miller, alleges breach of contract and fraud and seeks damages up to $15,000. The two women claim they were driving in Butler County in southwest Ohio in June when they spotted a small dog ready to dart into traffic. They say they picked it up and found no tags.

Weeks later, the women saw an online ad offering a $1,000 reward.

They say they returned the dog, but never got the money.