| July 28, 2009 | - A Hartford man smashed his SUV into parked cars after baby snakes escaped from his pockets.
| Source:
San Jose Mercury News
|
| July 24, 2009 | - Rescuers searching a Michigan home found 110 live dogs (and 150 in freezers).
| Source:
WFTV
|
| July 19, 2009 | - A five-legged puppy was rescued from a Coney Island freak show after a woman paid $4,000 to outbid sideshow owner John Strong, who had intended to include the puppy in his “Freaks of Nature” show. “Sometimes,” said a rueful Strong, “you just gotta say, 'OK, I still have nine live two-headed animals', and move on.”
| Source:
NBC New York News
|
| May 27, 2009 | - A white tiger killed a zookeeper in New Zealand.
| Source:
White tiger kills New Zealand zoo keeper
|
| May 10, 2009 | - A two-nosed Wisconsin cow named Lucy gave birth to a normal calf.
| Source:
WSAW.com
|
| May 8, 2009 | - A New York City
cow named Molly broke free of her handlers on the way to the slaughterhouse and ran free through the streets of Queens. Molly's owners, responding to public outcry, agreed to spare her and move her to Long Island, where she will live with a steer named Wexley. “He's been neutered,” said Wexley's owner, “so they are just going to have to be good friends.”
| Source:
New York Post
|
| April 13, 2009 | - Twenty-one horses at the U.S. Open Polo Championship collapsed and died of unknown causes.
| Source:
Palm Beach Post
|
| April 12, 2009 | - Four baby Stimson's pythons escaped from a cargo container on a Qantas plane in Melbourne, Australia, and the plane was grounded so that the tiny snakes could be gassed.
| Source:
The Age
|
| January 13, 2009 | - More Missourians were eating raccoon.
| Source:
The other dark meat: Raccoon is making it to the table
|
| September 23, 2008 | - Starving polar bears were eating each other.
| Source:
CNN
|
| September 9, 2008 | - Scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute were surprised to find the partial remains of a polar bear in the stomach of a Greenland shark. “There is,” said a researcher, “far easier prey to be found.”
| Source:
The Scotsman
|
| September 4, 2008 | - Xiguang, an elephant undergoing treatment on the Chinese island of Hainan, was off heroin and headed home.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| August 8, 2008 | - A U.S. biologist in Barbados claimed to have discovered the world's smallest snake, which, at less than 4 inches long, may be the smallest that snakes can possibly be. Barbadians insisted that they already knew about the animal, which they call a “thread snake.”
| Source 1:
BBCNews.com
Source 2:
CNN.com
|
| July 18, 2008 | - A toad in Australia ate a three-foot-long snake,.
| Source:
Mail Online
|
| May 23, 2008 | -
Rats, it was discovered, are more likely to cannibalize their young if their cages are clean.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| May 6, 2008 | - The Humane Society of Mercer County, Pennsylvania, increased to $1,500 its reward for information about the torture and murder of a ten-year-old blind pony named Kahlua.
| Source:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
|
| April 26, 2008 | -
Black squirrels, which exhibit higher levels of testosterone than gray or red squirrels, were overrunning parts of England
| Source:
Guardian
|
| November 12, 2007 | - It was reported that Blake Miller, the “Marlboro Marine” made famous when a photo of him smoking in Fallujah was widely published, now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and lives in a trailer behind his father's house with a dog named Mudbone tied in the yard. Miller, unable to discuss certain things that happened in Fallujah (saying only that “to kill the snake, we had to cut off its head”), is recently divorced and remains a heavy smoker.
| Source:
The Los Angeles Times
|
| November 10, 2007 | - At an Ibero-American summit in Chile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called Spain's former prime minister a fascist, adding, “fascists are not human. A snake is more human.” “Why don't you shut up?” asked the king of Spain.
| Source:
BBCnews.com
|
| November 2, 2007 | - Friday marked Mexico's Day of the Dead, which was celebrated as hundreds of thousands of people attempted to flee the flooded state of Tabasco by boat, helicopter, jet ski, tractor, or by swimming through murky, snake-infested currents.
| Source:
AP via Yahoo!
