Posts by Jennifer Huizen
7 Reasons To Visit North Shore-Gaspé
It’s WWF Water Wednesday, when Love Nature explores the unique characteristics, natural history, environmental challenges and threats of Canadian waters. Tune in to Love Nature on television every Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT for WWF Water Wednesdays to learn more about other amazing watery environments found around the world. Stretching from Eastern Quebec across Labrador … Continued
American tigers for sale
Want to know a frightening fact? There may be more captive tigers in the United States than left in the Asian wild. And these American tigers aren’t being born and bred in accredited zoos or academic settings, they’re backyard big cats. You read the headline right—thousands of tigers and lions are being privately held on … Continued
Exploring the extreme resourcefulness of animals that live at the 'dry limit of life'
As far as we know, water is fundamental to all life on this planet. But there are places on Earth that receive as little as 0.76 mm of rainfall a year and have no open freshwater sources. To live in these extremely arid environments, evolution has favoured those able to adjust to life with little water, … Continued
The wild and rugged Lower Mackenzie Watershed
Every other week as part of WWF Water Wednesday, Love Nature explores Canadian Rivers, their unique characteristics, natural history and environmental challenges and threats. Today, we look at the Mackenzie River. Though few have ever seen the extreme, mostly frozen, beauty of the Lower Mackenzie Watershed, it’s one of Canada’s greatest freshwater systems, emptying 13 … Continued
The world biggest pharmacy? The rainforest!
Simply put, the Amazon rainforest is one of our world’s greatest ecosystems. Encompassing over a billion acres of precious ancient growth forests in Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru, the rainforest is often called the lungs of the planet, generating about a quarter of the world’s fresh oxygen supply. The Amazon Basin holds one-fifth the … Continued
Researchers revive Antarctic moss piglets frozen after a three-decade long nap, and they’re really, really cute
Cryobiology, the study of biological materials that undergo moderate hypothermia to deep-freeze conditions, has long been considered a potential route to human immortality, but some microorganisms are already masters of the trick. In the spring of 2014 scientists with Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research decided to test the limits of frozen-life, resuscitating three microscopic … Continued
Animals seemingly self-regulate population size through portion control
Researchers show animals aren’t necessarily as resource-greedy as previously thought, in part thanks to maternal diets during pregnancy. For quite some time now biologists have known that the environmental conditions a mother is exposed to during pregnancy can have important and long-lasting effects on her offspring. Genetically speaking, these factors are called maternal effects—conditions where … Continued
Photo reveals dark side of kangaroo sex
Though many were quick to assume an eastern grey male kangaroo and accompanying joey were in mourning, photographed clinging to his mate long after her death, the more likely truth is he was still keen to mate. Last week while on a morning stroll in the brush, Australian Evan Switzer spotted a rather unusual sight—a … Continued
Meet Muchichili, the newest orphan at the Lilayi Elephant Nursery
Last Monday Game Rangers International’s Elephant Orphan Project rescue team set out to save a young elephant alone on a tiny island in Lower Zambezi, Zambia. Now, after a lot of hard work and a lot of manpower, the orphan herd at Lilayi Elephant Nursery is happily welcoming the newcomer with open trunks. One of … Continued
Lemurs in Kent just got a pretty nifty gift from Sony
The Port Lympne Reserve’s langurs and lemurs are ringing in the New Year like many of us—binging on nature documentaries. As part of the reserve’s ‘Back to the Wild’ project, aiming to return animals born in parks across Europe to their native homes, the primate staff have installed brand-spanking new and state of the art … Continued
Meet the goat who ran away from slaughter and won his freedom
This is Braveheart—the famous @Lowellgoat who spent a month last year on the lam in New England’s brutal winter wilderness, now living it up at a farm animal sanctuary. The legend of the @Lowellgoat, aka Braveheart, began last Boxing Day on a small Massachusetts farm: Oliveira’s Piggery in Tewksbury. The Piggery supplies the region’s Muslim community—and anybody … Continued
Restoring the great American prairie
Imagine if you could go back in time and roam the pristine American prairies, see how they were a few hundred years back when Louis and Clark first passed through, teeming with thousands of bison and elk, packs of wolves, colonies of prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets, and cougars and grizzlies galore. Well someday soon you … Continued
Love Nature sets up Camp Zambia, to create shows offering an intensely intimate look at the country's wildlife
Here at Love Nature we’re dedicated to documenting the vast array of life that inhabits our planet, delivering the most intimate and unique animal stories from around the globe straight to your living room. Now, with the help of UK based Plimsoll Productions, we’re setting up Camp Zambia, looking to capture even more spectacular and … Continued
How to beat pet homelessness—an easier solution than first thought?
