{"id":6090,"date":"2019-04-05T13:44:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T13:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/?p=6090"},"modified":"2019-04-05T19:03:01","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T19:03:01","slug":"big-little-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/en\/big-little-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Little Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to wildlife, we\u2019ve believed some pretty silly things over the years.<\/h2>\n

If you cross your eyes they might stay that way. If you swallow gum it\u2019ll stay in your stomach for seven years. How many silly lies have you believed in your life? Well there are plenty of lies we\u2019ve been told about wildlife that many people still believe.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re here to set the record straight.<\/p>\n

MYTH #1: Bat poo will make you sick.<\/h3>\n

\"bat\"<\/p>\n

Not true! So many people blame bats<\/a> when a lot of different poo can make you sick. The fact of the matter is that the fungal spores that cause histoplasmosis (a lung infection) can be found in all sorts of poo. Yes that includes bat poo (also called guano) but also human, horse, dog, cattle, cat, bird, skunk, rat and opossum feces as well! You wouldn\u2019t kick Fido out for that, would you? Truthfully, when you come into contact with any decaying organic material, you\u2019re at risk of harming your health.<\/p>\n

MYTH #2: If you touch a baby bird, its parents will abandon it.<\/h3>\n

\"eagle<\/p>\n

Birds don\u2019t ditch their young just because someone touched them. It doesn\u2019t seem like birds recognize their young by smell in the first place. But that\u2019s not because they have a terrible sense of smell, like some people think. Research is definitely showing otherwise. It is now known that turkey vultures and seabirds actually have a well-developed sense of smell. And research on zebra finches show that these songbirds use smell to recognize relatives.<\/p>\n

MYTH #3:\u00a0 If you touch a toad, you\u2019ll get warts.<\/h3>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

Really? Errrr\u2026I hate to break it to you but it\u2019s the grubby shower floors at your local gym that\u2019s given you those lovely plantar warts, not toads. Toads might look bumpy but that\u2019s just their skin! Some toads have bumpy skin that actually releases toxins to keep predators at bay.<\/p>\n

MYTH #4: Bats are blind<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bats can see very well, thank you very much. I think people most often get confused on this point because they know most bats are reliant on echolocation to make their way. Since most bats can\u2019t see in the dark, when they are most active, they rely on their built in sonar system to navigate at incredibly high speeds in absolute darkness!<\/p>\n

MYTH #5: Sharks can smell a drop of blood from miles away.<\/h3>\n

\"blood<\/p>\n

Sharks absolutely use their sense of smell to sniff out prey. But you\u2019re going to have to bleed a heck of a lot more to get their attention. A drop of blood might attract a shark if it was living in a small swimming pool, but not in the vast ocean.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to wildlife, we\u2019ve believed some pretty silly things over the years. If you cross your eyes they might stay that way. If you swallow gum it\u2019ll stay…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":6092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[631],"tags":[87,6705,507,381],"class_list":["post-6090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-connect-with-nature","tag-bats","tag-myths","tag-sharks","tag-toad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6090"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6112,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6090\/revisions\/6112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}