The blank stare is often just the owl waiting its turn while its sibling eats, which makes the pair look like one keen diner and one thoroughly unimpressed customer who has already been seated. Rehabbers also note that a loosely wrapped owl will calmly grip the towel with one foot and steadily push itself free, as if politely declining the burrito and walking out of the appointment. 😂

I want future generations to know what it feels like to stand in a forest and hear birds everywhere, to see rivers running clear, to watch bees disappear into wildflowers, to look up and actually see the stars, to encounter wildlife without it being a rare event. I don’t want them growing up thinking these things only existed in old photographs and documentaries.

When your frequency is so high, BIRDS ARE DRAWN TO YOU. You start seeing different types of birds everywhere you go. It’s like nature is constantly reminding you that you’re in alignment with your energy.

Red panda cubs apparently go through something keepers call the “popcorn stage,” where they randomly jump around before they’ve fully figured out how their bodies work. Sometimes into walls. Sometimes into each other. I have never related to an animal more...

In 1991, researchers from Monterey Bay Aquarium were watching a wild sea otter mother who had lost her pup and was still swimming around the area calling for him, which was already heartbreaking enough, but at almost exactly the same time the aquarium happened to have an orphaned male pup named Elwood who was also spending a significant portion of his day calling for a mother he didn’t have. So at some point the researchers found themselves in the extremely specific situation of having one sea otter desperately looking for a baby and one baby desperately looking for a sea otter mom, and apparently someone said the scientific equivalent of “okay, this might be stupid, but hear me out.” They brought Elwood out to the bay, found the female still there, put him into the water and waited to see what would happen. She swam over, inspected this random baby the humans had just delivered to her… and adopted him... The next morning they were still together, and researchers continued seeing them together for months. And because apparently “what if we give the sad baby to the sad mom?” can occasionally be a legitimate contribution to conservation science, this accidental little family helped inspire Monterey Bay Aquarium’s later surrogate-mother program for orphaned sea otters. I love wildlife rehabilitation because sometimes it involves years of research, specialized veterinary medicine and extremely complicated protocols, and sometimes somebody just looks at two animals and goes, “I have an idea.”

George the capybara was supposed to live with other capybaras. But he had other plans. He arrived at WildSide Exotic Rescue after years as a pet, raised indoors with dogs. Staff hoped he would settle in with his own kind. Instead he climbed five foot fences seven times and headed straight back to the barn, where a rescue dog named Milo lives. They are now a pair. George and Milo stroll the farmyard, lounge on the sofa, and do rounds of the other animals. He stops for back scratches from the raccoons and little “massages” from the meerkats, then carries on with his dog. The sanctuary says they simply chose each other. A giant rodent who decided home was wherever the dog was.

I saw a quote today that has me teary eyed: “Your pet has memorized the sound of your car pulling up the driveway, your footsteps, the opening of the door, and even the rhythm of your heartbeat. You are their entire world, finally complete once you get home.”

Red foxes don’t just pounce on mice in the grass they line up facing northeast like they’re following a very serious internal Sat Nav. Turns out Earth’s magnetic field is their secret targeting system, so those jumps work far better than when they just wing it. Nature’s tiny ginger missiles, basically.

Researchers in Kenya have found that wild elephants seek out specific plants when they’re sick, injured or dealing with stomach problems. Of course they do. They live in that landscape their whole lives. They remember water across decades, recognize hundreds of individuals and mourn their dead. Why wouldn’t they know which plants help ailments too? There is a quiet wonder in how often humans are still surprised when animals know the world they belong to better than we ever could.

Saw a video of a pet owner who sent a message in their friend group chat if someone could walk his dog because he’d be coming home late. No one replied, but everyone showed up to walk his dog in different hours. Hahahaha. Doggo was so confused, happy, and tired by the time he got home. But imagine a circle who would care for your dog????? Top tier.