Joy.

Joy, a fluffy, happy dog, from Giliell. Click for full size.

Snow Dog.

From rq, whose dog is having a grand time in the snow, click for full size!

I couldn’t help be reminded of my Cachet, who loved a snow romp, that was second only to swimming:

Happy New Year!

From Hekuni Cat and her cat, to all. Click for full size.

Pan Pan Has Walked On.

Pan Pan at the China Conservation and Research Centre in Dujiangyan in September 2015.

The world’s oldest male panda, with more than 130 descendants — a quarter of all the captive-bred pandas on the planet — has died aged 31, officials said.

Giant pandas have a notoriously low reproductive rate, a key contributor — along with habitat loss — to their status as vulnerable on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of threatened species.

But Pan Pan — whose name means “hope” in Chinese — was a prolific father, siring many cubs over the years that have gone on to have offspring of their own.

Announcing his death, the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas called it “heart-wrenching news” and said the “hero father” had been suffering from cancer.

[…]

The most recent estimates show a population of 1,864 adult giant pandas in the wild, up by more than a sixth over a decade, with experts crediting nature reserves, bamboo planting, farmer subsidies and commercial programmes for the increase.

Via Raw Story.

Lensing.

Beautiful shots from rq, click for full size.

Lab Cats.

Some more of rq’s fabulous art work! In this particular case, lab cats:

The story behind this is three black cats who visit the lab on a regular basis – they’re not quite strays but they don’t seem to have an actual home, and they’re our unofficial mascots.)

Sketch, line-drawing, painting, finishing touches. Plus a detail shot of mah favrit kitty.

Click for full size. I would be over the moon to have such gifts. My fave is the center bottom, that’s just wicked.

A year in the life of a Latvian Badger.

This is a wonderful video, and contains one of best happy scritching grooming moments ever.

During 2016, the badger had the honor of being Latvia’s animal of the year. And what a year it has been for badgers, as the video below shows.

Produced by the Latvian Natural History Museum and Latvian State Forests, the video shows badgers frolicking, loving, playing, fighting and generally badgering about throughout the whole year.

With films of all sorts of nonsense all over the place these days, how simple and refreshing it is to just watch 20 minutes of badgers being badgers.

There are also special guest appearances by deer, foxes, and assorted other woodland associates of Old Brock himself.

Thank you, Latvian badgers everywhere. Enjoy!