Meet Hua Hua and Zhong Zhong, baby monkeys from China that are are the world-first cloned primates.

Meet Hua Hua and Zhong Zhong, baby monkeys from China that are are the world-first cloned primates. #AFP video pic.twitter.com/tqJmq7CfhZ

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 25, 2018

Spotted hyena returns to Gabon park after 20 years: researchers

Yahoo – AFP, January 20, 2018

Spotted hyenas have been spotted in Gabon for the first time in 20 years
 (AFP Photo/ISSOUF SANOGO)

Libreville (AFP) - A spotted hyena has been sighted in a Gabon national park for the first time in 20 years, conservationists said Friday, the latest large predator to have returned to a region where many had gone locally extinct.

The Bateke Plateau National Park lies close to Gabon's border with the Republic of Congo.

Its forests and grasslands once teemed with wildlife, including many large mammal predators, but the ecosystem was decimated by decades of poaching.

Officials said a spotted hyena had been caught on camera traps in the park for the first time in two decades giving hope that more large mammals might return after years of conservation efforts.

The sighting comes two years after a lone male lion was photographed by camera traps after returning.

"The return of these large carnivores is a great demonstration that the efforts of our rangers and partners are having a positive effect on Bateke wildlife," professor Lee White, director of Gabon's National Parks Agency said in a press release.

The spotted hyena was so unknown in recent memories that when researchers showed local park rangers the photographs from the camera traps they did not know the species.

But village elders in communities north of the park instantly recognised the hyena, researchers said.

The sightings are a far cry from when researchers first set up their camera traps in 2001.

That year all they photographed in Bateke was a lone antelope and multiple poachers crossing into the park from the Republic of Congo.

The lion first spotted in 2015 has since made the park his home. But he has yet to be joined by any others.

"This lion... has been continuously photographed during his three-year reign of the park, but remains alone, calling for a mate," the researchers said.

Stray dogs 'murdered' in Russian World Cup cities: MPs

Yahoo – AFP, Jan 11, 2018

The World Cup will be held in 11 Russian cities this summer, from the enclave of
Kaliningrad in the West to Yekaterinburg in the East (AFP Photo/Mladen ANTONOV)

Moscow (AFP) - Stray dogs are being killed in Russian cities set to host the 2018 World Cup as authorities follow orders to get thousands of feral animals under control, Russian MPs claimed Thursday.

"We have received many appeals from animal rights activists and just caring citizens saying mass shooting and euthanasia of stray animals is taking place in a number of World Cup-host cities," the head of the Russian lower house's environmental protection committee Vladimir Burmatov told Parlamentskaya Gazeta newspaper.

Packs of stray dogs are a common sight in Russian cities, fuelled by public reluctance to sterilise pets, and some can be aggressive or beg for food.

Last month first deputy prime minister Vitaly Mutko estimated there are some two million stray animals in the host cities and urged them to solve the problem humanely.

Burmatov said his committee had sent an official letter to sports minister Pavel Kolobkov warning of "mass destruction of homeless animals" in host cities, and asking him to ask the regional authorities to use "humane methods without causing death or mutilating or injuring the animals."

Burmatov called for stray dogs to be placed in temporary holding centres and sterilised, saying this would be no more costly than killing them and would improve Russia's image.

"These troubling signals must stop, our country's reputation is at stake. Because we're not savages carrying out mass killings of animals on the streets, throwing their bloodied bodies into vans and driving them round the city.

"For the same money you can easily carry out catching, vaccination and sterilisation and accommodating the animals in holding centres," Burmatov said.

In response to the letter sports minister Kolobkov said he had told the host cities to use humane methods in order to avoid a negative public reaction, Parlamentskaya Gazeta newspaper reported.

The World Cup will be held in 11 Russian cities this summer, from the enclave of Kaliningrad in the West to Yekaterinburg in the East.

Outcry over alleged mass killing of stray dogs in Russia's World Cup host citieshttps://t.co/hrXtrJRstp pic.twitter.com/Y7KhMMzZsI

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 11, 2018

North Carolina park posts video explaining how alligators survive a cold snap

North Carolina park posts video explaining how alligators survive a cold snap pic.twitter.com/ucUgRChUlX

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 10, 2018

.Britain's May, in U-turn, won't push for end to fox hunting ban

Yahoo – AFP, January 7, 2018

British Prime Minister Teresa May, reneging on a campaign promise, said she
would not seek a vote to overturn a 2004 ban on fox hunting. (AFP Photo/Leon NEAL)

London (AFP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said Sunday she will ditch an election pledge for a vote on reversing the fox-hunting ban following a public backlash.

"On this issue of fox hunting, what I can say is that there won't be a vote during this parliament," she told BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

"I've never fox hunted, but I've not changed my view on that," added May, who is a supporter of the sport.

"But as prime minister my job isn't just about what I think about something, it's actually about looking at what the view of the country is, I think there was a clear message about that."

The manifesto of May's Conservative Party for last year's general election contained a pledge to hold a free vote on overturning the 2004 law banning the use of dogs to hunt foxes and other wild mammals in England and Wales.

The opposition Labour Party focused heavily on the issue during campaigning, helping it to score a shock upset in depriving May of her majority.

The subject received extra attention on December 26, Boxing Day, when hundreds of British hunting groups met across the country on the busiest day in the hunting calendar.

Britain still allows trail hunts, which let packs follow a route rather than an animal, and drag hunting, in which hounds track artificial scents.

Critics argue that dogs still chase and kill live animals on these hunts, with organisers claiming the kills are accidental.

Hunters claim they comply with the law.

The U-turn is likely to anger parts of May's rural base, who see the ban as an imposition of urban values on their way of life.

Ann Mallalieu, president of the Countryside Alliance -- a rural life lobby group which claims to have around 100,000 supporters -- wrote in the Daily Telegraph last month that some lawmakers had admitted their opposition to fox hunting was an element of "class warfare".

But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called the sport "cruel and barbaric".

Just days after the traditional Boxing Day hunt, British PM Theresa May ditches plans for a vote on reversing the 2004 Hunting Act - which banned the use of dogs to hunt foxes and other wild mammals in England and Wales https://t.co/sOAJbeNcdl pic.twitter.com/SUVR8w22at

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 7, 2018