News: Other pets

Scientists claim they may have discovered the secret to a longer life – but so far the treatment is only suitable for pets. The potential cure for age is a drug which protects telomeres, sections of DNA long thought to be the key to the ageing process. However, the treatment is not yet considered safe…

To coincide with the 2011 National Census, insurers Petplan asked the nation their own set of questions and have now revealed the Petplan Pet Census 2011 – the UK’s largest ever study of its kind. While the British people are already known to be a nation of animal lovers, the findings show that pets may…

Dutch police have created the world’s first official force dedicated to fighting crimes against animals. The 500-strong team is the pet project of the Party for the Animals, which has two MPs under the Netherlands’ proportional representation system. In 2008 Malaysian police rescued more than 1,200 protected animals, including monitor lizards and pythons, thought to…

New research shows that loggerhead turtles have an internal compass that allows them to sense exactly where they are as they navigate long distances across open water. Birds, fish and many other creatures are believed to pick up on changes in the Earth’s magnetic field to determine their north and south location along lines of…

They say that the US is an obese nation. Well, this squirrel seems to prove it. A native of North America, the fox squirrel, has put on a lot of weight since moving into the garden of James Phelps, 51, a tour guide in Michigan. As James explains: ??He became used to me being around…

England is in the grip of its coldest winter with temperatures plummeting to below ?26C, forecasters say. As the big freeze has brought huge swathes of the transport network to a standstill, the record chill has come about because of a ?perfect storm? of clear skies, snow cover and Arctic winds. The sun has also…

Dartmoor ponies face extinction because the bottom has dropped out of the market as a result of the recession. Hundreds of Dartmoor ponies have been slaughtered and sold to zoos to feed lions and tigers. Experts are now warning that the breed faces extinction unless urgent measures are taken to stabilise the population. The small,…

It is 11 years since Cats, Dogs & Peace of Mind visited its first pets. On 19 November 1999 Louise Wilsher, CDPOM’s founder and now director, visited Charlie, a female black and white cat, and her little brother Hammy the Hamster, in a flat overlooking the Regent’s Canal on Kingsland Road, Hackney. Charlie, Hammy and…

Once Upon a Time: Wojtek the Soldier Bear is at The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, 20 Princes Gate, London SW7, until December 4.