This is, ugh, interesting. I never knew you could harness “fly power”.

[link]

Interesting…

BUGA, Colombia — A chicken in Colombia was born with the webbed feet of a duck.

Read the story and see the photo.

Via Reuters…

TORONTO (Reuters) - An animal rights group called Tuesday for a North American theme park operator to cancel a competition in which people will try to break the world cockroach-eating record.

Theme park operator Six Flags Inc, based in New York, is staging the contest as part of a promotion leading up to Halloween in which it is also offering customers free entry or line-jumping advantages if they eat a live Madagascar hissing cockroach.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said it had been flooded with calls from children, adults and even anonymous employees of Six Flags opposing the record-breaking contest and the overall promotion.

“Insects do not deserve to be eaten alive especially for a gratuitous marketing gimmick,” PETA spokeswoman Jackie Vergerio told Reuters.

The competition to beat the world cockroach eating record is being held Friday at a Six Flags park in Gurnee, Illinois. Anyone who beats the record will win a season pass for four people for 2007 with VIP queue-jumping status.

Competitors will try to break the current world record, which is held by Ken Edwards of Derbyshire, England, who devoured 36 Madagascar hissing cockroaches in one minute in 2001.

However Six Flags spokesman James Taylor said the only complaints the company had received were from people who did not have the opportunity to sign up and eat a cockroach because only 12 of its 30 parks in the United States, Canada, and Mexico were participating in the promotion.

Taylor dismissed any health concerns, saying the cockroaches were raised in a sterile environment and were as safe to eat as shrimp or lobster with high nutritional value.

Madagascar hissing cockroaches are large, wingless cockroaches that can grow to between 1.5 to 3 inches.

Taylor said no one who had indulged in this rare delicacy had complained.

“It’s something that’s supposed to be scary, it’s icky, it’s gross, it’s Halloween fun and it’s just one small part of the haunted houses and thrilling rides going on.”

Via the Indianapolis Star…

Animal control and law enforcement officials were on the hunt today for two alligators spotted in the White River near downtown.

Two fishermen reported seeing the alligators, one estimated at 10-12 feet and another about two feet long, south of the bridge over West Washington Street.

The Indianapolis Zoo has no report of any missing creatures.

Late this afternoon Adam Garrett, public information officer for Animal Care and Control said officers from the Department of Natural Resources, Indianapolis Police Department and Capitol Police were monitoring the larger alligator on an island in the middle of the river. But they later realized what they were monitoring was just a log.

The gators, at last report, were still at large.

More than 3,700 customers lost power for half an hour this afternoon in the northwest part of Carmel when a squirrel snuck into a substation.

“There was no damage at the substation. The squirrel just made contact with the equipment, which caused the outage.”

Power was lost at 2:37 p.m. and was restored at 3:09 p.m.

In addition to homes losing power, several stoplights shut down and police officers had to direct traffic.

[via the Indianapolis Star]

A pig withstood taser shots from police officers and eluded authorities for more than an hour after wandering onto Green Bay’s major highway. The 150-pound pig was spotted by a passing driver on U.S. 41 at 6 p.m. Wednesday night, Green Bay Police Lt. Todd LePine said.

The animal reportedly went into traffic several times, creating a hazard, he said.

Officers located the pig about 7 p.m. and made two attempts to subdue it with a stun gun, he said, but it fled both times after pulling out the Taser probes.

A passerby who described himself as a former pig farmer tried to wrestle the animal, but the animal pulled away from him as well, LePine said.

Three tranquilizer darts were finally used to bring the pig under control, and it was placed in blanket and lifted into an animal control van, LePine said.

The animal was taken to the Bay Area Humane Shelter that evening. Police said a local attorney planned to claim the pig Thursday. The name of the pig’s owner was not disclosed.

[from SFGate by way of the AP]

Something is eating cats in Carmel.

In the past month, the discoveries of pets’ remains on the eastern edge of the city have prompted one family to post warnings in their neighborhood.
Police investigating the deaths say residents should take heed.

