Take part in the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch!
The RSPB are once again asking new and dedicated bird watchers to take part in the annual garden birdwatch.
All you need is a pen, some scrap paper (or, a printout of our handy bird ID sheet), and an hour to spend watching the birds in your garden, or local park, on either Saturday 28, or Sunday 29 January 2012.
The nine-month-old pup beat dozens of others to be named top dog in the competition, organised by Penguin Books.
It was a close call but Alfie, who lives in Bristol, won the judges over with his big grin and furiously wagging tale.
His owner Dan Salt said: ‘Alfie is a cross between a cocker spaniel and a poodle and he is a very happy dog.
‘He always looks like he is grinning – he even runs with a smile on his face but is just as happy when he’s lying around at home.’
Chris Croissant, from Penguin, said: ‘The only fair way to decide the winner was for the staff to get round the computer screen, look at all the entries and the photo that got the most cheers won. That was Alfie.’
The white-haired pooch was entered into the competition by his walker, Sharon Jackson.
DOG owners are being warned after a suspected outbreak of the deadly parvovirus in Rugby.
Several recent dog deaths have been confirmed, with more suspected, after the outbreak of the virus.
It is caught when ingested or inhaled and can kill if not diagnosed quickly, and it can live in the environment for months on clothes, shoes, pavements and animal paws.
Director of Rainsbrook Vets, Simon Daniel, said they had seen four dogs – two of which died – in recent weeks with parvovirus.
“This is the highest number of cases we’ve seen at once for a long time. I can’t remember seeing this many at any time over the last five years or so,” he said.
“It is a serious and potentially fatal stomach infection but can easily prevented with vaccinations.
“Parvovirus is always a risk, but whether people are trying to save money in the current economic climate and are getting less vaccinations I don’t know.
“If that is the case it is a false economy as it will cost them far more paying for treatment if their dog catches parovirus.”
Mr Daniel said confirmed cases had also been reported by Bilton Vets, with more around Rugby suspected.
He added: “I would urge all dog owners to have their pets vaccinated, or if not then to keep them indoors or in their own gardens where they will be safe.”
Parvovirus first emerged in the UK in the late 1970s. If contracted by a dog it causes severe stomach problems which can be fatal or leave lasting damage even when successfully treated.
Symptoms of the infection include vomiting, lethargy and refusal of food or water.
Celebrating cats at Christmas. University of Bristol
Cats are one of the UK’s favourite pets with a population of eight million, almost twice the number it was 30 years ago.
A cat’s Christmas carol will be a celebration and festive look at cats, aspects of their behaviour and the role that they play in people’s lives. The talk, organised by the Small Animal Practice at Langford Veterinary Services, will take place on Tuesday 13 December at 7.30 pm at the University of Bristol’s School of Veterinary Sciences, Langford.
The talk will explore some of the odd behaviours displayed by cats, such as:
* why cats hunt even when their food bowls are always full;
* why do cats ‘call’;
* why do some cats lick and then bite their owners;
* why are cats not neighbourly and positively hate the new cat next door.
Dr Alison Blaxter, a vet in the Small Animal Practice, who will be giving the talk, said: “Cats are one of the UK’s favourite pets – they give us great joy and companionship yet much of what they do remains a mystery to us! Trying to work out why they behave as they do in our homes is a fascinating and fulfilling occupation for a winter’s evening.”
The talk is free but entry is by ticket only. To request a ticket, contact the Langford Veterinary Services Small Animal Practice on tel 01934 852422.
Refreshments will be available and all proceeds will be donated to the Langford Trust, a charity that supports the University’s School of Veterinary Science to promote the practice, advancement and teaching of veterinary science.
CELEBRITY vet Steve Leonard has put his name to a fundraising campaign for abandoned dogs. He explains to Ian Robson why he refuses to have a man’s best friend of his own.
STEVE Leonard would love to have a dog but, he says, it would not be right for the animal.
The vet, who became a star on series such as Vets in Practice, said his busy lifestyle would not suit a dog.
Steve is backing the Pedigree Adoption Drive to raise money for shelters.
The annual campaign awarded Newcastle Dog and Cat Shelter £25,000 for desperately needed building costs last year.
Matching dogs to suitable owners is a passion for the vet whose TV career was launched when the BBC filmed vets in their final year of training in Vets School.
It was soon followed by Vets in Practice and made household names of Steve and co-star Trude Mostue.
He said: “I would love to own a dog but have chosen not to because my lifestyle does not suit one.
“I’m out all day, I travel a lot, and dogs need attention. They need someone with them at least every couple of hours to take them out and give them some social activity.
“Dogs are very social and don’t like being on their own very much at all so I have a cat.
“My cat is Bruce, he’s a bit of a bruiser, he was picked up by the RSPCA as a wild stray.”
He said the Adoption Drive, backed by the Pedigree dog food company, was a campaign close to his heart.
He said: “It’s the fourth year they have done this and, to date, they have raised over £1m to help support rescue centres around the UK.
