Tag: animal death

why-animals-do-the-thing:

michiefen:

i-lyke-chickin:

casismypie:

terriblyraeven:

sixpenceee:

This insane puffer fish eats anything thrown in the tank. I’m truly scared.

It just looked you dead in the eye and ate that centipede

any one else notice he started with the tail

like… that centipede was alive the whole time it was getting eaten.

Brutal

hey @why-animals-do-the-thing my mom said it looks like the pufferfish might just be going after them bc it’s starving, is that what’s going on or am i right to fear them now?

Pufferfish are predators – along with algae, they will attack and eat marine invertebrates. I don’t think it’s necessarily extreme for them to go after the invertebrates or the snake that were provided, although it’s not what they’d normally eat. 

It also isn’t the same tank in all of the videos, and may not be the same fish. (If you look at the fixture in the back and the wear on the bottom of the tank, it’s not the same in the centipede video and the scorpion video). I’m not sure why those fish are being kept in those conditions, or if they live in those tanks full time – we don’t have enough information to know – but if they’re being fed these prey items specifically for the video, I could potentially see people withholding food to make them super hungry for a good film clip. 

That being said, the method through which they’re hunting them isn’t unusual or overly dramatic – that’s just how puffers deal with their prey. 

FYI: the music behind the video is loud electronica, so watch your volume levels if you’ve got headphones in or don’t do well with being startled. 

That’s pretty much how pufferfish deal with prey, yes. They’re hungry little things. 

Please note that it is not smart to feed your fish things that are venomous and/or capable of biting, like the centipede and scorpion. You also really shouldn’t feed live vertebrates, i.e. animals that are capable of feeling pain, unless the animal in question simply cannot be weaned onto pre-killed food. This unfortunately seems to be in the same class of videos as people who feed live fish to their piranha to watch them be torn apart. IMO, feeding live, fully aware vertebrates to a predator, when there are other options, is cruel. Pufferfish will happily eat dead meat, they don’t need to be fed live things. 

Veterinary Story Time – Dogs & Anger

drferox:

forest-dreemurr:

drferox:

hellmothereva:

drferox:

Movies and modern media have a lot to answer for in regards to animal welfare and ‘trendy’ breeds.

You may well have heard of the surge of popularity in dalmatians after 101 Dalmatians hit the cinema, or everybody wanting to own clownfish after Finding Nemo came out, but the movie I will always particularly blame is Hachi: a dog’s tale.

An Akita, if you’ve never met one, is perfectly capable of being a loyal and noble companion, but are frequently described as ‘dominant, aloof, independent’ and ‘not a dog for beginners’. They are even considered a dangerous dog breed in some jurisdictions.

Weiterlesen

Waitwaitwaitwait, so in Australia you can euthanize a HEALTHY dog just for being potentially agressive? Did he actually hurt someone or did I misread something? Here in germany you aren’t even allowed to euthanize healty animals. Only if they hurt a human/an animal a certain amount of times (I’m not exactly sure how often, but that’s the only reason you are allowed to euthanize them. And if they killed a human. Obviously.). I am just so shocked that this guy didn’t even tried to rehome him or put him in a shelter… Wow, now I’m angry at everything. Especially this owner. And idgaf if he loved him, apparently he didn’t loved him enough to think just a little forward or simply read the Wikipedia-page about Akitas. Fml.

The dog was threatening other family members and actively worse with everyone who was not the owner. They could not accept the risk that rehoming him would result in a human injury.

Putting a dog that is aggressive towards everything except one human into a shelter where it never sees that human again? Not a good idea. We weren’t waiting for the bite to happen, especially not from a large and powerful dog.

And I will euthanise a healthy but aggressive dog over a healthy but timid dog when shelters are full. That is too much risk to expect somebody else to handle, and if he had given it to a shelter at that time, it would still have been euthanised.

I really don’t think that was meant to be a shot at you and your decision, but rather the laws and lack of support to avoid the situation that some other places have

I didn’t interpret it as taking a shot as me, but it’s a decision I stand by anyway.

This decision was made in a rural setting, with limited resources, but even where I am now with more resources there is a growing and frustrating trend of independent rescues, mostly breed-specific that frankly seem to be run by bunny-huggers that want to save everything, no matter the cost, or trying to rehabilitate aggressive dogs which is my professional oppinion should have just been put to sleep, and maintstream shelters will not touch.

