A few weeks ago, a bear savagely tore through the fence of my friends neighbors. The Lippincott's have an alley behind their house, and the bears apparently like to use it as a thoroughfare, so I decided to try and catch one on my Primos Truth Cam!
Here, we have Sam Lippincott posing next to the bear break-in entry point. For reference, he's about 8.5 feet tall, which gives you a sense of how tall the bear must have been.
Another photo of the damage. The bear was trying (and succeeded) to get to the trash cans, and had proceeded in strewing the trash all over the place!
I didn't get much, but I did get a series of five pictures of a youngblack bear! Check them out, pretty exciting stuff!
Remember that post I did a few weeks back about the giant bears I saw at the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado? (If not, you can just click HERE to catch up). Anyways, I thought it might be interesting to see if anyone at the sanctuary would be willing to do a guest post on the blog! The person I corresponded with, however, said that all of the staff members are putting in 60-70 hours per week, and therefore are absolutely unavailable! My correspondent did say that I could feel free to reprint some of the stories from the newsletters, and I thought that was a great idea! In their last newsletter, they printed a story called "Summer's Here and It's Time for a New Hairdo," an article all about their fleet of shaved alpacas! Since I thought these guys were totally awesome, I decided to reprint this story, as it is both interesting, educational, and really, really funny! So please, enjoy, and make sure to check out the Wild Animal Sanctuary, and like their Facebook page by clicking HERE! Also, be sure to check out their website by clicking HERE!
It seems like everyone likes to observe the seasonal changes with some sort of personal change in their own life. It’s possible they are trying to mirror the change in landscape… or more likely, they’re trying to find a balance with nature. Sometimes this sort of thing can come in the form of a new wardrobe… and others might find balance by including more outdoor activities to get them in the groove.
Yet, whatever you like to do when the weather and daylight start to shift… there’s always one thing that pops up on an Alpaca’s springtime dance card – a trim and shave! Yep, that’s right, there’s nothing more refreshing than a late spring haircut to lift the spirits of an Alpaca - especially since wearing a winter coat in July or August can get a bit stuffy!
With this in mind, we started late last year trying to find a viable solution to our shearing needs for the 50+ Alpacas that live at the Sanctuary. Mind you, shearing one or two wouldn’t be so bad… but when you are looking at more than 200 fuzzy legs that happen to have big fuzzy bodies attached to them – one has to be realistic when it comes to planning how to get the shearing job done!
Luckily, through a myriad of connections talking with each other, we were able to find an Alpaca Ranch in Montana that routinely hires a professional shearer each spring to help lighten the load of their Alpacas. The Ranch owners offered to help the Sanctuary by paying for their shearer to come to the Sanctuary – along with the ranch’s own special team of Alpaca wranglers – in order to shear all of our Alpacas in the spring.
They were happy to share their expertise in the art of Alpaca wool management, and planned on taking the wool back to Montana to turn it into highdollar rugs. They then planned on sending some of the rugs down to us to sell in our gift shop… as well as retail the rest to clients that have been following their wool artistry for many years.
Well, April finally rolled around, and the out-of-state shearing party arrived as scheduled. However, the Sanctuary’s staff ended up having to jump in the middle of the Alpaca wrangling end of things when the ranch’s wranglers came up missing.
Actually, it turned out to be a good adaptation, since we were happy to participate in order to ensure our Alpaca’s visit with the barber turned out to be a positive one. Besides, they’re all so cute that it’s a pleasure to spend time amongst this curious flock! We started early in the morning and worked with precision. We were able to have two areas where the Alpacas would be laid down to get shaved. As one would be getting his or her hair clipped… the other would be getting his or her hooves trimmed and teeth checked.
The shearer spent the day swapping back and forth while the ranch owners and Sanctuary staff took care of all the oddities like wool collection and doing discretionary medical exams.
We ended up with some pretty slick-looking Alpacas… and they ended up feeling substantially lighter. Their final appearance was definitely charming, as most of them ended up looking more like “Pokey” – “Gumby’s” sidekick of a horse! When it was all over, the ranchers were forced to spend some time trying to pack 50+ Alpaca’s worth of wool into a regular-sized Chevy van (which ended up being packed solid, floor to roof), while our dainty-looking heard of Alpacas trotted off into the sunset. It’s definitely a new season, and the Alpacas definitely have a new hairdo, so as far as we’re concerned… it feels like everything is in balance again! Did you like what you just read? Well, make sure to check out the Wild Animal Sanctuary's newsletter page by clicking HERE! Make sure to also like their Facebook page by clicking HERE, and to check out their website by clicking HERE!
A few times now, I have mentioned the fantastic dinosaur-themed renovation that the folks over at the Best Western Denver Southwest. Complete with life-sized models, museum quality casts lining the hallways, and a pool in the shape of the Western Interior Cretaceous Seaway, this is a hotel that paleo-fans of all ages won't want to miss! Another awesome thing they do is a weekly raptor show on Saturday's at 5:00 PM. I don't mean raptor like Velociraptor (which would be both amazing and terrifying at the same time), I mean bird of prey raptors. But don't be too disappointed: they are still really super cool! I went for the first time last Saturday, and was blown away by both the birds and the knowledge and passion of the presenter, Anne Price. I plan on sharing many of these birds with you, and today I am going to share one of my favorites from last week, the Harris hawk!