“Dog abandonment is at an 11-year high with over 120,000 dogs nationally being picked up as strays and that’s terrible numbers.
“The rescue centres are overwhelmed. Most of them are completely full which means if the local authorities do pick up dogs they find wandering around and cannot find them a space within seven days into a rescue centre or new home many perfectly healthy dogs are being put to sleep.
“Why are we in this situation? People take puppies on without really understanding the size the animal will get, the amount of exercise it is going to need, the financial implications of owning a dog, feeding it, vaccinating it, all of these things, whereas when you take on a rescue dog normally all of that has been done.
“You get to see how big it is, you get to see what its temperament is going to be like, and in many ways it’s a safer bet than taking on a puppy.”
Steve said the current economic climate may have contributed to the increased numbers of abandoned dogs.
A giant rabbit found wandering around the centre of Swindon has been reunited with its owner.
The 8kg (18lb) pure bred continental giant rabbit was found in the middle of Birch Road in the town on Thursday.
The rabbit, nicknamed Thumper, was taken to Thameswood Veterinary Clinic and housed in a dog kennel as “she wouldn’t fit in the small animal cage”.
But following an appeal, the two-year-old grey rabbit was reunited with its owner on Saturday morning.
“Apparently her name is Daisy,” said Lahni Butler, a veterinary nurse at the clinic.
“The owner said he’d left the gate open and she’d escaped but she didn’t get far – just around the corner.
“We usually keep lost pets for about a week to give the owner time to come forward but we’ve got quite a lot of rabbit lovers here so she wouldn’t have been hard to re-home.”
When fully grown, continental giant rabbits can weigh up to two-and-a-half stone (16kg) and grow more than 3ft 5in (1.04m).
A virus affecting garden birds is spreading to new parts of the UK, researchers are warning.
This form of avian pox causes lesions, often around the eyes and beak.
The virus, affecting great tits, is believed to be a new and more severe strain of a disease that has affected other bird species for several decades.
When it was first found in the UK in 2006 it seemed to be confined to south-east England, but has now spread further north and west.
The findings come from a team at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
Researchers now want help from the public to help track any further spread of the disease.
Avian pox can be spread through contaminated bird feeders, via biting insects and through direct contact between birds.
It has been known in species including dunnock, woodpigeons and house sparrows for many years.
The form now affecting great tits may be the same strain as one discovered in central Europe.
Vulnerable to predators
Dr Becki Lawson, from ZSL, said: “What’s different about this avian pox in this species is that the lesions can be very severe.
“It’s not unusual for several birds to be affected at one site.
“Initially the reports were restricted to south-east England, chiefly in Surrey, Sussex and Kent.
“Over the last year we’ve seen the geographical range of this disease spread quite significantly, as far west as Wiltshire and as far north as Staffordshire.”
In the most severe cases the lesions caused by the virus in great tits can prevent the birds from feeding or flying and makes them more vulnerable to predators.
ZSL has been working with Oxford University, the British Trust for Ornithology and the RSPB. Researchers now want help from the public to monitor suspected cases of the disease:
Dr Lawson said: “We’re very keen to track further spread of the disease this year as we progress into the months where we’d expect to see a peak in the numbers of reports, in the late summer and early autumn.”
Madagascar’s poachers, known in conservation circles as “the tortoise mafia”, are increasingly hunting down the Indian Ocean island’s reptiles, threatening them with extinction.
The tortoise mafia, who allegedly include corrupt government officials and smuggling syndicates, are satisfying a growing demand locally for tortoise meat and abroad for exotic pets and tortoise shells used in aphrodisiacs.
“Everybody is eating them and everybody is trafficking them and as soon as people are brought to trial, there are mafia organisations who help to get them out,” says the head of Madagascar’s Alliance of Conservation Groups, Ndranto Razakamanarina.
Another conservationist, Tsilavo Rafeliarisoa, says two poachers were caught last year in southern Madagascar with 50 tortoises.
This was a small breakthrough in efforts to protect the island’s endangered tortoises, which include the Ploughshare, Spider, Radiated and Flat-tailed species.
Often, poachers roam villages in groups of up to 100, picking up thousands of tortoises over several weeks.
Guns and machetes
They are heavily armed, fending off attempts to stop them.
“When a gang of poachers with guns and machetes come and take tortoises, the villagers are defenceless,” Mr Rafeliarisoa says.
He says with food prices rising, more people are eating tortoise meat.
It has become a favourite snack in southern towns such as Tsiombe and Beloka, even among government officials who ought to be at the forefront of campaigns to save the reptiles from extinction.
“They say: ‘Give me the special’ – and the special is tortoise meat. It is a huge market,” Mr Rafeliarisoa says.
Herilala Randriamahazo of Madagascar’s Turtle Survival Alliance says he recently went on a research trip to Tsiombe and Beloka, posing as a tourist to see how common tortoise meat has become on restaurant menus.
To his horror, a bowl of tortoise meat, stewed in tomatoes, garlic and onion, was sold for a mere $2.50 (£1.50).
It was served to him in less than 30 minutes.
