NINE GREAT NEWS STORIES ABOUT ANIMALS IN 2016

There has been plenty of fun and uplifting news in the animal world in 2016. Here’s a selection. It’s focused on news that’s good for groups of animals, as opposed to individual animals.

The comeback of the Channel Islands foxes

These furry cat-sized foxes, which live on islands off California, nearly went extinct because eagles decided they were tasty snacks. But thanks to a recovery effort that involved captive-breeding the foxes, shooting feral pigs and relocating eagles, the little canines on three of the islands made such a record-breaking rebound that they were taken off the endangered species list.

Thriving wildlife in the wasteland of Chernobyl

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded 30 years ago, leaving behind a surreal landscape of vacant structures, abandoned villages and poisoned terrain. But when University of Georgia researchers placed dozens of remote cameras in a densely forested part of the 1,600-square-mile Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in 2014, they were rewarded with images of boars, wolves, foxes, raccoon dogs and more. “It’s basically an incredibly large sanctuary” for animals.

Undercover robot animals are helping real animals

Poaching doesn’t just happen to rhinos or elephants in Africa — plenty of illegal hunting happens right here in the United States. To catch poachers, authorities are increasingly turning to an army of remote-controlled robo-wildlife: Stuffed deer, bear and moose that are strategically placed in illegal hunting hotspots. They’re in high demand, officials say, because they’re quite good at tricking poachers into shooting them. Think you’d be able to tell a robo-deer from a real deer? The quiz you’ll find here might tell you otherwise.

Peanut butter + drones + adorable ferrets = wildlife win

Black-footed ferrets are stunningly cute, native to the United States, and endangered because the plague is killing their primary prey, the prairie dog. But the feds have proposed a killer solution: They are flying drones over the plains where the little critters live and shooting down peanut butter-flavored pellets laced with plague vaccine. It appears to be working.

Glimmers of an end to the grisliest mass deaths you’ve probably never heard of

Male chicks born in hatcheries for egg-laying hens meet quick and brutal deaths: They are tossed in a blender on the day they break out of their eggs, because they’re not useful to the egg and poultry industry. They can’t grow up to lay eggs, and they’re not the breeds used for chicken meat. But this year, there were signs that this gruesome practice might soon end. First, United Egg Producers, which represents most U.S. hatcheries, announced that it would end the culling by 2025. Later, a Texas firm said it had developed the technology to identify the gender of chicks while they’re still in their eggs, adding itself to a small group of companies competing to be the first to bring what’s bound to be a popular product to the market.

The FBI starts taking animal cruelty seriously

When local law enforcement agencies report crime statistics to the FBI, they put the offenses in categories. And for years and years, animal abuse crimes were simply classified under “other.” But that changed this year. The FBI now has four distinct categories for animal cruelty, which it uses to track animal abuse the same way it does homicide and other crimes. In a somewhat related development, more local jurisdictions have begun registering animal abusers like sex offenders.

Jaguars may be settling in Arizona

It’s been a long time since jaguars, the spotted and stocky big cats that roamed much of the western United States before being hunted to death, made their home here. But this year, we got two signs that a couple cats from northern Mexico may have decided to start a new life in the Arizona desert. The first one to be caught on camera was a sleek male who was dubbed El Jefe. Several months later, a second male cat was photographed at an army installation, also in Arizona. At best, the United States is now home to just two jaguars who can’t breed with one another, and Arizona wildlife officials noted that the closest breeding population is 130 miles south. But their presence is exciting nonetheless.

Thanks to: washingtonpost.com