“If I was a pet owner, I certainly would not have my pet running at large,” said Carmel Police Assistant Chief Tim Green.

Since late August, Green said, at least four cats and a dachsund have been killed and their bodies found partially eaten and skinned. All of the vicims lived in an area west of Hazel Dell Road between 116th and 131st streets.

“We do know that there are coyotes in these areas of town, and we do know that a cat is game for a coyote.”

Police suspect there may have been even more attacks on pets of homeowners who realized what had happened and didn’t bother to report it.

Some of those who did notify police, such as Susan and Tim Eldon of the Brookfield subdivision, had wondered if the grisly assault on their pet was the twisted work of pranksters.

“I didn’t know if some demented kids were doing this or animals,” said Susan Eldon, whose 15-year-old feline, Bob, became a target last weekend.

Eldon and Green said investigations by police and a veterinarian revealed signs of an animal attack. Authorities are now consulting with Department of Natural Resources authorities to try and trap or destroy the culprit responsible.

[via IndyStar]

KOKOMO, Ind. — A wayward squirrel invaded a power substation and left more than 5,000 homes and businesses without electricity.

Duke Energy restored the service from the South Main Street substation near Wildcat Creek after about an hour Sunday night.

“We lost the squirrel and 5,039 customers for the space of an hour,” Duke spokesman Rob Norris said.

The outage included much of the city’s central neighborhoods west of U.S. 31.

[via the Indy Star]

OSSIAN, Ind. — A swarm of up to 100,000 angry honey bees sent 10 people to the hospital including the driver of an SUV that hit a hollow tree in northeast Indiana, disturbing a hive.

…

By the time rescuers arrived, a black cloud of buzzing insects had engulfed the car, forcing firefighters to wear full safety gear — complete with oxygen tanks and face masks — with temperatures in the 90s.

Safety workers doused the bees with water and foam while they tried to extricate Cossairt, who was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital with broken legs and multiple bee stings. She was remained at Lutheran Hospital Thursday morning.

…

“You can’t really train for that. You don’t really know. You look for downed power lines. You don’t look for a million bees.”

[read the full story on The Indianapolis Star web site]

In an effort to keep monkeys out of the Indian capital’s subways, authorities have called in one of the few animals known to scare the creatures — a fierce-looking primate called the langur.

The decision to hire a langurwallah — a man who trains and controls the langurs — came after a monkey got into a metro car in June.

The langur handler is being paid a retainer of India rupees 6,900 (US$160) a month, and “he will be called whenever there is a monkey problem,” Anuj Dayal, the spokesman for the Delhi Metro Rail Corp., was quoted as saying.

On June 9, a monkey reportedly crawled through some pipes and ended up aboard a train, scowling at passengers and jumping around a car.

Passengers had to be moved to another car while staff chased the dexterous creature, causing delays.

The langur handler was being employed to prevent such problems from happening again.

“There are too many monkeys,” Dayal was quoted as saying.

[via CNN]

A man accused of biting the head off his pet rooster was arrested Friday and faces up to a year in prison if convicted, an animal protection spokesman said.

A neighbor had complained about a dead rooster near his Manhattan apartment and agents found the body of the beheaded rooster on a fire escape, said Joe Pentangelo, spokesman for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The rooster’s head was not located.

Humberto Rodriguez, 52, told agents that he bit the rooster’s head off because he blamed it for injuring a pet pigeon that he also kept in the apartment, Pentangelo said.

Rodriguez is charged with animal cruelty and could face up to a year in prison if convicted. It is also illegal to possess a live rooster in New York City, Pentangelo said.

[Via the AP]

WEST VANCOUVER, CANADA — It was a real-life version of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”–only in reverse–when a woman came home to find a young bear eating oatmeal in her kitchen.

The bear apparently entered through an open sliding glass door, broke a ceramic food container and started eating, West Vancouver police Sgt. Paul Skelton said.

“It sounds like a nursery rhyme, doesn’t it?” Skelton said. “At least we have a health-conscious bear on our hands.”

