Wild Cat

Wild cat (Felis Silvestris), sometimes "wild" or "wild cat" especially when distinguishingfrom other wild species of felines, is indigenous predator in Europe, western Asia andAfrica.

This is a hunter of small mammals, birds and other creatures of the same size.
There are several subspecies which occur in different regions of the world, including the ubiquitous domestic cat (Felis Silvestris CATF), which was introduced in each habitablecontinent and most major islands in the world, and became wild in many of theseenvironments. In its native environment, the wild cat is adaptable to various types ofhabitat: savanna, open forest, and steppe.
Although domesticated breeds show a great variety of shapes and colors, wild people of medium brown with black stripes, between 50 and 80 cm (20-32 inches) in length andweigh from 3 to 6 kilograms (6-13 pounds).
The African subspecies tends to be slightly smaller and lighter brown. Wild cats are verytimid.
They do not come too close to human settlements.
They live in solitude.

About wild animals

After analyzing your little brother for a few hours -- watching Tommy slurp up spaghetti, hang from the trees and roll around in mud -- you're convinced he's a wild animal. Strangers back up your claim, remarking that he must have been raised by wolves. However, even though Tommy is a bit rambunctious, he's completely domesticated.There are many differences between your brother and true wild animals (most notably that the latter usually doesn't eat Italian food). Wild animals, whether they fly, swim, swing, jump, run, slither or burrow, must use their instinct and environmental adaptations to survive. There are hundreds of thousands of wild animals roaming our planet -- some are familiar faces, like giraffes; others are more unknown, like capybaras.

Being described as "cold-blooded" might offend some people, but amphibians and reptiles welcome the term. These sometimes slithery, slimy wild animals are found in almost every region of the world. Whether four-legged, two-legged or no-legged, amphibians and reptiles have been getting around for millions of years.

Birds and marine animals seem to live completely separate lives -- one flying high within the heavens, and one gliding through the murky depths. But what about birds that swim, like penguins, and fish that soar, like flying fish?

Faraway beasts like tigers and kangaroos might come to mind when someone mentions wild animals, but there's one group of creatures you encounter everyday. Insects and arachnids are part of the most diverse, abundant group of all the wild animals.

Whether furry or scaly, feathery or leathery and every texture in between, wild animals provide diversity and wonder to planet Earth. As humans continue to solve zoological mysteries, hopefully we may add to the list of known animals. Who knows, scientists may even discover a new species in your own backyard: Brotherus annoyingus.

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Best Places to See Wildlife in Nature

While a zoo definitely has it's place in animal watching, it doesn't compare to seeing animals in their own natural habitat. After a recent visit to Yellowstone National Park, this felt especially true for me. A traffic jam caused by young buffalo calves and their mothers crossing the road is an experience not to be missed. It made me wonder about other places that would be conducive to viewing wildlife in a natural setting. From my research I have come up with a list of some of the best places to visit if viewing animals in nature is your objective.

In the United States, national parks are the best place to start. For viewing sea animals, the best places include the Channel Islands off the coast of California. The islands are surrounded by sea lions, seals, gray whales and humpback whales. There are also numerous tide pools that house creatures such as sea urchins and anemones. Another area great for water animals is Glacier Bay in Alaska. Humpback whales and sea lions are in abundance off shore and on land bears and moose are often times available for viewing. For a different spin on water creatures, visit the Florida Everglades, the last remaining everglades on the planet. There you will see crocodiles and alligators co-exists along with turtles, dear, manatees and bobcats. The everglades contain large viewing towers that are devoted especially to wildlife watching or you can be a bit more daring and take a canoe ride in croc-infested waters.

Other national parks that make the list for best wildlife viewing are Denali National Park in Alaska, Glacier National park in Montana, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Denali, Glacier and Rocky Mountain offer animals such as dall sheep, grizzlies, caribou, wolves, mountain goats, elk, dear, bighorn sheep and marmots. Theodore Roosevelt is a less well known park and therefore offers great viewing of bison, wild horses, deer and elk without all the crowds.

The Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica is a brilliant rain forest that contains over 100,000 acres of land and 5,000 acres of marine habitat. The park is home to 116 species of amphibians and reptiles, 139 species of mammals and more than 400 species of birds. There are no roads into the park, only hiking trails. Unless you are an avid hiker and have excellent map-reading skills, a guide is recommended. In addition to the trails, there are also viewing platforms built atop massive ajo trees.Outside of the US, there are more exotic animals available for viewing at places such as Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica, the Komodo Islands in Indonesia, Tanjung Puting National Park in Borneo, Polar Bear Observation in Canada, and of course a Kenyan Safari.

