Gesztenye

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

Today’s dose of cute comes from a four-day old male tapir named Gesztenye, or Chestnut:

Four-day old male tapir Gesztenye (Chestnut) stands in his enclosure in the Xantus Janos Zoo of Gyoer,Hungary, as the baby is first shown to the public in Gyoer, 124 kms west of Budapest, Hungary, Monday, Oct. 29, 2007.

Female Giant Panda Cub

Saturday, September 15th, 2007

Today’s dose of cute come from this Female Giant Panda Cub:

San Diego Zoo veterinarians confirmed Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007, in San Diego, that the 4-pound giant panda cub is a girl. Born Aug. 3, the cub is the third female panda born at the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Research Station since 1999. A male cub was born in 2003. Following Chinese tradition, she will receive her name after she is 100 days old. The cub and her mother Bai Yun can be seen 24-hours-a-day through the Zoo’s Panda Cam at www.sandiegozoo.org.

One-Month-Old Leopard Cub

Friday, August 31st, 2007

Today’s dose of cute comes from this one-month-old leopard cub at Jordan Zoo, near Amman.

Animal Babies at Longleat Safari Park

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007

Today’s dose of cute comes from these Animal Babies at Longleat Safari Park in the UK.

Baby Elephant

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

Today’s dose of cute comes from Tika the baby elephant:

Animal keeper Filipe von Gilsa, left, refreshes a baby elephant named Tika at the zoo in Wuppertal, Germany, Monday, July 16, 2007. Tika was born last Friday July 13.

Snow Leopard Cubs

Sunday, June 24th, 2007

Today’s dose of cute comes from these adorable Snow Leopard Cubs:

A zoo worker holds two-month-old snow leopard cubs at a zoological park in Darjeeling, about 80 km (50 miles) north from the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri June 21, 2007.

Is it wrong to want to take them home? What could possibly go wrong?

Siberian Tigers in China

Tuesday, June 19th, 2007

The Chinese are successfully breeding Siberian Tigers:

Eighty-four Siberian tigers, among the world’s rarest animals, have been born since March 2007 at the Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Center in the suburbs of Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, an official said Sunday, June 17, 2007. Fewer than 400 Siberian tigers — also known as Amur, Manchurian or Ussuri tiger — are believed to survive in the wild, about 20 of them in China and the rest in Russia.

Celebrity polar bear Knut growing into beast

Friday, June 1st, 2007

We knew it had to happen. Celebrity polar bear Knut growing into beast:

Knut, Berlin Zoo’s celebrity polar bear cub, is growing from a cuddly ball of fur into a shaggy, powerful predator who could soon pose a serious threat to his devoted human keeper who has nursed him from birth.

The cub, which still draws some 5,000 fans every day, turns six months on Tuesday and his 28 kg (62 pounds) are starting to show. His snout is longer, his torso chunkier and teeth sharper.

Thomas Doerflein, who for months slept in Knut’s enclosure to feed him milk and porridge through the night, still rolls on the ground with the cub in his twice daily shows and lets him bite his fingers.

But he has taken to pulling his long sleeves over his hands to protect them and winces when the cub bites him on the bottom. Captivated admirers watch Doerflein duck and shoulder away Knut when he gets boisterous.

“He’s just playing and it doesn’t hurt, it just pinches a bit. It only hurts when he gets angry,” the bearded Doerflein, who already has a few bruises, told Reuters.

In addition to porridge, the young star now tucks into fish, meat and cat food and is putting on around 200 grams a day.

Last week, he learned how to swim and Doerflein takes Knut for a walk round the Zoo every morning to build up his muscles. His coat is no longer white and fluffy, but yellow and shaggy.

“He is getting bigger and is gruffer than he used to be and is learning his role as a loner,” said zoo vet Andre Schuele, who estimates that Knut will not be fully grown for another four years or so.
[...]
Doerflein thinks he will be able to play with Knut until he is about a year-old, by which time the cub will be 60-80 kg, compared to about 500 kg when he is fully grown.

The keepers say the cub regards Doerflein as his mother and is therefore unlikely to attack him, but some experts fear he could get dangerous sooner and point to worrying precedents.

In the 1920s, a Norwegian explorer had to put down “Marie,” a polar bear cub he had reared, after she attacked him. Historians put the cub’s age at only four months, although some experts suspect she might have been older.