Three officers who went to the home Thursday couldn’t get the bear to budge, so they let it finish its meal.

“The bear didn’t appear to be aggressive and wasn’t destroying the house, so they just let it do what it was doing,” Skelton said. The bear finally left.

Source

A ferocious feline terrorized a quiet Fairfield neighborhood, to the point that residents are seeking help from the law to stop the so-called “Terrorist of Sunset Circle.”

“I was walking along the sidewalk when he sprang at me. I never saw it coming, but that’s how it often is. He comes at you from behind, springs and wraps himself around your legs, biting and scratching,” she said. “The last time I had three bites and eight scratches and I ended up at the walk-in clinic.

“The Avon lady was getting out of her car when Lewis attacked her from behind,” Kettman said. “She ended up going to the hospital.”

more…

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Attacks on humans by man-eating lions are on the rise in Tanzania and Mozambique, raising the stakes in the conservation game as environmentalists strive to save the big cats from extinction.

Lions in the area have developed a taste for human flesh because people have been sleeping outdoors to protect their crops from raiding bushpigs, which the cats follow onto croplands, a leading expert said.

“In Tanzania in the early 1990s there were about 40 recorded lion attacks a year. In the past couple of years they have risen to over 100 and about 70 percent are fatal,” said Craig Packer, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota.

Read Full Story

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — Spending too much of her time at work trying to rescue a squirrel led to a library worker being suspended from her job.

Cindee Goetz said she was suspended last week after she contacted a friend who owns an animal-removal business about the squirrel trapped in the ceiling of a LaPorte County Public Library branch.

…

“I don’t want that squirrel to die, either, but I can’t allow a live animal to be headquartered in that building,” (Judy) Hamilton said. “It’s a severe situation I can’t ignore. I’m not running a squirrel condominium here.”

“I don’t make a lot, and whatever I make that’s expendable goes toward helping animals,” (Goetz) said. “But I’m dedicated to doing it.”

Read full story.

LONDON (Reuters) - Cows belching and breaking wind cause methane pollution but scientists say they have developed a diet to make pastures smell like roses — almost.

“In some experiments we get a 70 percent decrease (in methane emissions), which is quite staggering,” biochemist John Wallace told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Wallace, leader of the microbial biochemistry group at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, said the secret to sweeter-smelling cows is a food additive based on fumaric acid, a naturally occurring chemical essential to respiration of animal and vegetable tissues.

continue story…

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Sam, the tiny dog whose hairless body and crooked teeth earned him a reputation as the World’s Ugliest Dog, has died.

The pooch died Friday, just short of his 15th birthday, his owner said.

“I don’t think there’ll ever be another Sam,” Susie Lockheed said, adding: “Some people would think that’s a good thing.”

[check out the story & video]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dozens of children at a Baltimore-area elementary school were stung by bees after stumbling upon them during a science lesson on Thursday, fire department officials said.

The entire second-grade class of about 100 students at Deep Creek Elementary School was studying trees in nearby woods when one child disturbed a nest of bees.

The distressed bees stung 47 children, two of whom suffered a mild allergic reaction.

“There was a bit of pandemonium at the school for a while, but nobody was seriously hurt,” said a fire department spokeswoman, adding that classes continued.

Seven children went home with their parents, while the other 40 were taken to the hospital as a precaution, she said.

[via Reuters]

A struggle between a Burmese python and an American alligator has left both creatures dead in a Florida swamp.

A photo taken by wildlife researcher Michael Barron shows the hindquarters of the 2m alligator protruding from the belly of the 4m python after the snake apparently exploded as it tried to digest its victim, the Miami Herald reported.

The Burmese python population has exploded in the Florida Everglades as owners dump unwanted pets.

Scientists have documented four encounters between pythons snakes and alligators in the last three years.

More…

A SUNSHINE Coast university student will need to have an artificial lens fitted to his right eye after it was speared by a wild darter bird perched on a railing at Australia Zoo at Beerwah.

