Discovery Science 🧬

wild animals for the most part perceive humans solely as a predator and/or a serious danger. They do not have the instinct to “turn to a person for help” and usually avoid contact. Therefore, even the wildest and stupidest fox, no matter how bad it feels, will never purposefully go to a person “for help.” For them, we are mortally dangerous, so why the hell should sick animals look for even more problems for themselves? This is simply illogical, just like a deer with a broken leg would go to a pack of wolves for help. This myth grows from rare but very real cases when animals in critical condition came out to villages and the outskirts of cities. Then anthropomorphism simply worked, that is, the transfer of our human emotions and experiences to animals. Since they came “to a person”, it means they are looking for help! But the truth is much more prosaic: most often, access to settlements is associated with the search for easy prey - food in trash cans and our pets. Sick, wounded, some young and too inexperienced, as well as simply weakened animals are not able to compete for resources and territory in the forest, but hunger is not an issue, so they have no choice but to leave their native habitat. The key here is that the sick and weakened are not equally helpless and grateful. You cannot feed them: this can firmly reinforce the stereotype of man = food and discourage the furry from returning to the forest. As a result, he will remain living somewhere nearby and, with a high degree of probability, may later cause an accident. After all, tomorrow you may not have a tasty piece at hand, and the little animal will decide to take a bite from you. For the same reasons, under no circumstances should you let savages warm themselves in a porch or barn, much less try to pet them. In any of these most noble intentions, the beast can sense a threat. Even on its last breath, a wild creature can seriously claw or slash with its claws. The animal may look as pitiful as possible, but if you give it a helping hand, there will be an immediate bite. After which - hospital and mandatory rabies vaccinations. And besides, they are very oftenThey are carriers of all sorts of different diseases, from rabies to scabies and lichen. How do you like this reward for salvation? Author: Arina Taran 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

Is it true that sick animals specifically come to people for help? Dangerous Misconceptions You can't save: how to help wild animals in the city, and is it necessary to do it at all? Have you heard the news about how a woman brought a “sad dog” to the veterinary clinic, which in the end turned out to be a wolf? Of course we heard, because the entire Internet vied with each other in admiring her kindness and care for our little brothers. Here she is - a real woman, and will stop a galloping horse, and bring a sick wolf to the clinic! Do you want to know what really happened there? The news about the generous savior and the poor dog-wolf has been circulating for a long time, and each storyteller adds more and more heart-wrenching details to it. In some sources the wolf turns out to be wounded, in others mortally ill; these say that they first take him to the hospital under the guise of a dog - and then release him; others claim that after identification the animal was handed over to volunteers. Too many lies per square centimeter, don't you think? And rightly so, because there was no wolf! And women-saviors specifically in this story too. In fact, everything happened in 2019, in Canada. A man named Eli Boroditsky accidentally hit a dog, regretted what he had done, picked up the animal and put it in the back seat of his car. It was he who took the photograph of the “rescued wolf” - this is the same animal that Eli shot down and then saved. As it turned out later, the rescued child was not a dog, but a coyote: due to shock and injuries after the accident, the wild animal did not resist, so it allowed itself to be picked up and lay quietly the entire trip. The animal was eventually picked up by conservation officers and released back into the wild a short time later. The story is unusual, but not hype, it doesn’t collect likes or reposts, so someone smart decided to turn everything inside out and came up with their own version, and the rest followed suit. Well, okay, you say, you won’t find such nonsense on the Internet, so why bother? The fact is that this story has become popular - and because of this it is very dangerous. It very organically came about as confirmation of the myth that fox hedgehogs come out of the forest to people specifically for help. People already believe in this, but here you go, so much food for thought. In the comments under the fake rescue they even claimed that it was not the woman who caught the beast, but the sick wolf himself came to her for help. Oh how! And this is a very, very dangerous myth. Remember: wild animals never seek human help! If you meet someone other than a stray dog/cat/rat in the city, do not touch the animal! Contact the state veterinary station, game management department or other organization authorized in your region that deals with wild animal issues. Animals walking around the city should be dealt with by specialists, not just kind people. According to scientific research,

oks helpless needs saving. Sometimes human intervention is not help, but a disruption of the natural survival mechanism. Author: Arina Taran 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

