Animal Lovers

Smokey the Bear told us we were responsible for preventing forest fires. Crime dog McGruff helped us take a bite out of crime. Woodsy the Owl told us to “Give a hoot, don’t pollute.” It’s that last one humans seem to have a big problem with. Where a wizened old owl’s advice has fallen short, however, the tragic image of a dead Kemps Ridley sea turtle with a beach chair stuck to its back may prove more compelling. An eye-opening illustration of the damage human pollution has done to our oceans, images of this tangled turtle have been sweeping across the internet, first posted by  Fort Morgan Share the Beach , a local chapter of the Alabama sea turtle protection nonprofit Share the Beach. The story these pictures tell is a dark one which, wildlife advocate or not, is hard to ignore. Source:  Facebook/Fort Morgan Share The Beach The turtle was dead when it washed up onto the shore. “There was a heavy string around the chair that wrapped around the turtle’s neck,”...

For the first time in nearly two decades , a beach in Mumbai – one of the most populated cities in the world – is crawling with tiny baby turtles, proving that life truly does, uh, find a way. Versova beach stretches along the eastern side of Mumbai, looking out onto the Arabian Sea. While olive ridley turtles are known to nest on other beaches around India, this is the first time in close to 20 years that they have done so in Mumbai, with around 90 hatchlings making their way into the sea. What makes this story all the more amazing is that until around three years ago, Versova beach was a dump. Literally. Plastic washed up on the shore, people threw their trash onto it, and sewage pipes dribbled into the water. It was covered from the surf to sand in garbage that, by some reports, reached up to 1.7 meters ( 5.5 feet ) in depth in places. People didn’t swim in the ocean, they swam in plastic. Week 127 . Fantastic news for Mumbai . We got back Olive Ridley Sea Turtle after 20 ye...

Turtles can live for a long, long time. Anyone who’s seen Finding Nemo can tell you that, and they probably don’t need to. It’s more than likely that you’re well aware of this fact. What you might not know, though, is that turtles can DO a whole lot, even when they’re very old. Meet Nigrita. She’s an eighty year old Galapagos tortoise, and she lives in the Zoo Zürich in Switzerland. But you’ll never believe this: She’s also a new mother. Galapagos tortoises, amazingly, have children very frequently even when they’re this old. Image Credit: Zoo Zürich, Samuel Furrer That’s because, as you probably know, they can live well beyond a hundred years. What is a little crazy, though, is that all nine of Nigrita’s babies are completely healthy and doing well! That’s good news because the Galapagos tortoise is currently on the endangered species list. Because of that Nigrita is part of a breeding program at her zoo that will hopefully raise the number of tortoises in the world. ...

Look, we know this sea turtle's prosthetic beak has a tragic backstory, but it sure makes the reptile look like it has a future as a badass pizza-loving mutant. According to 3D Printing Industry , Turkish animal rescuers found it almost lifeless at sea, after a boat propeller shaved off a huge part of its snout. It escaped the clutches of death thanks to those kind folks, but a turtle that has to be hand-fed can never survive back in the wild. That's why the organization contacted 3D printing service provider BTech Innovation , which took the turtle's CT scans to create a beak that would fit it perfectly. The company recreated the reptile's upper and lower jaws through software, and it printed out the resulting design using medical-grade titanium. That beak has been surgically attached recently so the critter's still in recovery, but it's doing just fine, as you can see in the video below. Once it's done recovering, the rescuers plan to release back to t...