Dogs which are so aggressive and reactive that the ‘rescues’ can’t find foster carers for them, that their experiences foster carers can’t handle, so they put them in boarding kennels for weeks at a time while they figure out what to do.

One individual dog had $15,000 spent on it trying to rehabilitate it, between the behaviorist consults, medication, boarding, and shunting it from one end of the country to the other trying to find a suitable foster carer for it. And that one had already bitten a human.

One tried to give me a young doberman, knowing they’re one of my favourite breeds and that I am a vet, but this dog had been ‘failed to train as a guard dog’ and had so many behavioral problems as a result that there was no way I was tackling that project.

Just because you can try, doesn’t always mean you should. Sometimes all your options are bad in one way or another and all you can do is choose the one that minimizes harm. Once the bad decisions are already made, you need to make sure your last one is the best one you can make.

Sometimes it’s better to put time, money, and other resources into saving multiple lower-trouble animals than a single animal with serious health or behavioral issues. If that’s the case, better the animal die easily than battle health issues or be shut up in a cage because it’s too dangerous to take out.

And I think that person questioning the decision missed the part where the dog threatened a woman with a baby. 

husklaughingalonewithkanaya:

niggaimdeadass:

dymetaylor:

prettier than my insides. 

wow 

this is beautiful actually 

r.i.p

someone please tell me this is real and not photoshoped because that would make me even happier to have an OC with blue insides sob bless this fish rip

It’s real, though I think they tweaked the photo to make all the colors more saturated. This is probably a blue lingcod. Only some have this coloration, possibly due to diet, and the color disappears on cooking. Evidently they taste the same regardless of original color.

any idea where i can source specimens to practice skinning and tanning on? i live in a pretty urban place so i don’t really have access to local farmers or hunters stuff if that makes sense

vultureculturecoyote:

Some pet shops sell frozen mice and rats for snake food. Or you can order them online as snake food. Small mammals like rats are perfect for that.

 You might also be able to source things like whole rabbits from butchers. But I’m not sure if they would sell them whole. I couldn’t get any whole animals from my butchers because apparently dead animals are a “bio-hazard” unless unless they are in 12 separate pieces…

It’s the guts and brains that are an issue. Lots of nasty, nasty diseases that can be carried in there. Same thing that makes it hard for people to raw feed their dogs and cats properly, that unavailability of organs. Particularly the digestive tract.

Depending on laws in your area, roadkill may work. Some places you can’t legally pick up roadkill, some you can. If it’s fresh, freeze it for awhile to kill the worst of the pathogens, then it’ll work fine as a practice specimen. Just don’t eat any part of it. 

autisticeducator:

cerulean-beekeeper:

systlin:

thatweirdlittlegothgirl:

systlin:

systlin:

Incidentally, if you are fishing any stream or river in the Mississippi river watershed and catch any fuckers that look like this;

DO NOT THROW THEM BACK FOR FUCK’S SAKE. 

That’s an Asian Carp, and they ARE invasive. The Iowa DNR encourages people to catch, kill, and eat as many as possible. 

They’re also tasty as hell, even though they’ve got lots of bones. 

Also, yes, this fish has weird eyes that are set real low and look downwards. 

It does not have two eyes on the same side; it just has a mark there that looks sorta like one. 

Another pic;

They mostly eat plants, but sometimes will get snagged when line fishing. But, they also do THIS;

Midwesterners being who we are, we immediately knew what to do; BOWFISH THEM SHITS

And INVENT THE SPORT KNOWN AS ‘SCARPING’, which is just netting them out of the air/smacking them with baseball bats/spearing them with pitchforks/ect while waterskiing;

See…I’m good with a bow…but not that good.
I AM however much better with a net and having the prey come to me.

…Does anyone want to take me to go Scarping?

You can also use a shotgun

The DNR actively encourages all inventive ways of killing them off that people can come up with. There’s no limit on them, so you can fill up the boat. 

And they’re DANGED tasty. Nice mild firm white flesh. 

Only in American might you go shooting fish off the back of a moving boat.

New York has them listed as an invasive species and they are the only fish in New York that may be hunted with a bow.

Fully agree with removing as many as possible, but please remember, these are animals. They feel pain. It’s not their fault they’re invasive. Dispatch them as quickly as possible so they don’t suffer needlessly. They need to be exterminated from the rivers they’ve invaded, but try to be humane about it.

glumshoe:

Fish will “grow with the size of the tank” in the same way that your feet will grow with the size of your shoes. 