The Komodo Islands in Indonesia house the world's largest population of Komodo dragons. These animals can grow to be over 300 pounds and up to nine feet in length. These islands are now an Indonesian national park and permits and tour guides are required, but they make the experience much more user-friendly (Komodo dragons aren't in petting zoos for a reason). In addition to land tours, you can also take a sea kayak around the park and see coral reefs, fish, dolphins, whales and sea turtles.

Nowhere can you see polar bears so up-close and personal as you can in Churchill, Manitoba. When Hudson Bay freezes, between October and November, this town is overrun with polar bears as they travel their migration path. In early winter, they even stop to dine on the region's seal population. For more up close views, you can take a tundra buggy (a converted school bus) into the migratory packs for a quick day-trip. For longer exposure, there are tundra lodges that provide all day exposure to the bears in their native environment.Tanjung Puting National Park in Borneo is one of the last places to see orangutans in their own natural habitat. Through an elaborate network of hiking trails, you can see the orangutans up close, swinging from branch to branch, suckling their young, or building nests to sleep. There are also orangutans in captivity which can be viewed. They are being rehabilitated before being returned to the wild. There are other jungle species as well that can be viewed in the orangutan jungle, including clouded leopards, civets, Malaysian sun bears, deer, numerous species of birds, and butterflies.

One of the most famous places to view wildlife is Kenya, and what better way to see it than on a safari. Safari's can take you through the likes of Masai Mara National Park, Amboseli Game Reserve and Mt. Kilimanjaro to view lions, leopards, cheetahs, wildebeests, zebras, flamingos, black rhinos, giraffes and elephants. Safari's range from less expensive options starting around $500.00 for an 8 day excursion to very luxurious safaris costing up to $9,000. Either way, you get to see what you like most...animals.

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How to Observe Wildlife without Leaving Home

While lumbering herds of elephants and stalking Bengal tigers capture the imagination of most animal lovers, we often neglect the nature closest to us. Sometimes we need a reminder that we are part of a habitat, and that the miracle of life exists under our very noses. Educator and naturalist Carolyn Duckworth has said, “If you want to understand and become connected to your environment, keeping a field journal is one of the fastest ways to accomplish this goal.”

Studies have found that children today consider nature to be somewhere else—on TV, videos, in the National Geographic only. But in reality, a genuine connection to wildlife around the globe is only an extension of a connection to the earth right where you stand. Good naturalists don’t gain their knowledge from formal schooling, they get it in the field, by direct observation. And this observation can start right in your backyard or at the park down the street.

This article will offer pointers for keeping a nature journal. It draws heavily on the program laid out in the book Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth.

The tools needed to start nature journaling are simple and inexpensive. One needs a notebook and something to write with. Experimentation will reveal your personal preferences for lined or clear paper, binding type, size, and lead or ink. As you gain experience you may add a small set of watercolor paints or colored pencils. If you use pencils you may need a sharpener, or you can use mechanical pencils, which yield more technical-looking drawings. You may also use a collecting bag for objects that you want to draw and study indoors. (Although you should collect only fallen objects, where permission is given).

There are no hard and fast rules for nature journaling, although entering observations using a heading is good practice. For your heading you may include your name, the date and time (it doesn’t have to be an accurate clock time), the place, weather conditions, your first impressions, wind direction (use a compass for this), and cloud patterns and cloud cover.

To get started you may find this sequence of observations helpful, as it gets you in the habit of observing all around you:

• Start by looking at the ground. Get a close up view of individual objects. Try to draw one or more in your journal, labeling each item. Take no more than five minutes per object, and give size measurements (you don’t need a ruler, just estimate.) For further learning, try writing at least one question about each object.
• Now stand up and draw what comes into view at eye level. Label the object and describe what it’s doing, or what it is part of.
• Look up from where you are standing. Record what you see above, and how it makes you feel.

Nature journals are not just for artists. Don’t worry if your renderings look like scribbles. The point is that you are connecting to your environment.

Some questions you may use to direct your journaling, and deepen your connection to the life around you are:

• What are the trees in my neighborhood? When do they bloom? What do their fruits and seeds look like? What insects use the trees? When do they shed their leaves? How do their seeds get to new sites to grow?
• What birds live in my neighborhood? What is their activity at various times of the day? How do different species of birds interact with each other?
• What kinds of insects gather around the light at my doorway each night throughout the year?
• When and where do mushroom species appear in my neighborhood?

