Canada – See Animals Wild

December 19, 2023December 19, 2023

North Atlantic right whale population appears to be stabilizing!

The population of the north Atlantic right whales appears to have stabilized at around 350, having fallen from a peak of 483 in just 2010. In 2022 there were 356, down from 364 in just 2021.

Never a highly numerous species (it would appear) around 5500 were taken in the 3 centuries of whaling. The problem now, is that the population is so small that any looses imperil the whole species. Further, given the large amount of boating in the area, many of the remaining individuals have propeller scaring, and collisions are common and occasionally fatal.

Time will tell if this species can recover, though tourism interest is likely to give them a higher value to the local community and may help save the species.

Below is a short 5 minute video from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

To visit our North atlantic right whale page click here Should you operate in tourism for this species, do get in touch, we would love to help people find you- it costs nothing to be linked, we only take a small cut of any income we find for you. Click on List your wild place at the top of the page, or here

December 7, 2023December 7, 2023

Algonquin wolves -origin different than we thought?

The Algonquin wolf, also known as the Eastern wolf is a species which has been discovered in the eastern USA and Canada (click on the bold name above, to visit the species page).

Perhaps, understandably, it is hard to find a new species in the USA unless it is already pretty rare. This species is only thought to have around 500 individuals, throughout its range (eastern USA and north into Canada).

South-eastern Canada has been known for a race of wolves and coyotes, that do not appear quite right for some time. This study suggested that this group of wolves split from the rest of wolves around 67,000 years ago. This appears to recent to give rise to the significant genetic differences, but it appears that this population also bred with coyotes around 37,000 years ago, and has continued to have genetic exchange between both species (on occasion) since.

As such, it is suggested that the Eastern wolf largely owes its appearance to hybridization between all three.

Has this lead to a more successful species? Well, one may well suggest not, given the small number of these wolves that survive at this time.

However, this is a well settled part of North America, suggesting that in fact it could be down to human hunting rather than natural forces.

Narwhal

Generally, the source of any so called unicorn horns, they have a tooth that can extend more than 3m from their mouths and some have 2. Most recent populations suggest around 170,000, Induit from Canada and Greenland have hunted them for both meat and ivory.

They migrate in winter, and much of their food comes from Arctic cod and Greenland Halibut and live around 50 years. Young narwhals are predated by both Polar bears at breathing holes and Greenland sharks.

They are essentially an odd looking species of dolphin. There are around 123,000 individuals, living in 12 different groups in areas around the arctic.

Beluga Whale

Beluga whales are only found in the arctic and sub-arctic oceans. They are one of just 2 species in their family Monodontidae, and are unique in their genus of Delphinapterus. It is also known as the white whale, the sea canary and the Melon-head (though the melon-headed dolphin is a species of its own, so this name may cause some confusion.

Adaptions it has for the Arctic, include the fact that it is white in colour, allowing it to blend into the white world more effectively, and the fact it has no dorsal fin, which allows it to swim very close to the ice sheet above.

Growing up to 5.5m in length and up to 1600kg they are a pretty large dolphin. Generally, living in groups of around 10, in the summer, they group together in their hundreds or thousands.

The worlds population is thought to be around 200,000, Some populations move from the edge of the ice cap, into rivers in warmer areas, while others stay around the ice caps year round. Groups of people in both USA and Russia have hunted them for many centuries.

Hunting is not controlled, and as such the drop in population could happen quite fast. Russia and Greenland have killed enough to drop their local population significantly, though thankfully not Alaska or Canada.

They do also have their natural predators in both the killer whale and the Polar bear.

They are the most commonly kept cetaceans in the world, with around 300 in captivity. Japan, USA, Ukraine, Canada, China and Russia as well as a few more.

There are 22 populations around the world, these vary from 39,000 down to as little as 500. The total population is around 200,000. While this number is large, the number hunted is definitely not sustainable. There is also no care to distinguish the different populations, which suggests that sub-populations could be pushed to extinction without any care.

Below, you will find a clip from a bbc documentary which features this species. Below this, is a list of any mentions that the beluga whale has had on this site. Below this, I will list any opportunities to see this species in the wild. Click on list your wild place, to list yours. It takes just a few minutes, and costs nothing – we only charge a commission on any business we send your way.

News in Brief – Beluga whale spotted in the Thames, Japanese knotweed invasion and Praying Mantises

Tim
October 4, 2018

Beluga whale spotted in the Thames

A Beluga whale, a species usually found in the arctic region, has been spotted in the Thames estuary a few miles from London. As...

Tim
March 13, 2024

This is not a melanistic whale, instead it is a beluga whale, which is usually white. Filmed in January it is only the sixth time that this species has been...

