By Hannah Sarney
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Have you ever wanted to follow a polar bear? Well, now you can. Thank you, the internet! Tracking collars have been attached to four polar bears so their locations can be plotted on this brilliant site.
It's not just fun for us to follow though. Scientists are using the regular updates to observe how the polar bears are behaving in the arctic environment and how they may be affected by climate change.
“Over time this information reveals changes and adaptations. For example, in years when there is less sea ice, it will tell us where bears go and how they adapt.”
An elephant called Mila has been grabbing headlines again this week. She's the one that killed her keeper, Dr Helen Schofield, in April at Franklin Zoo and Wildlife Sanctuary.
Dr Schofield had been preparing Mila to adapt to living in an overseas sanctuary and was about to start raising funds for the transfer when she died. Now Franklin Zoo is trying to raise about $1.5 million to make the transfer happen.
Campbell Live's Natasha Utting travelled to San Andreas, California, to visit the sanctuary.
You can donate to Mila's transfer fund here.
While a lot of animals are treated terribly by humans, there are thankfully groups of people around the world trying to heal the wounds - physical and mental - by working with the animals.
Here is another example involving elephants this week and here is a beautiful animation about a little girl and a fox.
Closer to home, former whalers and Department of Conservation (DOC) researchers are teaming up again this weekend to begin the ninth winter whale survey in the Cook Straight. It assesses how humpback whale numbers have recovered since commercial whaling ended in New Zealand in 1964.
3news.co.nz published a gallery this week that captures the Grindadrap in the Faroe Islands - the annual hunt for pilot whales. The whaling is not done for commercial purposes - the meat cannot be sold and is divided evenly between members of the local community.
We also pulled together a much, much, much cuter collection of photographs documenting young Fennec foxes at the zoological garden in Lodz, Poland.
A lot of people have been sharing the link to Hamlet the mini pig making his way down a set of stairs this week (video below). I'm sure a few of you thought "aawww, I want one!" Well, take a moment to see what he looks like now (he turned two-years-old on May 30).
There was a spanner/squirrel in the works at Disney World recently. A fluffy little fellow scurried in front of the Monorail and forced the patience of the driver:
Then there was that other time a man/artist turned his dead cat into a helicopter.
I'll leave you with something you can really sink your claws into - Dogtye feat. Katra – Somebody That I Used to Know.
3 News