survival mode. Simply put, they will decide that it is better not to tempt fate and not wait until they are caught too, but to get away. Some may not come back at all, or they may return but the cub was transferred somewhere in the name of salvation, then all hell breaks loose. Separately, it is worth mentioning about the cubs of predatory animals and large ungulates. If you notice cute little bear cubs in the clearing, know: most likely, their big mother is already watching you. One squeak - and maternal instinct will work a hundred times faster than your reaction. Therefore, no tenderness, much less attempts to pet him. Slowly turn around and walk in the opposite direction. Be on your guard, meeting females during the breeding period is extremely dangerous! In the case where contact is unavoidable, for example, a fawn, obeying instinct, froze on the roadway, then act quickly and quietly. In fact, freezing is an evolutionarily well-functioning defense mechanism; the baby tries to blend in with the surroundings and become invisible, but alas, on the road among cars this does not help, but kills. It is best to use a blanket, towel or some kind of diaper for transfer: throw it over the animal’s head and/or the entire carcass to limit visibility and calm it down. Then carefully pick it up under the front and hind limbs at once, carry it to the nearest bushes and leave. While the savior is nearby and monitors the results of his work, the animal will continue to experience stress - you did a good deed, complete it with your absence. If, unfortunately, the animal is definitely wounded - you can see blood, bone fragments, and an unnatural position - then it is better to trust the specialists. Call a wild animal rescue center, if there is one in your area, and explain the situation to them: for each case and animal, the action algorithm will be different. If there are no centers, contact a veterinary clinic. Some doctors take on the treatment of wild animals - they will also tell you what to do at the moment. Before you understand what to do next, you can throw a towel or blanket over the animal’s head, but do not try to provide first aidon one's own. A wounded animal experiences severe pain and can be extremely aggressive. If you suddenly received a bite or simply got drooled from a sick animal on you, be sure to visit the hospital and describe to them everything that happened. Rabies is not a fiction, people die from it regularly, there is no cure. Pre-vaccination only. No, the animal itself, and especially its head, is not necessary to bring with you, it doesn’t work like that now. And they won’t give 40 injections either; now the vaccination course is much simpler. So it turns out that if you see a wild animal in nature that does not look wounded and is not in danger, then do not approach - now all phones have excellent zoom. Just take a photo for memory, and then pretend that nothing happened and move on. In the wild, not everything that lo

Wild animals should not be handled, otherwise they will die from stress. What is possible? Reminder for the warm season Because of this, they can die: do not handle wild animals - your help can only make things worse. Spring is coming, the hiking season will begin and “Oh, look how cute the fawn is in the grass! He probably lost his mother, we need to help him!” Spoiler - don't. Without your intervention, he has a pretty good chance of survival, but after you take the animal in your hands, these chances can sharply decrease. Did you know that animals can die simply from stress after contact with humans? And this is not a comment byte, but a really documented phenomenon called stress-induced myopathy. Animals do not understand our good intentions; for them, any person is a priori considered a threat to life. Therefore, contacts with bipeds very often cause severe stress. When an animal, be it a wounded/sick adult or simply a “lost” cub, falls into the hands of a person, their body turns on the emergency mode. And the longer a wild animal is near a person, the more irreversible the consequences can be. During times of danger, the body of animals and people produces a whole cocktail of stress hormones. Adrenaline, norepinephrine, cortisol and other substances necessary for survival: they speed up metabolism, sharpen reactions and put muscles on alert so that you can escape or fight back. But alas, all this is not free. Working at the limit of your capabilities greatly exhausts the body, and any body has its own margin of safety. Over time, muscles overheated by adrenaline begin to tire, break down and release waste products and lactic acid. All this enters the blood in such large quantities that the body, exhausted by stress, simply cannot utilize everything correctly. Due to the accumulation of harmful substances, they cause irreversible damage to the kidneys and heart, resulting in death. Depending on the animal’s resistance to stress, from the moment of capture to death it can take from several hours to a couple of days, but the result is often the same. If suddenly a wild animal turns out to be super stress-resistant and all of the above does not happen to it, the risks of dying after contact with a person are still quite high. Firstly, because of the crookedness of the rescuer. People who are far from nature don’t even understand which side is better to take a wild animal, but imagine that it starts biting and struggling! Anyone who has ever bathed a cat will understand what we are talking about here. And a person can easily be injured, and the animal can receive additional damage. It is our human children who can get lost even in a shopping center, but wild ones usually don’t get lost: as a rule, the parents of unfortunate fawns, wild kittens, puppies and fledglings are somewhere nearby and watch in horror as two-legged creatures try to save their child. And if the “rescuers” make some noise, then adults may well switch into

