Hey yall, I was on National Geographic!
Author Archives: Goatee Toni
Land Rover Discovery for Discovery Bay
Over the years we have been suffering high transport cost bringing animals to our lovely Discovery Bay resident fans. It is because ours are private cars which are not allowed to enter DB. To bring animals in we have to hire a van. Besides, the van driver would not wait for us till the show ends so it means when we leave we have to hire another van, which makes double fees for the expensive DB tunnel and Tsing Ma bridge!
But now, finally, we have tackled this problem!
We have got a new car – the 2011 Land Rover Discovery 4 – It is registered as commercial vehicle so we can save the van hire cost as well as the extra unnecessary tunnel and bridge fees.
We ordered the LR4 half year ago and finally it has arrived Hong Kong. It will be ready in a week. Our DB customers will not have to suffer high transport cost no more! Everything will be back to normal, finally.
Besides, the LR4 is way more environmental friendly than the previous generations of Land Rovers, too.
We look forward to coming over DB more often! We love DBers!
Show Highlights 2011 Janurary
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High resolution files without watermark for printing available!! Let us know.
Sugar gliders mating
For humans the season of love might has passed. But for our animals the season of love has just begun.
Tonight we heard noises from the small mammals room and luckily found a pair of sugar gliders getting to mate. After a long rest since last year, two of the young adult males are mature now and started fighting for a girl. This is the dominant male who won the battle and then could not wait to start a vigorous mating, successfully.
Sugar gliders might look like rodent but they are just not as productive. They are actually marsupials from Australian forests. Litter size is usually only 1, or sometimes 2. Baby gliders are called joeys, like kangaroos and other marsupials. Joeys will stay in mothers pouch living and growing until they are completely weaned at 16 weeks.
Quake damges Japan, people and animals
This massive 8.9/9.0 magnitude Japanese earthquake shows once again how powerful natural disasters can be. I wish our friends and everyone in Japan all the best.
From the news we get an idea of how bad the damage is to people. There will probably be not much information about that of wildlife but I guess the damage to Japanese animals would not be any smaller.
Japanese wildlife might not be so well known as the Chinese or Australian ones, but from my knowledge Japan has a pretty good variety of species. Within those there are over 50 species of mammals and more than 70 species of reptiles and amphibians that are endemic to Japan. Here is one of them, the Japanese Pond Turtle (Mauremys japonica).
We all understand how important it is to protect endangered species. But on the other hand, species that are endemic to a small area are running the same risk, such as the Japanese Pond Turtle above, even though they are not yet considered a threatened species.
From the Japanese quake we realize how fragile endemic animals can be. Once that area is damaged, the entire species is gone, means extinction. Damage can easily be caused by natural disasters, wars, pollution, deforestation, just to name a few.
Protecting the environment is what we have to do, but this is never enough. Captive breeding should be a thing to do to complement each other. It might not be the most natural way but at least it saves the species in case if its natural habitat is damaged.
For instance our animals which were born in our farm are living a meaningful life not only to help strengthen its gang but as well to be an ambassador for its own species educating people.
I am a natural person myself but for the sake of animals lives I think we should practice extraordinary solution for extraordinary period.
Tarantulas eat alive
If you find having a tarantula crawling over your hand hair-raising, you’ve gotta see them eat to scale up your feeling.
Tarantulas are predators. In the wild when the hunger comes they will prey on almost everything smaller- insects, geckos, tree frogs, and even venomous snakes. The way they hunt is fascinating. Unlike other spiders tarantulas don’t spin web. Instead, they capture prey on their own by their speed and power. Fangs are located underneath so they will swiftly move on top of the prey, bite, and eat.
From the prey’s view it would be extremely scary. Imagine a huge hairy spider jumps on top of you, and you’re surrounded by 8 hairy legs getting a nasty bite on top of your head by 2 huge shape fangs. It’s kinda like you’re going to a salon for a perm and inside the machine there are 2 vertical swords waiting.. Finally venom is injected directly into your brain and you suffer gigantic pain before falling into a coma. Even after you die your body melts into bloody liquid turning into nutrition for another creature… Alright, luckily there’s not yet any tarantula found bigger than human 🙂
But everything has its good side if you will use some brain. Our tarantulas are mainly fed on insects. so no bloody scene during feeding. I always try to find interesting facts out of scary critters. Here is one now I can think of. Interesting to tell, unlike other animals, the smaller young tarantulas eat more than the bigger adults. Spiderlings can feed as much as everyday, while adults can fast for 3 months or more. Besides, tarantulas can smell. Without nostrils they smell by feet. Imagine you have to step on a cheesecake with barefoot to taste it. 🙂
Finally into the AMC
Finally, we are going to the Aberdeen Marina Club!!
It is the FIRST time ever the AMC is allowing animals!!
Great thanks to the powerful parents who have made us to enter all the places that originally not allowing any kind of animals.
It is happy to see more and more “no animals” clubs are allowing OUR special animals in exclusively. And we have proven that they have made the right decision – our animals have never cause any trouble to them, but instead have brought them a lot of good impressions.
By far we have been in many major clubs including the American club, Hong Kong Country club, Hong Kong Golf club, Club Bel-Air, Royal Hong Kong Yacht club, Jockey club, Clearwater bay Golf club, USRC, m1nt, top deck and so many residential clubs. And we are sure we will go to more of the rest soon.
Check out the list of clubs we have been to: http://edu.goateetoni.com/programs/pastworks.htm
Kafee in love with Sean
Kafee the cat has met Sean for a while but she has never shown any interest in him, until the St Valentines day comes she finally gave him a sweetie kiss! ♥
It’s now proven this is not a day only for humans. Happy Valentines day!
Ajani the African Tortoise
Ladies and gents now I’m introducing our tortoise star – Ajani!
Yeah this is him, the giant tortoise you might have seen before! Has this big boy taken any veggies from your hands?
We have a gang of African desert tortoises. This is Ajani, now weighs 80 pounds, among the largest ones and a very strong boy. Ajani is an African name means “He who wins the struggle”, simply describes this heavy armored tank.
He is the dominant male of the gang and he maintains order within the tortoises. Whenever there are enemies he will step forward bravely and show some courage. No matter how much bigger the enemies are he will never step backwards. He has ever challenged cats, dogs (some rottweilers as well!) and the pot bellied pig.
Dominant male African desert tortoises are naturally born warriors. Many think tortoises are peaceful creatures. That’s true towards other animals but among male tortoises they have to fight very toughly for territory and a mate. How do they fight? They struggle! The winner is who can turn over another up side down. The loser, if he cannot turn back, will die alone in the boiling hot desert. In our desert trips it is not rare to find empty shells up side down being a snake den or lizards shelter.
But there are many animals Ajani doesn’t see as enemies. He likes lizards and parrots and will let them stay on his shell. He also likes crawling kids! Probably because he thinks he walks faster! 🙂 and yeah, definitely he loves any human who holds a piece of carrot.
Next time when you will meet Ajani don’t forget to bring some veggies with you!