The freak accident happened last Thursday in the open wetlands area of the zoo, which is frequented by wild ducks, herons and other waterbirds.

Similar to a cormorant, the darter’s thin beak popped Owen Vagg’s eye cornea and lens, releasing his eye fluid.

[continue story…]

NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Florida A crocodile caused quite a scare in a North Miami Beach, Florida neighborhood when it was found in a resident’s garage.

Dr. Morton Zisk’s wife found the large croc Wednesday under a car in his garage.

“She came out of the carport to get the morning newspaper and saw the alligator, came back in and said to me, ‘We got a problem,’ and I said, ‘What?’ She said there’s an alligator in the carport.’ I thought she was kidding because we went though the exact same thing 15 years ago, exactly the same way,” said Zisk.

[continue story…]

After reports of an alligator in a Pike county pond, several people spent Monday searching for the animal.

City officials who work in the area everyday say an alligator could be possible, but they have seen a beaver on several occassions that could be mistaken for an alligator.

“Looking at it on the inside of the water, it looks just like an alligator. It’s probably three or three and a half feet long,” said Ricky Slone, a city employee.

“If you look up and down both ponds, you’ll see where the beavers have been hard at work,” said Pike County Fire Chief Tommy Hall.

Officials said they will continue to search the waters to make sure there are no alligators, and if anyone see anything unusual they urge citizens to report it immediately.

[source]

Did you get the e-mail with images of the big alligator purported to have been caught swimming down the street in New Orleans?

You guessed it. An urban myth (but a good one, no?).

[continue story…]

ST. BLAZEY, England: The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals warned people in St. Blazey, England, to be on the lookout for an alligator sighted in an area pond.

The society issued the warning to the Cornish town when Stacey Clayton said she spotted a 2-foot gator while she and her 7-month-old daughter fed ducks in a pond.

“I noticed this big log in the water, but as I got closer I saw its eyes,” Clayton told The London Telegraph. “I wasn’t sure whether it was alive so I threw a stone near it. It lifted its head and looked straight at me.”

While the society warned area residents to be on the lookout for the gator, it also said the creature that likely once was a pet may have already died from the cold.

[source]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities on Tuesday dismissed a claim that a wrangler had nabbed a 7-foot-long alligator named “Reggie” from a city lake, where he had been dumped several months ago and repeatedly avoided capture.

Earlier Tuesday, a man claiming to be wrangler Jay Young, who had been hired by the city, told several media outlets, including The Associated Press, that he had caught the alligator overnight.

That story was cast into doubt when the promised delivery of the alligator to the Los Angeles Zoo never happened.

“To the best of my knowledge and all the reports I have received this morning, it was a hoax,” said Ron Berkowitz, the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks superintendent, who supervises the area that includes the lake. “I called the zoo to verify and the gator is not there. I called the rangers, the city council office and my staff at the lake. There was no capture.”

[continue story…]

TWO CAPE Town men had a hair-raising encounter with a great white shark when the predator attacked the surfski of one of the paddlers at the weekend.

Three hours before Trevor Wright’s ordeal at Sunny Cove, Fish Hoek, the beach was closed because of a shark sighting.

Wright and his paddling partner Alan Weston - both aged 54 - did not know this when they went out on the water on Saturday afternoon.

Shortly after they set off near Sunny Cove station, Wright’s surfski was attacked by what was estimated to be a four-metre-long shark. He escaped unscathed.

The attack took place about 100m from where Fish Hoek resident Tyna Webb, 77, was attacked in November last year.

[see story]

The giant lizard dines on stray cats. It menaces people with its hiss, and, with each sighting, the mystery around it grows.

At least, that’s what the neighbors say.

The mini-Godzilla — a Nile monitor lizard — has been lurking around their Opal Court cul-de-sac for months, possibly years. They have enough grainy photos of the African predator to prove it.

“Interested?” one man asks from a door that he has cracked open just far enough to pop out his head.