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How do elephants understand death? This is human level or higher. Rituals and philosophy Elephants are the only animals that perform rituals on the dead. And not only over our own. When an elephant dies from the herd, its relatives do not leave. They stay close - sometimes for several days. They feel the body with their trunk, turn it over with their tusks, and stand silently in a dense group. Elephants are trying to raise cubs that can no longer be saved. Matriarchs - the oldest females of the herd - stand over the body for a long time, without moving. But here's what's really strange: they return to the bones months and years later. Passing by the place of death of a relative, the herd slows down. Stops. Each person takes turns coming up and touching the bones with their trunk - especially the skull and tusks. Scientists observed an elephant holding the jaw of its dead mother in its trunk for several minutes. Whether he recognized her is unknown. But clearly something was happening inside. In Africa, elephants have been repeatedly recorded covering the bodies of dead relatives with branches and leaves - creating a semblance of a primitive burial. And in northern Bengal, scientists have documented five cases of Asian elephants literally burying dead calves in the ground - methodically and consistently, as a whole herd. Around each burial, tracks of 15 to 20 elephants were found. After this, the herd left the place for 40 minutes and then avoided returning - they chose other migration routes rather than pass by. Further - more interesting. Elephants do the same thing with the bones of strange elephants they have never known. In one experiment, they were given the bones of an elephant, a rhinoceros and a buffalo - the elephants chose the elephant ones every time and spent more time on them. This is not a “smell one’s own species” instinct. The bones are old, there is almost no smell. This is something different. Once, in the daughter of a deceased elephant, observers recorded abundant secretions of the temporal glands - they are located between the eyes and ears and begin to actively work under emotional stress. That is, physiology also reacts. The elephant's body literally goes into grief mode. Elephants seem to have an abstract concept of death as a category. Not “my cub died” - but simply “death.” Regardless of personal connection. No other animal on the planet has this, except humans, and not all cultures have developed this into a ritual. Zoologists are still debating what to call it. Because the word “sorrow” is about people. And they haven’t come up with another word yet. 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

Gray Heron: Like a wolf, but with wings. The orderly of our swamps and rivers Imagine: you are walking through the forest, raise your eyes to the treetops and see dozens of nests above you, from which meter-tall birds with long sharp beaks are silently looking at you. A surreal picture, isn't it? It is even stranger to realize that it is impossible to see it in the exotic tropics, where strange things abound. But in Russia - please! After all, this is what a colony of gray herons looks like. True, few have had the opportunity to see such beauty with their own eyes. Although the birds are widespread across Eurasia - they can be found from Spain to China and the Far East - truly large colonies are found far from human habitation, in the middle of swamps and along the shores of large lakes. But if you just want to look at the birds, then you can find 1-2 pairs anywhere: at the nearest pond, at a small river, on the sea coast, and even within the city - if you have a larger park. But it’s worth looking at them - where else will you see such a big thing? The gray heron is as thin as a knitting needle. With a height of one meter and a wingspan of two meters, she weighs well at 1.5 kilos. At the same time, the skinny bird manages to catch and eat amazingly large fish. For example, she was once caught eating a rainbow trout weighing 700 grams. And how does it fit inside? To get food, the heron uses simple but extremely effective tactics, which have only one drawback: the bird must have limitless patience. She has to stand for hours in the water or on the shore nearby, waiting until the fish gets used to it and decides to get closer. And then one quick throw - and the prey is already in the stomach, although she herself has not yet realized this. Gray herons have become such successful fishermen that even in the USSR, scientists wondered whether the birds were harming fish stocks? Surprisingly, neither we nor our foreign colleagues still have an answer to this question. On the one hand, a colony of voracious birds destroys tons of fish, giving preference to commercial species, and does not hesitate to look into fish farms. On the other hand, first of all they catch the sickest and slowest fish, preventing parasites and epidemics from spreading. So what does it mean, gray herons are river nurses? After all, they are so similar to forest orderlies, to wolves. After all, they also destroy thousands of ungulates, but they save them from epidemics that can claim millions of lives. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot