By CHRIS PLEASANCE FOR MAILONLINE
August 23, 2014

A giant tortoise known as ‘Pepe the missionary’ after he spent time living with Franciscan missionaries on the Galapagos islands has died aged 60.

During his life Pepe became famous as a mascot for the missionaries and was a favourite with tourists who came to visit and take photographs with him.

Pepe, who ended his days in a corral at the Galapagos National Park’s
Interpretation Center, died yesterday of natural causes, said the park
ecosystems director Victor Carrion.

After the death of Lonesome George (pictured), who passed away at an estimated age fo 100 in 2012, the missionaries handed Pepe over to the Galapagos National Park’s Interpretation Center

Pepe was first adopted from the wild by by a family from San Cristobal island in the 1940s before being given over to the mission in 1967.

He lived there until 2012 when he was given over to the national park following the death of Lonesome George, another giant tortoise who was thought to be the last of his species left.

George was thought to be around 100 years old when he passed away, which only made him a young adult, as the species can live up to 200 years old.

While it is not known exactly why Pepe died at such a young age, Mr Carrion  said that several of his organs had been slowly failing, adding that Pepe was also overweight.

Pepe the tortoise, who became famous as the mascot for Franciscan missionaries in the Galapagos Islands, has died aged 60 of natural causes

Park director Arturo Izurieta paid tribute to the tortoise on Twitter, saying: ‘After 60 years of life, Pepe the Missionary will remain in our memories forever.

‘The disappearance of Pepe the tortoise does not put his species in danger.’

Pepe was a member of the Chelonoidis becki species native to Wolf Volcano on the island of Isabela.
About 2,000 tortoises from the same species still live in their native habitat.

The Galapagos Islands are famous for their unique flora and fauna studied by Charles Darwin as he developed his theory of evolution.

Giant tortoises still exist in the wild on the Galapagos islands, near Ecuador. The unique and diverse range of flora and fauna on the islands were studied by Darwin as he developed his theory of evolution

Impartial to all, free from excessive attachment or false hope and expectation; accepting, tolerant, and forgiving. Buddhist nonattachment doesn’t imply complacence or indifference, or not having committed relationships or being passionately engaged with society, but rather has to do with our effort to defy change and resist the fact of impermanence and our mortality. By holding on to that which in any case is forever slipping through our fingers, we just get rope burn. ~Lama Surya Das

At her job, Maria Torero cares for sick human beings. At home, she lavishes love on slowly dying cats — 175 of them at last count.

The 45-year-old nurse has turned her two-story, eight-room apartment into a hospice for cats with feline leukemia, scattering it with scores of feeding dishes and at least two dozen boxes litter boxes.
Some have suggested she shelter healthy cats instead. “That’s not my role,” she told The Associated Press. “I’m a nurse. My duty is to the cats that nobody cares about.”

She said that “people don’t adopt adult cats, especially if they are terminally ill.” (AP)

In this Aug. 2, 2014 photo, Maria Torero, plays with a group of 175 cats
with leukemia in her home in Lima, Peru. Torero says caring for cats
with feline leukemia is her responsibility. Anybody else can care for
healthy animals. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Though we all have the fear and the seeds of anger within us,
we must learn not to water those seeds and instead nourish
our positive qualities – those of compassion, understanding,
and loving kindness.
~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Kyle and Max at the camp, day 1. They stay there three days.
Hmmm…. I have no clue why Kyle dressed up like this!
Max looks bored, Kyle looks lost!

The very first time AJ knocked on my door and brought me many string beans, with a big smile!
“A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside.”  ~Denis Waitley

The lady only sold us two lotus plants, after begging her to sell them to us for many days, maybe months! Now, one has been stolen already, especially the large and beautiful and healthy one. I have been waiting for the flower to appear right before my eyes, as pink as the shirt I am wearing, as a surprise to make my smile more beautiful and meaningful. Well, I love pink and pink lotus so much, that’s why I wear pink almost every day. And I wear yellow too, of course, not just pink! Well, my plant is so beautiful. Cannot blame the person who stole it, or took it without our permission. Who does not love that super gorgeous green plant! I would cry if, and only if I know how to cry. The problem is, I was born to smile, and I only know how to smile!

Well, whoever took my lotus plant, please take good care of it. You must keep your eyes on this gorgeous plant wide open, in case someone else would sneak in to take that a way, same way you did to Jendhamuni.

By Jennifer Welsh, Business Insider
August 22, 2014

Humans are no newcomers when it comes to messing around with nature. While we haven’t created Frankenstein’s monster yet, what we do messes with the natural world. One recent example is the creation of the coywolf — a hybrid of the coyote and the wolf that is also known as the Eastern coyote.

These animals have a completely new genetic make up: Their genes are about 1/4 wolf DNA and 2/3 coyote DNA, the rest is from domesticated dogs. They were created when previously separate wolf and coyote populations merged in the land north of the Great Lakes.

 Here’s the coyote, which traditionally maxes out at 75 pounds and has pointier features, and readily populates cities:

And this is what a wolf looks like. Wolves, are usually bigger, weighing in at about 100 pounds, and prefer more wild habitats.

While the grey wolf and the coyote are each other’s closest living
relatives, the two animals separated evolutionarily one to two million
years ago. These hybrids have only really emerged en force during the
last few decades, as wolves were hunted and forced north and coyotes
moved east from the Great Plains.

According to the New York Times’ Moises Velazquez-Manoff: “[The
coywolf] can be as much as 40 percent larger than the Western coyote,
with powerful wolflike jaws; it has also inherited the wolf’s more
social nature, which allows for pack hunting.”

Specifically,
this genetic combination of the two animals seems especially well
suited to its northern habitat — better suited than either parent
species. The wolf genes allow the coyote to take down bigger prey, while
the coyote genes let them adapt to cityscapes and other metropolitan
areas.

To study the hybrids better, scientists went
ahead and made some 50/50 hybrids in the lab, mating female coyotes with
male grey wolves. That’s not exactly like the wild coywolves, but it’s
similar. And gives scientists a better idea of how successful a mating
between the two species would be. While two pregnancies didn’t result in
live offspring, one litter created six puppies.

Here’s the result:

Generally the hybridization of species gives evolution something to work with to deal with tough times. When food is low because of climate change or your habitat is being destroyed by humans, these animals can turn out to be tougher or more adaptable than their parent species (though many aren’t and many turn out to be sterile).

So, how did these hybrids come to be? Well, as Velazquez-Manoff writes in the New York Times magazine:

The emergence of the Eastern coyote, however, shows how human activity can break down the barriers that separate species. Perhaps the most obvious way in which humanity is altering the natural world is through climate change. The Arctic, where its effects are especially evident, is warming between two and four times as fast as the rest of the planet. Spring thaws now arrive weeks earlier; winter freezes come weeks later. Shrubs are invading once-barren tundra. Animals at high latitudes — where related species tend to have diverged more recently and can therefore interbreed more easily — are shifting their ranges in response to rising temperatures and melting sea ice. As they do, they may encounter cousins and hybridize.

This is what a wild coywolf looks like. This one was spotted in West Virginia.

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