He briefly disappears inside with a terse, “Stay right where you are.” He then returns with a fuzzy printout of his next-door neighbor’s fence. The nearly 3-foot lizard is a brown streak that blends into the fence.

The man said he has seen the monitor once. His wife has seen it twice.

“Animal control didn’t really want to talk about it,” the man says. “It was April 8.”

Kristen Hathaway remembers that day well. The 20-year-old was the first to spot the monitor while looking for her Chihuahua pup.

“I was like ‘Kiwi, come here,’ ” Hathaway said. She didn’t have her glasses on and mistook the lizard for her dog. Then she got closer.

“I was like, OK, that’s not my dog,” Hathaway said. Then she ran — for a camera.

“No one is going to believe that this thing is in my cul-de-sac, so that’s why I took pictures,” she said.

[continue story…]

ALFRED, Ont. (CP) - Cows do it, even the odd deer or moose, but it’s a rare sight to see a tiger lying in the middle of an Ontario road.

But that’s what a driver near the town of Wendover, east of Ottawa, reported to police.

Turns out the large cat had ambled away from its enclosure at nearby Papanack Zoo.

[continue story…]

In a brief statement, Northern Territory police today said that the “provisional cause of death has been given as multiple injuries consistent with a crocodile attack”.

…

Police and wildlife authorities are hunting a 13-foot crocodile suspected of the attack and plan to move it to a more remote area or shoot it.

[see story]

TARENTUM, Pa. — Crocus, a 2-foot pet alligator escaped from his backyard enclosure, but was captured by a girl who used what she learned on a nature TV program.

Nicki Hilliard and several friends saw the animal swimming in the Allegheny River.

Hilliard said she learned how to catch the animals safely by watching the television show “Crocodile Hunter.” The secret is to grab the animal’s snout and hold its mouth closed.

The kids put the animal in a beverage cooler and took it to the police station, where it was locked inside a cell until owner Belinda Thomson arrived to claim it.

Thompson said neighborhood cats opened the fence in her back yard, enabling Crocus to escape.

[from the Washington Post]

A monkey runs away from the circus but is later found.

SPRINGDALE – It wasn’t your usual missing person description released Monday by Springdale Police.

They are looking for little Dillion clad only in blue pants, standing just two feet tall and weighing eight pounds and prone to sleeping in trees like any other Capuchin monkey.

If you spot him don’t imitate a train whistle because that is what sent the circus monkey leaping from his owner’s shoulder early Monday at the General Electric Park near the railroad tracks that cross Ohio 747.

[story]

LOS ANGELES Police in suburban Los Angeles have arrested two men they accuse of putting an alligator into a small city lake, where it’s been for nearly two weeks.

[story]

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Was there a black cat aboard the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor, placed inside a cannon by a superstitious but desperate sailor as the vessel was sinking?

Conservators had hoped to verify the legend as they worked this month to extract concretelike sediment from two cast iron, smooth-bore cannons salvaged from the ship’s turret.

[Continue reading…]

A cat was stomped to death in a weekend dispute between neighbors on the South Side, police said.

Chicago Police said four people — two men and two women — kicked in a door of a house in the 6500 block of South Wolcott at 9 a.m. Sunday and told two people there to turn over a PlayStation, a police spokeswoman said.

The four, carrying knives and other objects, proceeded to trash the home and stomp a black cat to death, the spokeswoman said.

[see Chicago Sun-Times]

Alligator mystery solved.

Johnson County Animal Control officials say an alligator found in a White River Township retention pond was on the lam from a home in which he was being rehabilitated for transport to a Florida alligator camp.

Only the alligator decided to check out some Hoosier scenery before leaving and apparently escaped from the home sometime Sunday, said Animal Control Warden Shawn Donovan.

[see The Indianapolis Star]

A Medford man was committed to the state psychiatric hospital Thursday for stabbing, spray-painting and setting fire to his pet kitten.