Brown bear

With it’s range originally encompassing the whole of Europe, much of Asia, most of North America and the atlas mountains of Africa (the only native African bear), it has unfortunately been in decline for some time. These days the bear habitat consists of Alaska and parts of Canada as well as northern regions of the USA, relict populations in Western Europe though they still have a stronghold in Eastern Europe and and Russia as well as sections of central Asia. Highly intelligent they have never lived at high densities, as members high on the the food chain, few places can support large populations for long. With their impressive intelligence, and inquisitive nature, the can be tough to live alongside. With all that in mind brown bear watching can be an enjoyable pastime in many different places. Around much of the world there are newer hides in places that bears still exist – these allow you to watch bears in their natural habitat. We currently only have one listed (it’s will with a visit, link below) but we are always keen to list many more.

There are many places where bears live happily live alongside humans and are rarely seen.

Over time we hope to list many places where you can visit bears and see them in their wild home. Below this, is a list of any articles that have been written on this species, below that will be links that we have to see bears yourself.

The Cantabrian brown bear is returning, will it be allowed

Tim
March 17, 2021

Back around the 1900 there were around 1000 bears roaming the mountains of the Iberian peninsular. Unfortunately by 1950 this population had been reduced to two small populations consisting of 50-60 in one and perhaps as low as 14 individuals in the other.

Bears should be given more respect as predators

Tim
January 25, 2022

It is often suggested that bears are merely opportunistic when it comes to meat eating. The suggestion is that bears are vegetarians who are capable of scavenging from dead animals. Now, of course we need to be careful as bears have a wide range of intelligences. Brown bears have an intelligence on par with chimpanzees, …...

Should bears be returned to the wilds of the UK?

Tim
August 20, 2021

If you follow this blog regularly, you will have read yesterday and the day before on the reasoning for reintroducing Lynx and Wolves. As I wrote, Lynx should be a simple choice. I believe that Wolves follow a similar logical route, that suggests that the reintroduction would either save or make far more money that …...

First recorded fatal bear attack in Slovenia in living memory

Tim
June 16, 2021

Bears are highly intelligent fascinating animals. However it must also be remembered, that they are highly efficient predators, and that they are more than capable of defending themselves. The Slovenian bear population has tripled in the last 20-years, and there are increasingly loud calls to legalise hunting. This will only make these calls more insistent.

Once a year in the Ecuadorian cloud rain forest the real Paddington bears come together to feast on wild avocados

Tim
April 5, 2020

As in other parts of the world, human encroachment is pushing wild species into smaller areas of land, and reducing their population.

Indonesia to start a study to see whether the Javan Tiger is actually extinct (44 years after it was declared so)

Tim
March 27, 2024

I wrote a few moths ago, about a picture taken in Java, which purported to show a living Javan tiger. As with many similar photos, it was of low resolution, which in many situations, would appear suspicious. If you are on safari in Java, you would think that you would take a high resolution camera, …...

Species watch

Tim
May 11, 2022

I am intending to make this into a new set of articles that will appear on this website. Obviously, these species will not be the only ones that are covered – for those who read this website regularly, you will know that I talk about a wide range of species. The species that I am …...

Fascinating genetic analysis of African and Asian leopards show worrying fact

Tim
May 7, 2021

Despite the fact that over time I’m many zoos have accidentally or intentionally interbred African and Asian leopards they are actually significantly different. How different you might ask? The two different cat species are more genetically distinct than the polar bear and the brown Bear! We need to remember that subspecies of animals evolve separately …...

Polar bear

A relatively new species of bear, the polar bear is the only species adapted for polar life. Still being found all around the Arctic, there are roughly 26,000 in the wild at the current time. Whalers and for traders killed many in the 19th century, and while they have recovered experts predict that global warming is likely to lead to the extinction of the polar bear.

Polar bears are distant cousins of the Grizzly bear, and as the weather warms, polar bears are moving south and Grizzlies north. This has on at least one occasion created a so called “Pizzly”. We only know about this, because a hunter who paid to kill a polar bear accidentally shot the Pizzly. I have made it clear my lack of appreciation for the so called hunter – while I am ready to admit that in places the money is useful for conservation, I hope that with your help and this website, we might make it an irrelevance.

Found throughout the arctic, they can be seen in

Alaska (USA) 4000-7000
Canada 16,000
Greenland 3500-4000
Norwegian islands, particularly Svalbard about 3000
Russia:22,000-31,000 (note, this adds up to far to many – indeed Russias population alone is above the world population, also some are shared between countries)

Over time we hope to list many places where you can visit bears and see them in their wild home, these will appear here, and a list of posts we have published on bears will appear below these links

So you think that only the poster child of climate change – the polar bear, is threatened by the changing climate? Think again – now rhino?

