June 11, 2012

Polar bear tries to run, don’t get far

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 11:38 am

Last Tuesday the playful teen polar bear Vicks hurled rocks at the glass walls of his Blijdorp Zoo prison in Rotterdam , but ultimately shattered only 5 layers of the 7 centimetre glass wall (of an unspecified total number of layers).

Writes the zoo (in the video description):

The video shows that Vicks was simply playing with the stone and was not attacking the window deliberately. Shortly after 9 am Rob van der Horst (together with Ari Stolk) was unsuspectingly just shooting a film in he polar bear exhibit.

The strength of the window has been judged by various glass experts. Whether or not Vicks and his mum will be able to use their outdoor exhibit and the huge tank depends on the results of the investigation. The commitment of everyone in Rotterdam Zoo is to let Vicks stay in Rotterdam.

Some of the dialog at the end:

Gent 1: “Jesus, get out of here.”
Lady: “How is that possible?”
Gent 2: “The window is broken.”

And from there on it is a repetition of Jesuses and “The window is broken”. The matter-of-fact attitude by the people in the video may be explained by the fact that Blijdorp zoo has had high-profile break-outs in the past.

(Video: Youtube / Diergaarde Blijdorp. Photo of young master Vicks last summer by Flickr user jinterwas, some rights reserved. Link: Treehugger.)

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June 6, 2012

Helicopter cat Orville goes up in value

Filed under: Animals,Art by Orangemaster @ 2:29 pm

Artist Bart Jansen didn’t kill his cat Orville, a car hit him. Then he stuffed it in an unconventional way and turned him into a remote-controlled flying cat. Jansen had originally asked € 12,500 for his work of art, which was on display in Amsterdam at the KunstRai art fair until last Saturday. “The work has not yet been sold but we have an offer of € 100,000 on the table,” Jansen’s dealer Geoffrey van Vugt told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.

Cat brother Wilbur, both named after Orville and Wilbur Wright (aka the Wright brothers) is just a regular Dutch cat eating cat food made from other dead animals who obviously had a worse life, Jansen mentioned to the press.

It’s a tribute to the cat Orville, that was named after the famous aviator Orville Wright. After the cat was killed by a car, and followed by a period of mourning, visual artist Bart Jansen transformed him into the Orvillecopter: Now he is finally flying with the birds. The greatest goal a cat could ever reach!

You may choose to dislike Orville for all kinds of reasons — it’s pretty freaky! — but saying he killed his cat is utter nonsense. Last year Dutch conceptual artist Tinkebell was found not guilty of animal cruelty for an exhibition with 95 hamsters in exercise balls, while she had killed her ‘depressed’ cat and turned it into a handbag.

It will always be hypocritical to believe that some animals deserve to die for our use (pigs, cows, chickens) and get upset at cute pussy cats flying around because cats are cute and pigs are bacon. Hate Orville the Flying Cat, but Bart Jansen didn’t do anything wrong or even illegal. In fact, he’s honouring his cat in his own freaky way, whether we like it or not.

For anybody who needs an ethical reality check, the real dead people show Bodyworks (even more controversial) is still on in Amsterdam until 17 June and nobody is whinging about that anymore — and they used to. It was on at the very same time and not very far from the Art Fair where Orville was flying around until last Saturday.

(Link: www.dutchnews.nl, Photo of Dead cat by ndanger, some rights reserved)

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June 2, 2012

Amsterdam petting zoo looking for ‘Holland’s next Octopus Paul’

Filed under: Animals,Shows,Sports by Branko Collin @ 3:43 pm

In 2010 a German octopus called Paul made worldwide headlines by correctly ‘predicting’ the results of South African football World Cup matches.

A petting zoo called De Pijp in Amsterdam (after the neighbourhood) is now trying to ride Paul’s famous name by organizing an ‘eviction show’ called Holland’s Next Octopus Paul in which twelve animals compete for the honour of being the most prescient.