…

In an attempt to exorcise a gray, 10-week-old kitten named Cosmo, McCray stabbed it multiple times with a small knife that folds into a cross-shaped pendant, said Sarita Glassburner, deputy district attorney for Jackson County. He then sprayed it with olive drab paint and lit its head on fire. McCray thought the cat contained “Indian spirits,” the prosecutor added.

[see story]

WHITE RIVER TOWNSHIP, Ind. — Wildlife officials say a 4 1/2-foot-long alligator found near an upscale subdivision in Johnson County is most likely an abandoned pet.

“A lot of people just find out that an alligator is more trouble when it’s getting to be 3 or 4 feet long than it was when it was just a few inches,” said Russ Grunden, Indiana Department of Natural Resources spokesman, adding that his office fields about two calls a year on live alligators.

“It’s not unusual for it to happen around the state from time to time,” he said.

[see the Indianapolis Star]

The Delhi High Court passed an order Thursday instructing authorities to offer 2,000 rupees ($46) per cow — an average Indian’s monthly salary — to rid the city of the traffic menace.

With cows sacred to Hindus, who make up the bulk of India’s billion-plus population, an estimated 35,000 cows and buffalo roam free in the capital, sharing space with hordes of monkeys, camels and stray dogs.

[vie Reuters]

DAYTONA BEACH — A day after a shark bit a 13-year-old girl on the hand in shallow waters off Zelda Boulevard, swimmers returned to the same waters to wade and bathe, including a man floating on his back around noon today in slightly deeper waters. “I go swimming here every day. It’s beautiful,” said Aiden Magee, a 60-year-old retired businessman, as he waded ashore. He had no intention of altering his routine because of the shark bite, he said.

The victim, identified by officials as Nicole Carlos, of Jupiter, remained hospitalized today in fair condition. She was injured only slightly “in the big picture,” said Scott Petersohn, Volusia County Beach Patrol spokesman. She and her family were unavailable for comment.

[see Orlando Sentinel & their follow-up]

A sick sea lion took a chunk out of a 13-year-old boy’s Boogie board this weekend off the northern end of Morro Strand State Beach in Cayucos.

Matthew Huff said the sea lion started chasing him around 5 p.m. Saturday as he surfed the waves.

[see The Tribune]

PARKER CITY, Ind. — Two dogs attacked and killed six fallow deer at a private zoo on Monday.

Officials at ME’s Zoo say the same two dogs also killed two deer Saturday.

Zoo workers said they did not know where the dogs came from or how they got into the fenced fields at the facility, which takes its name from the initials of the zoo’s founders.

[see The Indianapolis Star]

POLICE are investigating the mystery slaughter of a kangaroo found decapitated in a central Queensland zoo.

[see The Daily Telegraph]

Although some officials downplay the frequency of encounters between humans and sharks, one University of North Carolina professor said he expects the number to grow in the future.

From Texas to North Carolina, three shark attacks occurred in the last week alone.

[see NBC 17]

It happened at about 5 p.m. Friday evening on the 600 block of Ocean Boulevard on Holden Beach, which is about an hour away from Wilmington.

Chris Humphrey said he was swimming to a friend on a raft in deeper water when a sand shark that measured about 5 feet long bit into his forarm.

A shark’s tooth was left in Humphrey’s arm and had to be removed by surgery. He was released from the hospital Sunday morning.

[via NBC 17]

See also:

Myrtle Beach Online
The News & Observer
NBC 4
NBC 17

INDIANAPOLIS — A pack of stray dogs has killed all the birds in an Australian exhibit at the Indianapolis Zoo, officials said. The dogs on Sunday killed two black swans, three magpie geese and three emus. It is not known how the dogs got into the zoo.

[see story]

A gibbon named Kien is adjusting to life one limb short at Lincoln Park Zoo — and providing a curiosity (and zoo officials hope a lesson) for visitors.

Kien lost his right arm April 9 after he got it stuck in a screen reaching for a ChapStick a visitor had tossed near his exhibit. A report by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association released last week described how the gibbon, an ape found in Southeast Asia, had managed to “weave” his arm out and then back in through another opening before getting it stuck.