Fish in too-small tanks will stunt. Their bones and musculature stop growing, but their internal organs keep growing. You can tell when a fish has been in a too-small tank for too long because its stomach and eyes will be bulging and the eyes will be too large. This will eventually kill them as their organs crush against each other.

eartharchives:

This Tiny Songbird Rolls Its Head to Break Its Victim’s Neck

Shrikes kill mice by repeatedly biting the weak point at the base of their necks.

These guys are called butcherbirds because, in addition to THAT, they impale their dead prey (insects, lizards, small mice, etc) on thorns or barbed wire. This is partially to store it out of reach of thieves, partially so they can keep it on the thorn and pull it apart to more easily swallow it.

Wait back up, Australia doesn’t have SKUNKS? Idk why people think of Australia as full of dangerous bad wildlife, sounds pretty good to me with no rabies (huge plus) and no Surprise Stinkers.

drferox:

I’m going to assume you like spiders.

The Redback would like you too! They love humans and human homes, and seem to preferentially prefer living around us. Their venom causes almost pure pain and they are happy to share it. Here’s a picture of one eating a lizard.

image

(Image source)

Perhaps you’d like the Sydney Funnel-Web Spider instead? A spider that more or less is restricted to our largest, most populous city and can kill you. It likes to dig holes in your garden.

image

(Image source)

Perhaps reptiles are more your style? Consider our Tiger Snake, which is not a peaceful soul content to be left alone. Tigers have attitude and will have a go when provoked, unlike the relatively chill red bellied black snakes.

image

(Image source)

Also around our homes we also have the notorious Magpie, aka murder bird, which is not really as bad as the internet makes them out to be unless you’ve bothered them previously, but they can do significant damage divebombing your skull if they decide to.

image

(Image source and additional pictures)

Like birds? The cassowary probably should be a cryptid, but this dinosaur who didn’t get the message really exists, and will trample your organs. It eats fruit.

image
image

(Image source)

On the topic of large herbivores, red kangaroos are as big as ours come. They will eviscerate dogs and humans that get too close, and will total a car in a crash. Do not approach a red kangaroo hit by your car unless you are sure it’s dead.

image

If you’re interested in something a little more legendary, we have the Razorback pigs. These are not cryptids, they are large enough up north to start eating cattle.

image

(Image source)

But of course, they’re not the biggest snout at the dinner table.

image

And I haven’t even talked about what’s in the water.

Man, skunks aren’t even dangerous! They’re just unpleasant to piss off. Usually the only time you smell one is if it’s been hit on the road. If you meet a skunk, just be chill and keep going on your way, it’ll probably do the same thing.

Rabies is scary as Fuck, but we can fix someone who’s been bitten by a rabid animal with rabies vaccines. We cannot fix someone who was bitten by most of the above with, well, anything. 

drferox:

Listen, you need to stop sending me all these pet death stories. I know you’re doing it because even now there’s this need for a sympathetic ear, and believe me I read them all and I do sympathize, but I am flooded, even with anonymous asks turned off. I can’t post and respond to them all. I euthanised three pets in the last 24 hours, and returning to dozens of more pet death stories takes a toll.

But tweets and posts like those above clearly cause a lot of hurt, fresh grief and fear, with pain reaching far beyond those that simply share them for some kind of shock factor, as those reduced to tears retreat into whatever dark space they find themselves in.

I can’t argue against a viral post at every place it appears, but if you know somebody is hurting I offer you my response instead, even if it’s only to copy-paste a reply if your own words are failing you.

We can take away the pain of our pets, and in doing so shoulder that pain ourselves. There is no need to make that pain worse for each other with attention grabbing over-exaggerations. Even if these posts were not meant to harm, they do.

Caption reads:

If you could take away the suffering of one you love and shoulder that
pain yourself, would you? We are privileged to be able to do this for
our pets, but the pain we carry with us as a result lasts a long time,
and careless words can reopen those wounds in an instant.

Most
pets at euthanasia are not ‘frantically seeking’ their owners. Most are
so sick that they barely register what’s going on, and some are sedated.
But if the owner is not there, they all get a cuddle or a treat and are
told how very good and how very loved they are, cradled by a vet nurse as they drift into a permanent sleep. We have our favorite patients too. Sometimes they get an apology that we could not save them.

Take it from this vet: we’re here because we want to minimize pain and suffering.
That includes at the very end. That should include the people who have loved and cared for those pets too