animals

Animal Kingdom edition of mammals behaving badly

Move over Dallas Zoo, San Diego Zoo red panda climbs tree to escape enclosure A red panda climbed a tree to escape her enclosure at the San Diego Zoo, prompting hours of efforts to lure her back to her habitat, officials told news outlets. Adira, a 2-year-old red panda, broke out of her enclosure by climbing a tree into a nearby habitat Sunday, Jan. 29,…


Can males get pregnant? Ask a La Jolla seadragon.

In “an extremely rare occurrence,” a pregnant male seadragon made history at a La Jolla aquarium. The weedy seadragon’s pregnancy marks “the first successful transfer of eggs from a female seadragon to a male” at the Seadragons & Seahorses habitat at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, a Jan. 9 news release from the aquarium said. “We’re elated to…


Safari Park re-opening to people June 20

Not that the animals minded at all, but officials announced Wednesday that the San Diego Zoo Safari Park at San Pasqual Valley near Escondido and the zoo’s main campus in San Diego will reopen on June 20, ending the longest closure in the organization’s 103-year history. Both parks were shuttered in mid-March to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Before the official reopenings, the Zoo and…


Meet Safari Park’s Southern White Rhino calf

Edward, a 13-day-old southern white rhino calf at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, got his first chance to experience a true mud wallow this morning today, under the watchful eye of his mom, Victoria. Rhino keepers decided to create a wallow for the youngster to provide him the opportunity to experience an instinctive behavior for rhinos. Keepers scooped up mud from the area around…


Milk, cow manure, and beer trucks

Lessons from the Last Surviving San Diego Dairy “My family has always been in the dairy business. It’s a…different sort of business,” laughs Frank Konyn of Frank Konyn Dairy. Established in 1962 by his father, Konyn’s 250-acre dairy farm is nestled on the San Pasqual Valley floor 35 miles northeast of downtown San Diego. With over 800 cows, he estimates his monthly feed bill to…