Suwannee Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macrochelys suwanniensis), family Chelydridae, endemic to the Suwannee River Basin of northern FL and southern GA in the SE United States.

Vulnerable.

One of 2 species of Alligator Snapping Turtle.

Camera Traps Reveal Iberian Lynxes Soaking Their Prey, a First-Ever Discovery Among Carnivores

Scientists speculate that the wild cats are trying to improve hydration or ease their cubs’ transition to solid food. The finding points to resilience in one of the world’s most endangered felines

A camera trap in Spain recorded a wild female Iberian lynx carrying a dead rabbit to a water trough and dunking it, researchers were shocked. Then, they spotted the behavior several more times. In a study published in March in Ecology, scientists detailed these findings, which they say are the first-ever observations of a carnivore soaking its dead prey in water. The unusual phenomenon has raised questions about how predatory species adapt to changing environments—and it hints at resilience in one of the world’s most endangered felines. “This is very interesting and genuinely a surprising observation,” says Wai-Ming Wong, the director of small-cat conservation science for Panthera, who was not associated with the study. “Wild cats are typically thought of as highly efficient, instinct-driven hunters, so seeing an individual modify how it handles prey in this way is quite remarkable.”...

“At least he died free” apparently also applies to whales that strand now.

These people will tout whales as these incredibly intelligent beings and then think that they’re stupid enough to strand while being healthy.

Sure, some healthy whales and dolphins strand due to storm surges, hunting techniques and misadventure. Or for social reasons, like mass strandings of pilot whales.

But it’s far more likely that a whale that strands is a whale that was either too weak to swim against the currents pushing them ashore or they chose to swim into shallow water. Because it is much safer to be in shallow, calmer waters than in the deep sea.

People have this idea of the deep ocean as this idyllic place. The sun beats down mercilessly out there - if you’re too weak to swim you’re too weak to dive. Depending on the ocean, it can be extremely choppy and hard to keep afloat in if you have no energy.

It’s also a very vulnerable place to be as a sick animal. Easy prey for pelagic sharks and killer whales. They might even start getting picked at by seabirds if they’re logging at the surface.

Not to mention this was a lone juvenile humpback without a social group, competition pod or nursery pod to keep him safe in numbers.

The ocean is beautiful but it is indifferent to you. It doesn’t care if you live or die, it won’t protect you if you’re out there.

Timmy didn’t care about the human concept of “freedom”. We can only assume that he was sick and dying and looking for a peaceful place to die. His vocalisations and rapid rasping exhales showed us he was stressed and sick. But the people who painted themselves as his saviours decided it meant he was happy. Because they were Saving him.

Because apparently he was too stupid to get himself stranded but somehow intelligent enough to be able to know what humans were and that their hands all over him and their loud and noisy barge and their cheers and laughter were good actually!

And I have no doubt that these people will keep telling themselves they did the Right Thing and that the experts and scientists were still wrong.

There’s this bizarre crossover between anti cap speak happening here. This idea that a stranded whale is “captive” and that they must be “freed.”

As if the whale themselves didn’t move to shallow waters to die. Or as if it wasn’t simply the natural ocean currents that pushed the weakened whale ashore.

Timmy had remnants of a gill net in her mouth, which would have made it very difficult for her to feed. The only forces that are to blame here are the dumping of fishing gear in our oceans that entangle and kill marine life.

The same force of nature that killed Timmy is ultimately the same that brought her to that sandbar. Yet these detractors of marine mammal science speak as if she was forced to strand by some intangible means.

That they had to “free” Timmy by dragging her back out into the open ocean, quite literally, because she didn’t know what was best for her. And the heroic humans saved her from what she had likely chosen to do.