Showing posts with label capybaras. Show all posts
Showing posts with label capybaras. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 6, 2022

You Have Never Heard Capybaras Sound Like This. Extraordinary Sound of 2...


Kinda creepy, but interesting. Capybaras are unlike any other creature on earth, and maybe it's just as well. These videos are taken in a huge wildlife sanctuary in Japan, where visitors can roam freely among the capys in their wonderland of water, bamboo and dirt. I have reservations about this, as these animals have teeth like a beaver's or a rat's, only twenty times the size. They could easily lop off a human finger with a single chomp. The tourists roam freely among mothers and babies, and I learned a long time ago NEVER to go near a wild animal with young. ANY sort of perceived threat will lead to an attack. But then again, I've never run a capybara sanctuary, so maybe they're smarter than I am.

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

The Great Capybara Bamboo Chase グレートカピバラバンブーチェイス 大水豚竹追逐


When all else fails, there are capybaras. Who wouldn't be inspired by a 200-pound guinea pig that makes the same squeaking, squealing noises as the tiny pet version? They are bizarre creatures, aquatic, their eyes and nostrils (not to mention their ears) at the same level on top of their big square heads so they can keep them above-water like a crocodile's, and with feet like - I don't know - just weird feet, webbish, as if nature made a mistake or something. These creatures are eaten in South America, and since they were allowed to be eaten by Catholics on Friday, they were once categorized as "fish". 

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Capybara enters its spa bucket


I love capybaras! What's not to love about a 200-pound rodent who squeaks and squeals like a giant guinea pig? Their eyes and nostrils are all the same level, at the top of their head, kind of like a crocodile's, because they are aquatic animals and spend a lot of time underwater. I suppose they could hide from predators that way, but what sort of predator could handle a creature like this? To me they resemble giant beavers without the flat tail, or those prehistoric mammals who for some reason were so gigantic. When I first got interested in them, there was one website which had no videos, and now there are entire channels devoted to them. Some things are worth waiting for.

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Saturday, May 15, 2021

CAPYBARA CONFIDENTIAL!


When I found out there is an entire YouTube channel devoted to capybaras, my life was complete. Fifteen years ago Caitlin was obsessed with capybaras, and do you think we could find anything about them? Hardly anything. Certainly not videos like these. This means I can vary my viewing pleasure and watch something besides cute kittens and baby goats. 

Monday, June 13, 2016

Capybaras in the news





One of two fugitive capybaras captured


PROVINCIAL

by 570NEWS STAFF

Posted Jun 13, 2016 6:00 am EDT

Last Updated Jun 13, 2016 at 6:00 am EDT

One fugitive caught. One to go.

After a two and a half week taste of freedom, one of the High Park capybaras has been caught.

A High Park Zoo official confirmed the capture on Sunday but has not yet provided any further details.

A video posted by Renda on Instagram shows staff taking the capybara away in a crate.





The search continues for the second capybara.

The two female capybaras escaped from their pen at the High Park Zoo on May 24, as zoo workers were moving a third capybara into the enclosure.

One of them was spotted on June 5, but was not captured. City staff said traps were set the next morning.






Capybaras are the world’s largest rodents. Fully grown, they can reach over four feet in height and can weigh as much as 140 pounds – they also look like large guinea pigs. They enjoy swimming and don’t like children.

The escape led to a parody Twitter account, an online video game, and joking comments from Mayor John Tory about forming a search party.





Friday, October 22, 2010

Tastes like chicken







STRANGER THAN TRUTH!

World's largest rodent considered a delicacy by Venezuelans

MANTECAL, Venezuela (AP) When Venezuelans' appetite for capybara clashed with the church's ban on eating meat during Lent, a local priest asked the Vatican to give the world's biggest rodent the status of fish. People rejoiced when the Vatican agreed, declaring that capybara isn't meat. More than two centuries later, they still consider the 130-pound capybara a delicacy and pay big bucks to put it on their dinner tables.

"It's the most scrumptious dish that exists," says Freddy Colina, 17, who lives on the southern Great Plains of Venezuela, where a Lent without capybara is like Thanksgiving without turkey in the United States.
Venezuelans think the rest of the world doesn't know what it's missing. Some even want to export capybara, which they call a red-meat lover's dream-come-true: Tender and tasty yet low in fat. They envision people in New York and London eating capybara steaks and capybara hotdogs.


"This is a great solution" for meat-eaters worried about their cholesterol levels, says biologist Saul Gutierrez, who helps raise the animals on Venezuela's most prolific capybara ranch, El Cedral.


Capybara, which looks something like a pig with reddish-brown fur, tastes like pork, too, although with a hint of fishiness. Usually it's heavily salted and served as a shredded meat alongside rice, plantains or spaghetti.
Among its fans is President Hugo Chavez, whose mother says the former paratrooper couldn't get enough of it when he was growing up.


Many Venezuelans are grateful the Roman Catholic Church gave the animal the status of fish allowing its consumption during Lent. But more than a few think the classification is laughable.


"It doesn't even look like a fish. A capybara has hair and four legs," says biologist Emilio Herrera, although he acknowledges the creature does swim.
Capybara meat costs up to $4.50 a pound, a hefty price for Venezuelan workers, many of whom make the minimum wage of $200 a month.


The animal is found from Panama to Argentina and is eaten in several countries. But no one craves it like Venezuelans, mainly those in the southern and central parts of the nation where the animal thrives in grasslands and swamps.  They contend that eating capybara, which is a cousin of the guinea pig, shouldn't make people squeamish.


Capybaras are surprisingly clean despite an unsavory habit or two.Wallowing in mud much of the day helps kill off ticks and fleas, and then the capybaras wash off in clean pond water. Yellow-headed caracara birds spend hours each day picking the bugs off the capybaras' fur and skin, too.


True, capybaras eat their own feces, but so do other animals such as wild rabbits, says Rexford Lord, a capybara expert at Pennsylvania's Indiana University.


Unlike rats, capybaras are picky about what they eat, mainly grass. They have just 1.5 percent fat content in their meat, compared with up to 20 percent for cows. 
Capybaras used to be one of the most common animals in the Great Plains. But many were killed by the Spanish conquistadors, who introduced cows which compete with capybaras for land.

Then a government conservation program that started in the 1960s backfired when corrupt wildlife officials took bribes and allowed overhunting, says Gutierrez, the biologist at the El Cedral ranch. Today barely 100,000 capybaras are left in Venezuela, though the animal is not considered endangered.


Private ranches such as El Cedral in Apure state are trying to boost the population by keeping poachers off their lands. They're succeeding and are even thinking about exporting the animal, though few concrete steps have been taken. They say capybaras are much more profitable to raise than cattle since they produce more offspring, use less grazing pasture and don't need expensive medicines like cows, which are not native to Latin America and often get sick.


Gutierrez acknowledges there will be huge image problem in trying to sell foreigners on the world's largest rodent as a meat source, but is confident it can be done.


"It's only a matter of marketing," he says.




 


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