“In an apparent panic,” investigators reported, the ape tried to free its arm by pulling — a force so hard it dislocated the animal’s elbow and severely damaged its tendons. An orthopedic surgeon reattached the tendons, but three days later the arm lost its circulation, and Lincoln Park vets decided to amputate.

[see Chicago Sun-Times]

Remember Mothra? It was huge… 15,000 tons of ticked off Lepidotpera. It leveled Tokyo, scared any little kid who saw it in a dark movie house and kicked Godzilla’s tail until Big G fried it to a crisp with its bad breath, only to have Mothra’s kids tie him down with their steel-hard strands of silk.

Mothra was one bad dude, but even it didn’t get to use the name mariposa de la muerte (moth of death).

That particular sobriquet goes to the black witch moth. It’s had that title since the time of the Aztecs. They believed that, if there was illness in a house and this moth entered, the sick person would die. Its biology had a lot to do with this superstition. Large numbers of black witches would appear in early November, just in time for the feast of the dead.

[see The Sun Herald]

CRYSTAL BEACH — When Lydia Paulk’s relatives came to the beach for an annual family reunion, they likely were not expecting to spend much of it at a hospital on the island instead of the beach cottage they had rented.

Still, Lydia’s aunt said not even the shark bite that put the 14-year-old in the hospital would deter them from returning next year.

“We’ve been coming to the beach for years, and this certainly will not stop us from coming back,” said Kit Marshall, an Aledo city councilwoman and a sister of Lydia’s mother.

The North Carolina girl was at a University of Texas Medical Branch hospital Wednesday evening recovering from the shark bite.

Lydia was in what officials described as waist-deep water with another aunt and a 6-year-old cousin when she felt something hit her leg.

“A couple of seconds later, she felt something grab her foot, and that was the moment she was bitten,” said Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo of the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office.

The shark, described as 4 to 5 feet long, was probably a black tip shark, based on witness accounts.

[via The Galveston County Daily News]

ISTANBUL, Turkey — First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

[via washingtonpost.com]

BEIJING, July 8 — Alcohol has been banned in two small Australian Aboriginal communities to stop young people from a nearby alcohol-free township from risking their lives by swimming across a crocodile-infested river to get a drink.

[via Xinhua]

A male gorilla attacked and bit an intern keeper Tuesday morning at Lincoln Park Zoo after another apparent breakdown of safety protocols placed her in an outdoor gorilla exhibit while the animals were present.

Zoo officials blamed the gorilla attack on “human error” but said they have not determined whether the intern, a 32-year-old woman, or one or more of her colleagues was to blame.

Last September, in another incident attributed to human error, a female keeper was seriously injured when two lions mauled her in their outdoor exhibit.

[via Chicago Tribune]

A zoo caretaker was mauled and killed by a bear yesterday when he entered the enclosure to feed the animal.

Chen Chin-tsai, 41, was attacked by an Alaskan brown bear at the Leofoo Safari Park in Hsinchu, western Taiwan.

[via The Taipei Times]

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — An off-duty lifeguard swimming in the ocean at El Capitan State Beach west of Santa Barbara was recovering after being attacked by a sea lion.

[via NBC 4]

The Globe
Chicago Sun Times
EiTB24
BBC
Morning News Online

A shark bit an Austrian tourist on the ankle Friday as the man stood in chest-deep water in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast, authorities said. It was the third shark attack in the state in a week.

…

Two other young people have been bitten since Saturday in gulf water off Florida. The latest incident was about 280 miles (450 kilometers) from an attack Monday on a 16-year-old boy who lost his leg and about 350 miles (560 kilometers) from the spot where a 14-year-old girl was killed Saturday.

[via The Jerusalem Post]

Summer of the shark attack? My money on the cause is on some not-so-bright folks fishing on or near a pier with “live bait”.

A mother hen has taken four ducklings under her wing… literally. The biological mother had abandoned the small duckings before birth, leaving the job to someone else.