Tim
June 12, 2024

Rhino are unable to sweat, which means that as temperatures increase, both black and white rhino are more and more reliant on finding shade, in order to keep their huge bodies within safe temperatures – will there come a time, where this is impossible? What other species might be at risk, even far from the …...

Tim
June 27, 2023

2200 polar bears live on the west coast of Greenland. It is unknown how many live on the east coast, but this group appears to be living in a place where they were formerly thought incapable of surviving.

Tim
August 18, 2022

A group of polar bears are surviving in south-east Greenland are surviving despite there not being sea ice for most of the year.

Tim
October 24, 2020

Despite Iceland actually having less ice by far than Greenland (a strange marketing ploy to get people to settle there centuries ago), it is very much arctic nation and and therefore it does occasionally get visits from polar bears. Polar bears are capable of phenomenally long swims, so if they don’t reach land eventually they …...

Tim
September 21, 2020

The National oceanic and atmospheric administration is an important body whose job it is to produce the majority of the government’s climate change research. It is therefore highly concerning that they have recently chosen David Legates to run this organisation. He is a longtime climate change denier, indeed in 2007 was one of the authors …...

Tim
July 27, 2020

Despite Iceland actually having less ice by far than Greenland (a strange marketing ploy to get people to settle there centuries ago), it is still very much an arctic nation and and therefore it does occasionally get visits from polar bears.

Tim
March 25, 2020

Polar bears have always had problems finding enough to eat. They can only efficiently Hunt out on the sea ice which in the past many seasons of plenty and seasons of fast. Climate change has made the seasons of fast too long to be survived by many and so they’ve had to adapt.

Tim
March 5, 2020

Polar bears retreat into dens under the snow in order to have their cubs. Until recently this was an entirely sensible thing to do as these stems would survive very effectively until warm enough for the bear’s to emerge.

Tim
April 15, 2020

This statistic on its own is alarming but to put it in Context this suggest that we are tracking the worst of the three scenarios put forward by climate scientists in the past.

Tim
February 10, 2019

The Nunavut government has put together a report looking into polar bear Inuit interactions. The report suggests that population growth has pushed the polar bears into close proximity with the Inuits and the result of this is likely to be more and more clashes and potentially deaths of humans.

Tim
March 27, 2024

Tim
March 9, 2024

Tim
May 11, 2022

Tim
March 15, 2022

The British government promised to ban the imports of trophies in to the UK, yet they have given up after “wealthy peers” lobbied against the move and so it was dropped. I have written on this issue many times over the last few years, as it was raised as an issue over and over again. …...

Tim
December 5, 2021

Many species can have albinism. That is: a lower amount of pigmentation or indeed a complete lack of pigmentation. From white lions and white deer, or indeed even white grizzly bears – possibly the initial way that Polar bears evolved, albinism is not rare. Humans are also capable of having this condition – evidence is …...

Tim
November 15, 2021

For the majority of people, a leopard is a leopard. Sure there are quite a range of subspecies, but one generally looks rather like the other. Indeed the only significant difference people often notice is one that has not justification – that of the melanistic leopard (or black panther) In order to disturb wild leopards …...

Tim
May 7, 2021

Tim
December 22, 2020

There are many sports Hunters around the world. A significant portion of them live in the States and western Europe-it is generally a rich man’s (and woman) game. There are certainly parts of the world for which hunting is a sensible use of the land. However this is not true across the vast majority.

Tim
December 17, 2020

Trump is going to kick start the process of selling rights to drill oil in the arctic refuge on the 6th of January. Whats more, in the lame-duck session, he is desperately keen to get this process so far along, that it is impossible for Biden to undo this stupid move that is totally anti-democratic.

Tim
November 19, 2020

One of Trump’s big aims during his first term was to greatly increase oil and gas extraction, to the point where the USA is energy independent. For those who have looked at the data, there are several problems with this.

The Dog (caninae) family tree

The Dogs also form an incredibly successful family. They have spread to even more so more of the earths surface has a dog living in each area. They has been classified into 2 tribes.

The first tribe is the tribe Canini (true dogs), which is further split into two subtribes. Each sub tribe is in turn split into a number of Genus, which have a number of species each

The first subtribe is Canina which is wolf like Canids, this is in term split into 4 genus which I will take in turn

Canis

First genus is Canis, which is subdivided into 6 species 2 of which have into subspecies.

