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Whilst I love this time of year; bonfires, fireworks and kicking huge piles of golden leaves…spare a thought for the pets and wildlife in this season.
Before lighting up your bonfire, have a look to make sure some hibernating hedgehogs haven’t made a home there. Ideally, if you can, build the bonfire on the day to prevent animals from setting up camp there.
Also the RSPCA has some great advice for pet owners to cope with the scary noises of bonfire night.

Photo : Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

Manukura, the world’s only white kiwi, has successfully come out of surgery to remove stones from her gizzard. Although she looks like an albino, she’s actually a rare colour morph of the usual brown for her North Island Brown Kiwi species.
These birds often swallow stones to help digest food and it’s thought the six month old chick just swallowed too many stones.

Photo : Getty

Sad news, the last known Javan rhino in Vietnam has died, leaving only around 50 of the animals on the Indonesian island, Java. Despite conservation efforts when the small family of 8 were discovered in 2007, rhino poaching is still rife with their horn being used for traditional medicines.

Photo : WWF

Following on from yesterday, something to whet your appetite for Wednesday’s Frozen Planet! Spine-tingling footage from the Arctic and Antarctic…proving they’re not just barren, wintry landscapes!

London Zoo’s Lucifer and Abi have had another pair of cubs! The Asian lion cubs are important to their conservation with only around 350 animals left in the wild. Although they are yet to be sexed, they have been given the Halloween-inspired names Pumpkin and Spook.
If you’re lucky you might be able to see them with their mum in their den…before they’re let out into the rest of the enclosure in November.

This incredible photo of a young Qinling golden snub-nosed monkey is one of the winners in this year’s Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
The species is endangered with an estimated less than 4,000 left. The huddled up pose is the best way for the monkey to keep warm in the extreme cold when not near its mother.
An exhibition with all the winning photos opens at the Natural History Museum from tomorrow before going on tour.

Photo : Cyril Ruoso

This cheeky little white-toothed shrew is one of four potentially new shrew species found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Known for their long noses, these small mouse-sized mammals aren’t actually rodents but related to moles with sharp teeth, sharp eyesight and extremely good sense of smell to hunt out their invertebrate dinner.
Photo : Jake Esselstyn

Well, I am rather fond of hamsters…so I’m pretty happy with the news that the European Court of Justice has stepped in to ensure the survival of this beautiful critter. The black-bellied hamster is found in Alsace, France and has been a protected species in the country since 1993. But despite efforts, the 1200 burrows found in 2000 decreased dramatically to just 180 in 2007. The French government is now working with agencies to create a more favourable habitat for the hamsters.
Photo : Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images

Scientists have discovered that the arctic polar bear has a rather warmer (and definitely rainier!) history. Fossils found recently in Irish caves have DNA that show modern polar bears have all evolved from a female brown bear in the last ice age. She is thought to have interbred with a polar bear…creating the hybrid offspring which survives today. Interactions between the two species is not unusual and scientists have traced contact over the last 100,000 years when unusually hot or cold weather allowed their paths to cross.
Photo : AP

Photographer David Slater encountered a bit of monkey business in a national park in Indonesia…these photos aren’t his, but some crested black macaques’ masterpieces. Despite not having had much human contact before, the monkeys were very interested in all their equipment. One day after David left his tripod set up…he returned to find a curious monkey playing with it. David thinks the noise of the shutter kept the monkeys interested and in the end they took hundreds of pictures!
Photo : David J Slater/Caters News Agency