The format is similar to a lot of reality shows. Animals have to predict the outcomes of a 2012 European Football Championship match by eating from a container with the flag of a competing country. The animal that gets it wrong, gets the axe—not literally, we hope. Parool reports that the contestants include a sheep, a horse, a donkey, a mouse, a cat, a guinea pig and a chicken.

The first predictions, for the Netherlands v. Denmark match, are now in:

(Photo of an octopus by NOAA, which means it is in the public domain. Video: Youtube / ‘octopus paul‘)

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June 1, 2012

Fat pregnant cows get prenatal work out

Filed under: Animals,Science by Orangemaster @ 4:25 pm

Livestock researcher Roselinde Goselink of Wageningen UR explains in this Dutch video from 2011 why it’s good for fat pregnant cows to get a proper workout before cranking out calves.

Pregnant cows need to boost their metabolism so that they can get used to giving lots of milk, and exercise apparently helps. Two years ago at the testing farm Waiboerhoeve near Lelystad they got some 30 odd cows to go round and round for 5 kilometers a day every day until September in a mill, which looks like a pony ride attraction for children.

Imagine generating electricity with cows getting a workout.

Oh and look how happy they are when they finally get to go outside in the spring:

(Link: melkveehouders.nieuwsgrazer.nl, via www.waarmaarraar.nl)

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May 31, 2012

Dead Duck Day is just around the corner

Filed under: Animals,Science,Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:08 pm

Kees Moeliker, curator of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, was awarded an IgNobel back in 2003 — the tongue-in-cheek awards of Improbable Research — for writing about “The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard.”

On 5 June 1995 an adult male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) collided with the glass façade of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam and died. An other drake mallard raped the corpse almost continuously for 75 minutes. Then the author disturbed the scene and secured the dead duck. Dissection showed that the rape-victim indeed was of the male sex. It is concluded that the mallards were engaged in an ‘Attempted Rape Flight’ that resulted in the first described case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard.

This year Dead Duck Day will be celebrated on the lawn next to the new glass pavilion of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam at 17:55 sharp, the actual time the duck lost his life on that historic day in 1995. The historic stuffed necro-duck will be at the event, owned by Moeliker himself. They’ll be a discussion about finding new ways to prevent birds from colliding with glass and more news about dead ducks.

Don’t miss out on the traditional six-course duck dinner at the Chinese restaurant around the corner afterwards.

And if you have room for dessert, enjoy this six-minute movie about the two colliding ducks.

(Link: www.improbable.com, boingboing.net)

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April 6, 2012

Farmer threatens dog owners with ‘coldness’

Filed under: Animals,Weird by Orangemaster @ 3:01 pm

An angry cattle farmer in Hengelo put up a sign on his property that reads: ‘No dogs in the meadow, or I will ice your dog.’ (‘Geen honden in de wei, anders maar ik uw hondje koud.’) In Dutch, the last part literally translates as ‘I will make your dog cold’, which usually means to kill or ice, but not everyone agrees that’s what the farmer means. He put the sign up because he doesn’t want dog poo making his cows sick, and chances are, he’s pretty fed up at this point.

You could make a dog cold by spraying it with water, the police told the neighbours who let their dogs out in the meadow and removed the sign, assuming their dogs would get shot. The cops told the neighbours they were the ones committing an illegal act by removing a sign on private property.

In true Dutch ‘let’s talk it out’ fashion, the cops will get the sign back from the neighbours or fine them, and they’ll probably have coffee and biscuits, the farmer will give them a speech about how he doesn’t want dogs on his property full stop and the neighbours will promise not to do so. Then, the dog owners will ignore him, saying they pay enough dog tax to do what they want, and the cops will be by again, and so on.

Someone should spray them all with water.

(Link: Parool, photo by E. Dronkert, some rights reserved)

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March 24, 2012

Dutch otter facing extinction for second time

Filed under: Animals,Nature by Branko Collin @ 6:13 pm

Inbreeding is having a negative effect on the otter populations of Friesland and Overijssel, nature preservation organisations say.