Dog

European golden jackal

A curious coyote at Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Refuge in South Texas

Red wolf

The second genus is Cuon and only has one member in it. This is found in central south and south east Asia.

Dhole

The next genus is Lupulella, and has two members, both found in Africa

Black backed jackal

Side stripped Jackal

The last Genus in Canis is Lycaon. This only has one member, which is the African wild dog

Wild dog in the Kruger

The second subtribe is Cerdocyonina (south American Dogs). There are 5 genus with living members (South American dogs), with the 6th (Dusicyon) containing 2 extinct species – so we will not mention this agai .

Of the 5 genus with living members, Lycalopex is one of these genus with 6 species. Lycalopex is made up of South American fox species – it should be noted that these so called South American foxes are not foxes. While they look like foxes, they are more closely related to Jackals and wolves.

South American grey fox

The other 4 Genus in this subtribe, with living members each only have one member, so I will deal with these Genus in one go. These Genus are Atelocynus, Cerdocyon, Chrysocyon and Speothos. In the same order, the species that inhabit each of these genus are Short eared-dog, Crab eating fox, Manned wolf and the Bush dog.

Bush dog From the Genus Speothos

Crab eating fox from the genus Cerdocyon

Manned wolf from the Genus Chrysocyon

Short-eared dog from the genus Atelocynus

Then there is a tribe called Vulpina, sub divided into 3 Genus. these are essentially the fox like canines

The Nyctereutes which consist of the Racoon dogs: the common raccoon dog and the Japanese racoon dog.
The Otocyon which consists of the bat eared fox
The Vulpes: Which I will deal with in the next section, separately (below

Raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides)

Japanese raccoon dogs

Bad eared fox

The true fox family is a large extended family of foxes from around the world. They all behave in a similar way, though the habitat in which they live can be very differemt

Finally there is a Genus on its own called Urocyon which consists of grey foxes, of which there ae only 2 surviving members.

Grey fox

Island fox

Algonquin wolf

Algonquin Wolf

This wolf was formerly called the Eastern Timber wolf, and was considered a subspecies of the grey wolf. There are only around 500 of this species that live in the wild. They are classified as vulnerable, presumably as there was never a large population of these wolves in the wild. They are thought to have split from grey wolves 67,000 years ago (for reference, this is more than twice the minimum distance back to when red and grey wolves split).

Found in the area of the great lakes and eastern Canada.

At the point at which it was decided that this wolf is a separate species, it already has a relatively low population, though it is considered to be mid-way between secure and extinct.

Any articles that we write in the future will appear below. We hope in the future to link to people who can help you see them in the wild, this will lie below the news. Do get in touch if you live or work in the area, we are really keen to connect you with those people visiting the area, so that they can see this newly split species and to bring you income from this species on your doorstep.

Both of the below videos are from Algonquin park, the first is a natural howl of a wolf in the stillness of the morning, while the second, is a howl prompted by a human howling into the wilderness – while this should not be done too often, as it can make the wolves nervous (they howl to spread themselves out, so hearing howls can make them think that they have to fight – though howling in North America is far more common, likely as a result of centuries of persecution in Europe.

As we make links in the field to see this species, they will appear below the videos and the list of articles.

Algonquin wolves -origin different than we thought?

Tim
December 7, 2023

The Algonquin wolf, also known as the Eastern wolf is a species which has been discovered in the eastern USA and Canada (click on the bold name above, to visit the species page). Perhaps, understandably, it is hard to find a new species in the USA unless it is already pretty rare. This species is …...

Canada lynx

The Canada lynx is one of 2 new world species, and is found through much of Canada and Alaska, throughout the Boreal forests of spruce and fir. They are hunted but the harvest is worked out on the basis of the population, so it rises and falls quite a lot. Climate change is effecting its northern range, and unfortunately is bringing this cat and the bobcat into more common contact, leading to an increasing number of hybrids along the area that they meet. There are thought to be 10-12 thousands of the Canada lynx across its range.

Big cat family tree

The Cat (felidae) family tree

Lynx family (this is the Eurasian Lynx)

Puma family

Leopard cat family

Domestic cat and family

The Cats form an incredibly successful family. It is true that they are missing from the polar regions, and Australasia, but everywhere that they reached they have been successful, and in many ecosystems they are the undisputed kings

Panthera Family

This family split from hte Felid ancestor 10.8 million years ago. There have been some debate as to whether the two species of clouded leopards should be included in Panthera. On the circular mammal tree (which we are using – look in the species watch tab, or click here)

They are generally included in a subgenus Panthera_Neofilis

Lion - all subspecies

Leopard - all subspecies

Sunda Clouded Leopard