Using questions like these you may find yourself discovering both the landscape you live on, and the landscape that lives in you. Those who keep a journal know that journaling is a form of journeying, and a well-kept journal can become a treasured record of where we have been, what we have seen, and what we have felt as we’ve interacted with the world.

You don’t have to visit the glaciers of Alaska, or India’s jungles, or the savannahs in Africa to connect to Mother Earth, although who of us wouldn’t jump at the chance? Start by putting roots down right where you stand.

“It seems only natural that we should value most what we are in contact with everyday…yet the reverse is often true. We appear to place a higher value on rare animals and plants and spectacular views and far-flung places. Of course both are important because they fulfill different needs. But the every day places desperately need our attention—partly because they are changing so fast, and not always for the better, and also because tremendous benefit is to be gained from a personal involvement with your own locality.”~The Parish Maps Project, London, England, 1987

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Wild Animal Endangerment

Wild animals are beautiful creatures with varying sizes, colors, and habitats. Although some can be seen in zoos, the place they are meant to be is in their own environment. Unfortunately, animals such as whales, panda bears and sea otters, are not always safe in these places and are dying out. What is causing their threat of extinction? Several factors have an influence on this growing problem.


Pollution

Because animals are all intertwined on the food chain, contamination of a water source that a species drinks for example, will not only effect them, but the animal that eats them as well, having the ability to cause cancer and other deadly diseases. If a mother drinks toxins, they become apart of her milk and she passes on those toxins to her babies. Because the off spring are considerably smaller than the mother, these chemicals and toxins will have a greater negative impact on them. Among these problems is a shorter life span, directly effecting the time they have to reproduce and multiply their species, not to mention the damage the pollutions have already caused on their systems and ability to thrive.

Contamination of water due to oil spills is another large problem. Because oil and water do not mix, and oil floats to the top and spreads easily and quickly, it is that much harder to clean up. Oil spills may be due to natural disasters, such as hurricanes, or can happen by people who do not want to dispose of oil properly and dump it into the ocean to get rid of it. Birds can be covered and will not be able to fly because of their feathers being covered. Oil covers sea otters and coats their fur, covering the air bubbles in their fur which are there to help them stay warm in freezing waters. Due to the oil coating these bubbles they die of hypothermia. So many different animals dying in mass quantity from oil spills also contributes to animal endangerment.


Decrease of Natural Habitat

If there are constant changes in the environment of a species, then there is subsequently constant changes in species habitat. Changes in the environment, of course, happen naturally. However, when this happens animals adapt because the changes are small, over a period of time. When humans make the changes they are more drastic and immediate. People can take out a forest in a matter of days, not giving occupants time to move to a new location in a time frame that is adaptable. To illustrate this point the habitat of the giant panda will be examined. A panda eats around 40 pounds of bamboo a day. This is due to the low nutrition of the plant and the inability of the panda to digest it. Large amounts must be consumed to get the necessary nutrients for the bear. After a bamboo plant flowers, it dies and does not regrow for another 10 years or so. If there is not another species of bamboo in that area the Panda then needs to move to another region which has bamboo still in season. Due to human activities such as farming, mining and road building quickly destroying the plants they eat it is difficult for the pandas to move to another forest to find the bamboo they need quickly.


Hunting, Fishing and Whaling

One of the greatest effects on water animals, such as whales, is exploitation. Exploitation is decreasing a particular species faster than nature is able to replace the population. Whaling has been a large contributor to the decrease of whales in the ocean. This unrestricted hunting or whaling purpose was for their skin, fur, teeth, meat or other reasons. Although some organizations, such as the International Whaling Commission (IWC) have been established, as well as laws and regulations, people do not always follow these laws and whales are still hunted. Animal parts make a lot of money and illegal activities pursued for the money that people can make. In Japan whale is still a popular dish and hunted for consumption. Along with whaling other fishing takes place. Large nets for fishing can entangle species they are not meant to capture, nor desired to capture. These lives are lost as a negative by product of mass commercial fishing efforts. The large commercial fishing takes out so many animals, so quickly that they can not replace themselves.

Human carelessness seems to be the overriding influence on all these factors. As people are concerned about the impact that their choices and actions make on wild life, their habitats and environments will be protected. People taking precautions will effect the environment for humans and wild animals alike.

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