In this picture, you can see the Harris hawk is not too happy about the great-horned owl being held by another volunteer about ten or fifteen feet in front of it!
There are three different subspecies of the Harris hawk, and this one was native to the Sonoran desert, in the American southwest. Although sometimes the other sub-species will live in more forested areas, this particular type of Harris hawk prefers a desert life.
Due to the fact that much of what lives in the desert is spiny, the Harris hawk learns from a very young age how to pick spikes and thorns out of its feet, especially the spines of the saguaro cactus. This particular cactus is SO huge and so integral to the surrounding ecosystem that it is illegal in Arizona to either harm or destroy a saguaro cactus!
When abbreviated, the scientific name of the Harris hawk, Parabuteo unicintus, spells "P. u."
Unlike many raptors, the Harris hawk is a very social bird, hunting cooperatively in packs often numbering four or five individuals. These packs, or family groups, will often have one or two of the birds fly down low to flush out prey, and once the prey is on the move, the rest of the pack will swoop in for the kill.
Since it is so darn hot in the Sonora Desert, the adult Harris hawks are forced to shield their nests, with their offspring inside, with their outstretched wings to keep them from cooking alive. If the "shield-bird" has to move, for whatever reason, an aunt or an uncle or just another member of the pack will instinctively swoop in to take up the shielding duties!
I feel like since the Harris hawk lives in groups, it would be more tolerant of other birds. Since they kept the Harris hawk out almost the entire time, even while the other three birds were out, this would make sense.
You can see in the picture above and the picture below that, while the Harris hawk wasn't too bent out of shape because of the presence of the great-horned owl, it wasn't necessarily super excited about it. I mean, let's face it: if you or I were a hawk in the presence of this incredible owl, I might be a little nervous, too!
Like in most other birds, the Harris hawk is pretty much full-sized when it leaves the nest, since it has to be able to fly, feed, and take care of itself. When their entire volume is taken into account, the young apparently are often bigger than the adults! I don't remember exactly why that would be, but most likely due to the fact that the young have just been sittin' around on their heinies, and their parents have been working their heinies off to feed and care for them.
As you can sort of see in the picture below, the innermost toe claw of the Harris hawk, and most (if not all) hawks, is much larger than the other two forward-facing toe claws. As you can probably see in the picture above, the hallux, or backwards-facing claw, is also much larger than those other two forward-facing claws. I don't recall if this is a feature seen in other raptors, I'll make sure to ask this Saturday!
I also have a short video that I took there of the Harris hawk. You can see how it looks, get a good size comparison, and listen to a little bit of the information that Anne has to say about it!
Here is a second video where the Harris hawk is featured, however briefly. Although it features the red-tailed hawk, at one point the hawk poops on the floor, which unfortunately happens off camera!
Finally, here is another video in which the Harris hawk makes an appearance. You can see when the camera pans over to the Harris hawk (the cinematography, by the way, is reminiscent of Star Wars or Planet Earth or something like that) that the Harris hawk, like we talked about before, is not terribly happy about the great-horned owls presence so close to it, but it is tolerating it nonetheless. Despite the fact that it doesn't feature the Harris hawk all that much, it's still a really cool video, and will give you a hint for what's in store for later posts!
Make sure you check out the website for the Raptor Education Foundation by clicking HERE, and checking out the Facebook page for the Best Western Denver Southwest by clicking HERE!
This was the birthday post of Mark Neher! Happy birthday, father! If you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animals, and I will do my best to get a post in! And if you like what you are reading, please feel free to follow us here or via Facebook!
Yesterday, Mr. Bones, a local dinosaur enthusiast who's created some amazing looking dinosaur skeleton suits, visited the Morrison Natural History Museum! The museum was also visited by Greg and Meredith Tally and their children, the fantastic people who are renovating the Best Western Denver Southwest to be a dinosaur-themed hotel! All of these folks were here to make a brief teaser sort of thing to promote both the dinosaur hotel and the Morrison Museum! I took a little bit of video, as well as some pictures, so make sure to check them out here!
Greg Tally is attacked by Mr. Bones!
Running is useless!
Just a little too big for the door!
Below, we have a picture of Greg Tally helping out with the cameraman and Mr. Bones!
If you want to see some video of the museum's encounter with Mr. Bones, check out the video below!
Here, we have some shots of Mr. Bones taking a swipe at the museum sign out on the road!
Kids LOVE Mr. Bones!
One of his other suits, a Utahraptor! All of the other shots are of him wearing his "Kindergarten Tyrannosaurus rex" suit!
We started early in the morning and worked with precision. We were able to have two areas where the Alpacas would be laid down to get shaved. As one would be getting his or her hair clipped… the other would be getting his or her hooves trimmed and teeth checked. 