[via ABC 4 News - video included]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fishermen in northern Thailand have caught the biggest catfish on record — a 646-pound (293-kg) giant the size of a grizzly bear — and eaten it, the WWF and the National Geographic Society said on Wednesday.

[via Reuters]

Brian Hutto said contrary to some reports, neither he nor his brother had any bait in his pocket.

He said as they were walking to a sandbar, Craig felt a bump on his leg, and then the shark attacked.

Brian said he hit the shark repeatedly and tried to pull his brother away from its jaws.

The boys’ father waded into the water to help them, and together, the two managed to pull Craig away from the shark and get him to shore.

[via NewsChannel 5]

Next time I go to the beach I think I’ll be packing my diving knife.

PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Sure, the weather’s been rather tropical this week, but it’s still surprising to come across alligators in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

A Pennsylvania man says he spotted one Monday night while driving in Butler County, outside of Pittsburgh.

[via WFTV]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An animal rights group has called on one of the largest aquariums in the United States to stop serving fish to its visitors, likening the practice to grilling up “poodle burgers at a dog show.”

“It’s easy to think of fish as swimming vegetables but of all the places in the country where fish should get a fair shake it’s an aquarium,” said Karin Robertson, manager of the Fish Empathy Project for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

[via Reuters]

Beijing - An 18-year old student celebrating the end of his school exams was attacked and killed by three lions in a zoological park in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province, state press said on Wednesday.

The student was one of 10 young men who climbed over the 2m fence surrounding the lion compound at the Northern Forestry Zoological Park near the provincial capital of Harbin on Tuesday, the Beijing News said.

The students, who had been drinking following their exams, illegally entered the zoo and climbed over the fence despite signs warning of the danger, the report said.

[via News24]

Two of the birds fly away from their exhibit. The Sedgwick County Zoo is hoping you’ll see them and call.

[via Wichita Eagle]

South Bend, Indiana, USA

“I didn’t believe him,” animal control officer Sumyr Springfield said.
Then Springfield, who was first on the scene, saw the top of the kangaroo’s head. It was time to call for backup.

[via The Indianapolis Star]

Related…
Blimey, mate. It was a kangaroo

Belgium plans to stop Boy Scouts from slaughtering chickens and other small animals at summer camp, despite Scout leaders’ defense of the practice as a lesson in wilderness survival.

[via Reuters]

Two recent shark attacks in the Florida Panhandle, including one that cost a 16-year-old boy his leg Monday, threaten to bring back the media frenzy of 2001, dubbed the “Summer of the Shark” by Time magazine.

The Carolinas are in the top five nationwide for shark violence. But unlike the attack that killed a teenaged girl Saturday, bites are rarely fatal.

[via Charlotte Observer]

Cape San Blas, Florida, USA

A 16-year-old boy who lost a leg following the second shark attack in three days along the Florida Panhandle was in critical condition Tuesday and facing more surgery.

Craig Adam Hutto, of Lebanon, Tenn., was fishing in waist-deep water about 60 feet from shore with his brother and a friend Monday when the shark grabbed his right thigh, nearly severing the leg, said Capt. Bobby Plair of the Gulf County Sheriff’s Office.

[via The Sierra Times]

Eugene police officers and Lane County animal control officers responded to a report of a “small alligator” at large in northeast Eugene on Friday.

[via Oregon Daily Emerald]

Cape Coral, Florida, USA

University of South Florida researches say they have finally identified the source of a thumping noise that has confounded Cape Coral residents for decades.

It’s the mating call of a fish.

[via WKMG]

The management of Circus New York says the 26-year-old African elephant which gored a Kerryman in Tramore, Co Waterford, yesterday will continue to perform at the circus.

It says the animal poses no threat to the public.

The injured man, who is not the elephant’s trainer, is said to be critical but stable in hospital.

[via RTE News]

Lake Okeechobee, Florida, U.S.A.

Saltwater sharks in freshwater Lake Okeechobee?

With video footage.

[via The Sun-Sentinel]