Knut Rock Me

Friday, April 6th, 2007

Douglas Kern pokes sarcastic fun at German animal rights “spokeskiller” Frank Albrecht in Knut Rock Me:

Don’t take it from me. Look at the pictures. Read the story. The Germans have precision-engineered Knut to win your heart with a kind of cuteness whose intensity borders on the ruthless. Behold: Knut, playing with a ball. Knut, rasslin’ with his blankie. Knut, waving to his adoring fans. He sleeps every night with a teddy bear. The zookeepers play guitar for him. Show me the man who can reject such sweetness, and I’ll show you German animal rights spokeskiller Frank Albrecht, the Grim Reaper of Lovable Animals. “The zoo must kill the bear,” said Captain Killjoy. “Feeding by hand is not species appropriate, blah blah blah kill the cute bear, blah blah blah goofy animal rights reasons, blah blah blah I hate everything good and pure.” I paraphrase, but only a little. In fairness, Albrecht has clarified his homicidal rant, claiming that he only wanted to see the little fellow croaked when he was tiny and especially helpless. “‘If a polar bear mother rejected the baby, then I believe the zoo must follow the instincts of nature,’ Albrecht said. ‘In the wild, it would have been left to die.’” Thanks for the explanation, Angel of Baby Polar Bear Death. Can’t we just buy some dead baby polar bear offsets instead?

Then he gets to his real point:

Don’t think for a minute that the sheer perversion of killing a sweet cuddly baby polar bear is incidental to the goals of Frank Albrecht and those of his ilk. The sheer perversion is the point. For example: have you ever noticed how the global warming aficionados almost seem to relish the prospect of massive economic rollback and worldwide belt-tightening? Al Gore and his minions aren’t interested in arguments that global warming might make people healthier and richer on balance; neither do they care about proposals to reverse global warming through relatively simple attempts at global weather engineering (e.g., lacing the world’s oceans with iron to stimulate plankton production, thereby changing the atmospheric CO2 balance). To make such arguments is to misunderstand why global warming alarmism is so popular. Its adherents embrace it because they savor the doom that it portends. They want a massive shrinkage of the world’s economies. They want reduced industrial development. They want a world made spiritually pure, liberated from the defilement of modern life. And in the same way, radical greens want little Knut sacrificed on the altar of a fictitious, pristine nature. They want these things because some neglected part of the human heart yearns for sacrifice; for a rejection of worldly goods and concerns in pursuit of higher goals.

Baby Tapir

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Today’s dose of cute comes from Vasan, the Baby Tapir:

Vasan, a baby Tapir explores its enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland, Friday March 30, 2007. The birth is a special event as it is the first time a Malayan Tapir has been born at the zoo and is also the first baby for this particular adult Tapir. Tapirs are hoofed mammals and are related to rhinos and horses.

Knut Day

Monday, March 26th, 2007

It was Knut Day in Berlin on Friday as Cute Knut made his public debut:

Knut stole the heart of Berliners after he was born in December but rejected by his mother Tosca. A bearded zookeeper moved into the enclosure to look after him round the clock.

But Knut’s fate grabbed global attention after an animal rights campaigner said hand-rearing polar bears was a violation of animal rights. German media interpreted his comments as a call for Knut to be put to sleep.

If I were to engineer an animal for cuteness, it would look an awful lot like a polar bear cub. If you can withstand the cute overload, enjoy the slideshow and video.

Baby Elephant

Friday, March 16th, 2007

Today’s dose of cute comes from this Baby Elephant:

In this photo released by The San Diego Zoo, A one-day-old African elephant calf peeks out from underneath his mothers legs at the San Diego Zoos Wild Animal Park Monda, March 12, 2007, in San Diego. The male calf, the first of three African elephant calves expected in 2007 at the park, was born at 9:14 p.m. Sunday. The mother, Litsemba was one of seven African elephants rescued by thepPark in August 2003, when officials in Swazilands Big Game Parks felt they had two options, kill a number of their elephants or export them to a zoo willing to care for the pachyderms.

Baby Lemur

Thursday, March 15th, 2007

Today’s dose of cute comes from this Baby Lemur born outside Paris:

One of two babies crowned lemurs (Propithecus verreauxi coronatus) born in early January 2007 is seen in this recent photo at the Parc Zoologique de Paris in nearby Vincennes. The birth of the two baby lemurs, part of the European Endangered Species Breeding Programmes, increases the population to ten lemurs in captivity at the Zoo.

Three White Bengal Tiger Cubs

Friday, February 9th, 2007

Today’s dose of cute comes from these Three White Bengal Tiger Cubs in a cage at Buenos Aires’ Zoo. Their mother, a white tiger named Betty, gave birth to the three cubs on December 23, 2006.

Snow Leopard Cub

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

Today’s dose of cute comes from this Snow Leopard Cub:

Snow leopard cub Gul’cha (L), born July 8, 2006, plays with his mother Dshamilja in their outdoor pen at the zoo of Zurich January 17, 2007.