|
| October 19, 2007 | - 5 of the world's 350 remaining Asiatic Lions were found dead next to an electric fence in India.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 19, 2007 | - 5 of the world's 350 remaining Asiatic Lions were found dead next to an electric fence in India.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 7, 2007 | - In England, American gray squirrels were bullying diminutive, mild-mannered indigenous red squirrels.
| Source:
NYT
|
| August 22, 2007 | -
Scientists in England determined that Tyrannosaurus rex would have been able to outrun a professional soccer player.
| Source:
BBC
|
| August 10, 2007 | - In India police killed a protester at a riot of flood victims, and the monsoon death toll climbed above 2,000, with many of the fatalities blamed on snakebites. “Everyone is crammed in together,” said an expert, “and the chances of running into snakes, stepping on them, grabbing them, and sleeping on them is much, much more.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
IHT
|
| July 16, 2007 | - In China, where flooding has killed hundreds of people this summer, the rampant Yangtze River had caused Dongting Lake to overflow, leading two billion rats to flee to the Hunan countryside, where there are few predators to reduce their numbers, as the snakes have been eaten by southerners and the owls have been used for medicine. Besieged farmers were poisoning the rats, beating them with hammers, and sending them, live, by truckload to restaurants in Guangzhou, where diners pay 136 yuan for a kilogram of ratmeat.
| Source 1:
National Geographic
Source 2:
ABC News
Source 3:
Sydney Morning Herald
|
| June 21, 2007 | - An eight-year-old two-headed hermaphrodite albino rat-snake named “We” died of natural causes at the City Museum in St. Louis.
- An eight-year-old two-headed hermaphrodite albino rat-snake named “We” died of natural causes at the City Museum in St. Louis.
| Source:
St. Louis Post Dispatch
|
| May 29, 2007 | -
Elephants were fleeing war in Sri Lanka, while at least one elephant in eastern India was robbing motorists.
| Source 1:
Reuters via Daily Times (Pakistan)
Source 2:
Reuters
|
| May 27, 2007 | - Nazi-released raccoons continued to wreak havoc from the Baltic Sea to the Alps. “We like the United States of America,” said retired German orthodontist Dieter Hoffmann, “but we do not like your Waschbaeren!”
| Source:
Washington Post via Atlanta Journal-Constitution
|
| May 26, 2007 | -
Cairo customs officials prevented a smuggler from carrying 700 snakes onto a plane bound for Saudi Arabia.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| April 19, 2007 | - A 12-foot-long minke whale spent two days frolicking near the polluted waters of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, New York, then died. “These are days for tears,” said an onlooker.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 10, 2007 | - In Hong Kong, race horses suffered the worst outbreak of equine herpes in the region's history.
| Source:
Times UK
|
| April 6, 2007 | - A South African farmer received a 20-year sentence for killing a man he mistakenly believed to be a baboon.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 3, 2007 | - The market price for children in India slipped below that of buffalo.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| March 27, 2007 | - It was suggested that Yan Yan, a panda at the Berlin Zoo, died from stress in the wake of intense publicity generated by Knut, his polar-bear-cub neighbor.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| February 27, 2007 | - Female koalas in Australia were ignoring males in favor of five-bear lesbian orgies.
| Source:
The Advocate
|
| February 23, 2007 | - José, the first native beaver seen in the city in 200 years, was spotted swimming up the Bronx River.
| Source:
Yahoo News
|
| February 15, 2007 | - A Japanese
dolphin was fitted with an artificial tail.
| Source:
DailyMail
|
| February 14, 2007 | - The Navy announced that specially trained dolphins and sea lions may patrol a military base in Washington State that is vulnerable to attack by swimmers and scuba divers; the sea lions are trained to clamp cuffs around swimmers' legs so that the swimmers can be reeled in.
| Source:
AP
|
| February 1, 2007 | - Elephants in Thailand were head-butting and robbing trucks.
| Source:
Reuters via iol.co.za
|
| January 29, 2007 | - The Indian
Army was preparing to hunt down man-eating leopards in Kashmir.
