The “Lily The Bear Cam,” a live Web cam of a black bear in hibernation in Minnesota, was in high demand today and has since crashed as thousands tried to watch the bear’s den upon after she gave birth at noon today. Watch Lily give birth in the video here. The web cam was installed by Lynn Rogers of the Wildlife Research Institute to observe Lily The Bear’s behaviors in the den during hibernation period.

“We’re putting it there because there is so much that we don’t know about what bears do in dens and what behaviour they have leading up to giving birth. And how they take care of the cubs,” Prof Rogers told the BBC. “When we are there watching them, we always wonder how much of their wakefulness that we see is because of our presence. This gives us a chance to see what they do when no one is around.”

“Another reason is that the best way the public can get to know bears and get over all the misconceptions that most people have is to learn directly from the bears themselves, and this is part of that,” he added.  

An official Twitter update noted a few hours later, “Mother and cub are resting peacefully.”

Lily the Bear has her own Facebook page, where she has more than 52,000 friends.

Thus proving that doggies rule, young Austin Forman went outside his home in Boston Bar, British Columbia to collect firewood, when a cougar sulked up to him, poised to attack – and awesome golden retriever, Angel, jumped between the boy and the cougar. Sadly, the cougar was far tougher than the family dog and it looked like things were going to end for the 18-month-old dog. However, police had been called by Austin’s parents and an officer just happened to be close by. He was able to shoot the cougar and save Angel’s life.

Angel is still recouperating from her injuries but the Forman family is expecting her to make a full recovery. Yay doggies!

Scientists are now declaring that dolphins, which were once ranked in intellect below chimps, are the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists saying they should be treated as “non-human persons.”

“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to the human brain when corrected for body size,” said Lori Marino, a zoologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. “The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions.”

Communications amongst dolphins have been found to be similar to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. Researchers say that with these finding, it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing.

Bob Barker has taken an extended break from spinning wheels and showcase showdowns and is spending his time being an advocate for his first love – doggies!

Barker donated $1 million to Drury University to establish the Dorothy Jo Barker Professorship in Animal Rights, a program named after his late wife that offers course study on animal issues like cruelty and philosophy.

Barker said, “What we’re doing here today is something they’re going to be talking about all across the country. At the very least, the young people who take this course will have more respect for animals.”

In shocking news, Jon Gosselin has taken his loathing for his soon-to-be-ex-wife Kate Gosselin to a new low. What seems to be a move done out of spite, Gosselin returned the family German Shepards back to the breeders because he claims that Kate doesn’t care for them the way she should.

“It’s not fair to the dogs to not be wanted in their own home,” Jon said, adding that Kate refuses to care for the dogs.

Thankfully, the breeder, Jeff Christopher is willing to care for them. “They would stay in my family and I wouldn’t give them to anyone else,” Christopher said. “They asked me to take care of them and I will. I have a farm house that they love, plus a lot of their brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles live here.”

The 15-month-old puppies, Shoka and Nala most likely have a very tight bond with the eight Gosselin kids.

However, perhaps the dogs are better off going back to the breeder.

Jon told People earlier this summer, “Those kids beat them up, climb on them, pull their tails, bite at them, drag them around and everything you can imagine not to do to an animal, they’ve done.”

Ashley Judd is on the warpath when it comes to wolf-killer Sarah Palin, who is calling upon Alaska’s trigger-happy rednecks to shoot wolves by offering a $150 bounty on their heads.

Judd came to the defense of the wolves last week, narrating a video on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, lambasting the former Vice Presidential nominee for the aerial wolf slaughter. Palin responded calling Judd’s video “reprehensible and hypocritical” for trying “to deceive Americans into parting with their hard-earned money.”

Of course, The View‘s Elisabeth Hasselbeck added her two cents on the matter, somehow managing to tie the issue to abortion. Hasselbeck said, “The problem that I have here is like a lot of these vocal celebrities, in a way, get very loud about these animal killings. Like is she loud as – she said, ‘How many wolves have been killed? 900 this year.’ Is she as loud about the 260,000 kids killed in abortions?”

In retaliation, Judd appeared on Larry King Live Friday night to take another shot at the Alaskan governor as well as Hasselbeck.

Judd told King, “What is really important is to maintain a healthy and natural ecological balance between predators and prey. And allowing wealthy humans, primarily urban hunters or those who are bounty hunters from out of state, to go to Alaska and for sport hire airplanes, hire private pilots to fly around and kill wolves in this incredibly savage manner, it’s not right. It is not ethical. It is not appropriate. It doesn’t make sense on any level.”