American researchers conduct a first-ever look into the problem of pet homelessness in the United States and find that reducing the number of pets being rehomed—over a million cats and dogs annually—may be easier than it seems. While there’s been plenty of work studying the saga of abandoned pets, most have documented events post-surrender, meaning the factors that … Continued
Scientists knew this lake would 'drain catastrophically during 2015'—Now it finally has
This past July a permafrost retention wall holding back a lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories gave way, dumping half its contents—some 30,000m3 of water—into the surrounding countryside and creating a 2km trail of muddy debris. But the video (shown below) detailing the true extent of the event was just released last week, compliments a remote camera … Continued
Canada’s ‘puppy-mill’ province pledges to clean up its act, just in time for International Animal Rights Day
Quebec has lagged behind most other Canadian provinces in regard to their animal rights laws for decades, but last Friday they become one of the most progressive of their peers, passing Bill 54 which recognises pets as sentient beings. There’s a lot to celebrate this annual International Animal Rights Day. Years after trendsetters like Germany … Continued
Exploring the Fraser River watershed
The Fraser River Watershed flows 1,370 km through British Columbia, from its source at Mt. Robson Provincial Park in the Rockies, to meet up with the Pacific Ocean, at the Strait of Georgia, in Vancouver. Covering a huge range of habitats and ecosystems, the river comprises 12 unique watersheds each capturing a different aspect of … Continued
The mightily pleasing world of mushroom plastics
Fungi are already pretty special critters, but now researchers, engineers, and big businesses are working together to add new planet-saving tricks to the fungal repertoire. Simply put, if the Kingdom Fungi didn’t exist, we likely wouldn’t either—nor would the planet we know and love. It may sound like a rather nasty job, but the fungi … Continued
Brave goat and compassionate tiger form remarkable bond
A Siberian tiger in a Russian animal park has taken on a new and rather unusual friend—one initially meant to be his dinner. Visitors to the Far Eastern Safari Park in Russia’s maritime Primorsky region have been witness to quite a spectacular, albeit odd, performance in the last few weeks. Twice each week the Park’s … Continued
'Wise' elk freed from ice by father-son team in Sweden
One lucky elk, or moose as they’re also known, in the northern Swedish town of Skansnäs owes big thanks to an unlucky pair of local hunters. Klass Persson and his son David spotted the distressed animal trapped in a frozen river and immediately jumped into action. Alerted by their dog’s alarmed barks, Persson told local newspaper Västerbottens-Kuriren … Continued
This strange squirrel has gained a winter home… and internet fame
After two weeks of rescue attempts by wildlife workers the bald squirrel of Grove Park is safe and sound at last. In a small park in Dunstable, some 30 miles north of London, an incredibly rare squirrel entirely devoid of hair was spotted a few weeks back, sparking a wave of sympathy across the country. … Continued
American NIH to cease chimpanzee research
Chimps are incredibly like us humans—a connection that has cost the species big time. At one point there were thousands of chimps being used globally as human-replacements in research studies, though today most of these animals are long retired. But according to the American group PETA, 900 or more chimps are still held in labs … Continued
These may be the year’s most amazing wildlife pictures
In celebration of the 350th anniversary of one of their publications, Royal Society Publishing held a photography competition. After over 1,000 global submissions, the winners are in. Royal Society Publishing has been offering scientists an international platform for a seriously long time, but this year they decided to do something entirely different. In honour of … Continued
The bigger and more urban the bird, the more human-tolerant it’s likely to be
Some wild species are more tolerant to humans than others and researchers want to know why so conservationists can determine which animals may need our help in the face of inevitably increasing human expansion encounters. Ecologically speaking, humans are the ultimate invasive species, and the larger our global population grows the more we impede on … Continued
Coywolf dominates northeastern North America but fails to be formally recognised
In the 1930s and 40s, a rather unusual looking breed of wild dog began to pop up across the northeastern United States. Smaller than a wolf but much larger than a coyote, the crossbreed was classified in the late 1960s as an eastern coyote or coydog, a cross between a coyote and a dog. Though … Continued
These unfortunate animals are 'traitors' to their kind (but we're the real ones to blame)
While many of us aren’t overly fond of our 9 to 5, these animals take the cake for worst job ever—and have one of the most unappealing titles to go along with it. For centuries Judas animals, an individual creature isolated from its social herd and used to control the larger group, have been employed by shepherds, farmers, … Continued
