Bears having trouble getting to sleep this winter

[marcus]

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20880680-23109,00.html

it is just too warm

so they aren't getting such a good hibernation this year
apparently the problem extends from Siberia all the way to Estonia.

thx to Lucretia X of the sciencechat news team
http://www.sciencechatforum.com/bulletin/index.php
story is currently frontpage
http://www.sciencechatforum.com/

 

[arildno]

And the hedgehogs. Don't forget the hedgehogs, even though they are just roadkill nowadays. Nobody cares about the hedgehogs. They should. They are cute.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I care, arildno. God save the hedgehogs!

 

[Evo]

I LOVE hedgehogs!

 

[hypatia]

I'm having a hard time sleeping too!

 

[arildno]

The site http://www.steveconrad.co.uk has a nice collection of hedgehog pictures.

 

[turbo]

What is sad is that with these warm and relatively snowless winters the past few years, snowshoe hares and weasels (whose coats turn white in winter) stick out like sore thumbs against the browns and greens. They would be better off staying brown. The downsides of being too easily spotted by your predators or prey can be serious. I suppose we'll see if these disadvantages will select for critters that change to white later in the year, or perhaps not at all.

 

[arildno]

Snowshoe hares and bears are cute, too. Not sure about the weasels, though..

 

[turbo]

Snowshoe hares and bears are cute, too. Not sure about the weasels, though..

Weasels are very cute and are quite inquisitive. Once, after hiking to the top of a mountain in northern Maine, my friends and I sat on a cairn to eat lunch, and a weasel kept popping its head out from the rock-pile. Pretty soon, he was coming within almost arm's reach to grab little bits of sandwiches that we tossed to him. Weasels are the smallest in the family of which my avatar is a member. Here, we also have minks, pine martens, and fishers - all quite attractive animals. Fishers are quite fast and talented and are the top predator of the porcupine. They will eat house-cats if the porcupine population is low. Nothing messes with a fisher (if only because we don't have wolverines in Maine).

Edit: Visit this site and THEN tell me that weasels are not adorably cute!
http://www.saskschools.ca/~gregory/animals/weasel.html

 

[Evo]

The site http://www.steveconrad.co.uk has a nice collection of hedgehog pictures.

Oh, that toungue is SO CUTE! :!)

 

[franznietzsche]

Oh, that toungue is SO CUTE! :!)

Ga-ross !