“I sent it back. The waiter said he could get me something different, even a live one right away,” Mr Randriamahazo says.
He says the streets of Tsiombe and Beloka are littered with tortoise shells – an unfortunate sign of the insatiable appetite people have acquired for them.
Yet, Madagascar’s tortoises were once protected by the cultural beliefs of some of the island’s communities.
“People respected tortoises. They did not even touch them,” Mr Randriamahazo says.
Now, if tortoises do not end up in the rubbish heaps of restaurants, they end up in the suitcases of tortoise smugglers.
Sexual potions
Madagascar is known for its rich biodiversity but this has attracted smugglers interested in everything from its precious rosewood to minerals and tortoises – and the famous lemurs.
An alliance of 27 national conservation groups recently accused the government of being complicit in the illegal trade, as it had not cracked down on the “looting and plunder” of natural resources.
A WWF report on Madagascar’s biodiversity earlier this month said more than 600 new species had been discovered in the “Treasure Island” over the last 10 years, but many were already endangered.
With only a few hundred of the world’s most endangered Ploughshare Tortoises left, hundreds of species are crawling towards extinction behind them.
Hasina Randriamanampisoa, of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, says the smuggling rings are well-organised, selling tortoises on the black market in Asian countries such as Thailand.
Wealthy Asians see tortoises as exotic pets, and are prepared to pay up to $10,000 (£6,250) for them.
Traditional doctors in Asia also buy the shells of baby tortoises, using them in medicine concoctions that allegedly enhance the sexual performance of men.
Conservationists say smugglers pack up to 400 baby tortoises in suitcases, before flying to cities such as Bangkok.
Increasingly, they are also smuggling out adult tortoises to breed in captivity in Asian countries.
Mr Randriamanampisoa says tortoise numbers are rapidly dwindling and they risk extinction over the next decade.
“Even if the poaching stops now, the natural habitat is so vast, there are chances that the females cannot meet the males in the wild to mate and to have babies,” he says.
Mr Randriamanampisoa said there four species of tortoise “are endemic to Madagascar, so if they disappear here you will only be able to see them in zoos”.
Police had to smash their way into a car in Bath yesterday after a dog was left in a car in temperatures heading for 30C.
Dog owners are being reminded of the dangers of locking their pets in cars during hot weather following two incidents which saw police having to smash car windows to rescue animals in distress.
One occurred at 9.30am yesterday in Lansdown Lane when a dog had to set free from a vehicle once temperatures started to rise quickly, while the other happened earlier in the month at Bathampton, where a couple had left a dog in the boot of their car while on a boat ride.
Police have warned that dogs can die from heatstroke in as little as 20 minutes.
PC Karen Hoyle said in warm, sunny weather, cars became like ovens and even if on cloudy days, the temperature inside a car can still be dangerously hot for a dog.
She warned that leaving car windows open or putting a bowl of water inside did not help.
She said: “The owners were caught out by leaving their dogs in the car when the weather was cool – but then it suddenly warmed up when they were away.”
Police say leaving car windows open or putting a bowl of water inside a car does not help.
PC Hoyle added: “Owners who put an animal at risk by leaving it locked inside a car can face prosecution.”
The RSPCA advises that animals should never be left inside cars.
HALTON residents are urged to play their part in reversing the decline in Britain’s hedgehog population.
Cheshire Wildlife Trust is highlighting the findings of a new report which says Britain has lost one in four of its hedgehogs in the last decade.
The State of Britain’s Hedgehogs report is backed by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) and the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES).
The two groups are now launching ‘Hedgehog Street’ – a neighbourhood watch scheme for urban wildlife which encourages people to create wildlife friendly gardens.
Sue Tatman, of Cheshire Wildlife Trust, said: “With such a significant and relatively recent drop in hedgehog numbers, this is not a problem where you can role up in a ball and hope it will go away.
“Tidiness and efficiency are behind the loss of many of our wild creatures, both in our wider countryside and in our own backyards.
“Huge, neat and tidy fields plus the use of pesticides at home and beyond has led to a tougher time for our wildlife that once thrived on hedgerows and grasslands bursting with life.
“Our ‘best kept village’ outlook on gardening has often left our wildlife in second or third place, but allowing a small part of our gardens to run wild can often be all it takes.”
She added: “Gardening for wildlife is often about the balance between providing a helping hand like a hedgehog house, and letting nature do the work for you by allowing a wildflower meadow to develop in part of your lawn, or using hedges as a natural barrier instead of fences or walls”.
The trust’s tips for creating a hedgehog friendly garden include:
Avoid using slug pellets and pesticides – a healthy population of hedgehogs will actually control many garden pests.
Having dense shrub boarders offers shelter.
Letting an area of bramble in quiet corner overflow slightly mimics hedgerows, naturally the perfect habitat for hedgehogs.
Encouraging insects into the garden encourages hedgehogs as they will have plenty to feed on.
Creating a small hole of around 15cm in fences and walls will allow hedgehogs access.
Details of how to build a hedgehog house are posted at www.cheshirewildlifetrust.org.uk.