A common site here in Pringle Bay!!

The Baboon troops try to break into the houses to scavenge food. They are protected here because there are only around two troops in the area.

There seems to be some confusion about the common naming of this species; depending if you are in North America or Europe they are called interchangeably with another. The moose is the largest deer type mammal in the Americas, the elk is the second. Wikipedia makes a good job at differentiating and explaining this large and beautiful animal. My wife and I took this picture at the beginning of this summer in the Jasper National Park.

It is always interesting to find wild life such as carnivorous mammalian predators in urban areas. This small family Foxes were camping in Breckenridge's Main Street. At the time we got there, there was already a small crowd of people taking people and pointing at the small family of foxes not bothered at all about the tourist chatter and invasion of their privacy.

After reading a bit about these interesting mammals, I came to realize that they are kind of a usual sighting since they share a similar urban habitat with raccoons. A very interesting page dedicated to urban foxes, their ecology, behavior, and diet can be found in this page by foxes.org

My wife and I found these bears just roaming around the edge of the road in Highway 93 while driving from Banff to Jasper. Alberta has a great deal of bears that are seen between Spring and Fall just about everywhere.

Thanks to the warm water coming out of the Tampa electric plant's cooling system, we are able to view the manatees when temperatures elsewhere drop below 68 degree Fahrenheit. This amazing symbiotic relationship between the Tampa area electric power and this amazing mammal species has been going on for about 20 years. Some interesting facts about manatees:

• The Florida manatee is a sub-species of the West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus) that has quickly adapted to live close to humans.
• The manatee was confused with the Greek mythical sirens who were not as gentle as these lovely creatures. Manatees are in fact so gentle that you can swim around them here in Florida.
• Christopher Columbus wrote about the American manatee back in 1493 for the first time.
• These mammals are entirely vegetarian or "vegan" and consume great amounts of seaweed.
• Manatees are also called Sea Cows
• An adult can weight 1,200 pounds (about 470 Kilograms) and measure 10 feet (about 3.3 meters), but they are known to grow to 14 feet (4.2 meters) and weight 3,000 pounds (1120 kg).
• Manatees sleep lots, about 12 hours a day; and when they are sleeping they surface every 20 min. to breath, when awake is about every 5 min.
• The manatees' biggest enemy is the recreation boat and its human counterpart, killing them in the hundreds every year.

More interesting information and directions to the "Manatee Viewing Center" can be found here at the Tampa Electric website.

Here in Whitecourt, Alberta deer are everywhere. My wife took this picture last week close to highway 43 in our Town. This deer is a Mule Deer which is one of two predominant species in Alberta; the other common species is the white tailed deer. The black tip on the tail (see picture) gave the species of deer.

Every summer my wife and I are on constant alert in the evenings to save young oppossum from our three Jack Russell Terriers while they are outside. I'm afraid we are not always successfull!

In this instance we managed to save this cute little guy. The dogs had chased him up into one of my bonsai (a Dwarf Hinoki Cypress) which was safely sitting on a bench. When we heard them howling we scrambled out and it took a few minutes before we saw his face up in the tree. We picked him out of the tree and carried him over to the nearby woods.

Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio

This possum visits every night hoping for me to give him the next treat. It is amazing how this little creature gets all wound-up just when I get close to it, and runs for its feeding spot (on one of my bonsai) where he awaits for the next snack all excited. In the case of the photo, my little friend was eating fish sticks. Opossums are very interesting animals that will eat almost anything from cat's food to cat's vomit; they actually are pretty good at cleaning the mess left by my old cat.

Jase Parmer

This crazy squirrel was cited close to the American Falls in Niagara Falls State Park. He had a sweet tooth and dug into a trash can to finish off someone's chocolate ice cream. Apparently, this squirrel has adopted a human diet and has rejected traditional squirrel food.

These squirrels are one of the most curious inhabitants of the University of South Florida... maybe more than students I might say. They are always looking for that extra edge that will guarantee a healthy nut to burry somewhere. Although this behavior might seem very funny, squirrels have developed it during many years of evolution and it allows them to have a steady food source during the winter season. According to an article from The Seattle Times, squirrels eat nuts or acorns that will perish faster and burry those that will last until winter. Squirrels are also kind of unique in that exhibit deceiving behavior such as digging many holes before burying an acorn, and pretending to burry several in the remaining holes.