The Das & Boom Foundation and the Leeuwarden Otterstation are sounding the alarm and have asked (PDF) Nature Minister Henk Bleker to take action, De Volkskrant reports.

Because of Bleker’s budget cuts, no research has been done into the otter population since January 1. The letter writers claim that the same things as always endanger a healthy otter population, including fyke nets for fishing, extermination of musk rats, and traffic.

The otter disappeared from the Netherlands in 1998. A program was started in 2002 in which several dozen otters from Northern and Western Europe were reintroduced in Friesland and Overijssel. At last count there were approximately 60 otters in the country.

(Photo by FaceMePLS, some rights reserved.)

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February 21, 2012

Lab produced meat ready to grill this autumn

Filed under: Animals,Dutch first,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 11:45 pm

It’s white, probably taste bland and has cost 250,000 euro to make: it’s laboratory grown meat as proof that it can be done. Considering the future demands for meat due to population increase and a higher cost of living in parts of the world, trying to grow meat sounds like a good idea.

Some estimate that food production will have to double within the next 50 years to meet the requirements of a growing population. During this period, climate change, water shortages and greater urbanisation will make it more difficult to produce food.

Professor Mark Post’s group at Maastricht University in the Netherlands has grown small pieces of muscle, and claims that synthetic meat could reduce the environmental footprint of meat by up to 60%.

It seems to me that eating less meat or none at all is easier and way cheaper than all of this, even for meat eaters. Nobody has to eat meat every day, and vegetarian alternatives don’t have to be of a lesser status than actual meat. And why a burger? That’s so junk food like.

(Link: www.bbc.co.uk)

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February 7, 2012

Dutch pigeon sold for record 251,000 euro

Filed under: Animals,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:15 pm

Last Monday, Dutchman Pieter Veenstra auctioned off 245 pigeons on a Belgian website for over 1.9 million euro, including “the record-breaking hen of the Dolce Vita breed”, which I’m guessing is a huge deal in pigeon land. The bird was bought by a Chinese businessman who plans to use it to breed rather than racing, something that is apparently up and coming in China.

The record breaking price fetched by the bird has sparked a furious debate in the world of pigeon racing, a cult sport in Britain, Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany that is not traditionally regarded as a rich man’s pursuit.

However, celebrity-in-the-making, 15-year-old Lloyd Schuilenburg (video in Dutch), aka ‘Duifmeneer’ (‘Pigeon Man’), is not making a fortune off pigeons, but has been trending on Twitter (@deduifmeneer) and even cranked out a carnival song (see below). His thing is making ‘hoo hoo’ (‘hoe hoe’ in Dutch) sounds to ‘steal other people’s pigeons’. Although very charming and entertaining, he’s not taken very seriously due to the nerd factor of his meme, his unfortunate looks and his thick The Hague accent. Schuilenburg is basically popular for no reason at all, and is enjoying the popularity while others make fun of him. It’s a Dutch thing.

(Link: www.telegraph.co.uk)

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January 30, 2012

Animal emergency number forwards callers to local TV channel

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 10:36 pm

The animal police do not seem to be entirely sure what to do when people call their emergency hot line, 144, De Pers reports.

Ms Van der Meer from The Hague called the number last week because she had found a wounded bat. The operator forwarded her to Dierenambulance (a volunteer-run ambulance for animals), where they referred her to pest control.

Residents of the Amsterdam neighbourhood Geuzenveld called 144 because a cat had refused to leave a tree for several days —they were told to call the local TV station, AT5.

Press spokes person Ed Kraszewski of the National Police Services Agency said that “the 25 operators received training, but it is mostly ‘learning on the job’.”

Parliamentarian Dion Graus (PVV), the initiator of the animal cops and 144 thinks that operators are trying to sabotage his brain child from the inside.

(Photo of a Dierenambulance by Alberto Garcia, some rights reserved)

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