SNN (ScrollingNetworkNews) ✿ ✿ Our Mel and Sydney returned to their nesting box with plenty of bonding occurring..but after 2.5 months of Sydney in the box from Dec 2013 to mid Feb 2014, the lack of prey gifts from Mel ( perhaps due to the severe and historic drought underway in California)and they have forgone the nesting process this year as many other raptors ✿ Compared to other owls of similar size, the Barn Owl has a much higher metabolic rate, requiring relatively more food. Pound for pound, Barn Owls consume more rodents – often regarded as pests by humans – than possibly any other creature. ✿ We remind viewers that sometimes owlets may not survive - the parents will dispose of things in "The Owl Way" -viewer discretion is advised, this is nature and the "Owl way". ✿ ~ ✿ “Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.” ― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals ✿ Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius." ~ E.O. Wilson

Monday, October 15, 2012

Wild for Wildlife and Nature

Pallas's cat (Otocolobus manul), also called the manul, is a small wild cat having a broad but patchy distribution in the grasslands and montane steppe of Central Asia. The species is negatively impacted by habitat degradation, prey base decline, and hunting, and has therefore been classified as Near Threatened by IUCN since 2002.

 Pallas's cat is native to the steppe regions of Central Asia, at elevations up to 5,050 metres (16,570 ft). They are found in the Transcaucasus and Transbaikal regions of Russia, and, less frequently, in the Altai, Tyva, and Buryatia Republics. They also inhabit Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Kashmir and across much of western China, especially in the Tibetan Plateau. In 1997, they were reported for the first time as being present in the eastern Sayan Mountains. Populations in the Caspian Sea region, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, are declining, and increasingly isolated.
In 2008, an individual was camera-trapped in Iran's Khojir National Park for the first time.