| Source:
Mumbai Mirror
|
| January 26, 2007 | - Veterinarians at Aquatopia in Antwerp announced that Mozart, an iguana that has had an erection for a week, would have to have one of his two penises amputated.
| Source:
Reuters via the Australian
|
| January 25, 2007 | -
Scientists in Jena, Germany, who had been using spaghetti and cucumbers as bait to make a sloth climb up and down a pole, gave up after three years.
| Source:
AP
|
| January 20, 2007 | - Drought was driving tens of thousands of snakes into Australian cities.
| Source:
BBC
|
| January 16, 2007 | - Zookeepers in Thailand put their male panda on a diet. “Chuang Chuang is gaining weight too fast,” said a zookeeper, “and we found Lin Hui is no longer comfortable with having sex with him.”
| Source:
AZcentral.com
|
| January 15, 2007 | - A German breeder was selling giant rabbits to North Korea in the hope of relieving famine.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| January 13, 2007 | - Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney attended a gun show. “As a boy, I worked on a ranch in Idaho and shot
rabbits with a single shot .22 rifle,” Romney said. “After a while my cousin said, 'You're not very good at that. Try using this semiautomatic.'”
| Source:
NewsMax
|
| January 10, 2007 | - Depressed American zoo animals were taking Prozac.
| Source:
L.A. Times
|
| December 28, 2006 | - In Mombasa, Kenya, a young hippo named Owen and a 130-year-old tortoise named Mzee celebrated a year of friendship.
| Source:
Yahoo! News
|
| December 15, 2006 | - A hunter in Wisconsin shot a seven-legged deer.
| Source:
Yahoo News
|
| December 14, 2006 | - The baiji, a species of blind white dolphin extant for 20 million years, was declared extinct.
| Source:
AP via NYT
|
| December 14, 2006 | - Two dolphins who had swallowed toxic plastic were saved by the world's tallest man, who used his long arms to retrieve shards from their stomachs.
| Source:
BBC
|
| December 4, 2006 | - A forty-three-foot-tall Swedish straw Christmas
goat was doused with flame-retardant chemicals so that only its hooves could be burned.
| Source:
Associated Press via nj.com
|
| November 30, 2006 | - Sheriff's deputies in Polk County, Florida, rescued a naked, drug-addled man from the jaws of an attacking alligator.
| Source:
CNN
|
| November 28, 2006 | -
Scientists said that a “primordial meteorite” may hold clues about the “raw organic molecules needed for life,” that humpback whales may be every bit as intelligent as humans, dolphins, and great apes, and that women speak three times as much as men.
| Source 1:
BBC
Source 2:
The Age
Source 3:
Daily Mail
|
| November 21, 2006 | -
Chinese
scientists revealed that showing pornography to pandas has helped increase the captive panda population; Vassar scientists said that they had successfully mated robot
fish.
| Source 1:
AP via Australian
Source 2:
Xinhua
|
| November 19, 2006 | - A Danish
artist named Kristian von Hornsleth was giving animals to Ugandan villagers who agreed to take his name. “Africans adopting European names for gifts—that's nothing new,” said George Sabadu Hornsleth, who received a pig. “We've been doing that since colonial times. Why do you think I'm called George?”
| Source:
Yahoo! News
|
| November 16, 2006 | - A sea lion in San Francisco bit 14 people.
| Source:
SFGate.com
|
| November 12, 2006 | - Zama Ndebele, the wife of Premier S'bu Ndebele of the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, promised to return her herd of Nguni cattle to the state in the wake of a cows-for-favors corruption scandal.
| Source 1:
Business Day
Source 2:
IOL
|
| November 5, 2006 | - Researchers in Japan captured a dolphin with legs.
| Source:
Chicago Tribune
|
| November 3, 2006 | - Rising floodwaters trapped a herd of 100 horses on a Netherlands islet.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 26, 2006 | - Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilali, mufti of Sydney, Australia's largest mosque, compared unveiled women to “uncovered meat.” “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside,” said the mufti, “and the cats come to eat it . . . whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat's? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”
| Source:
Guardian
|
| October 20, 2006 | - In New York a developmentally disabled handyman was hospitalized after two teenagers sodomized him at a bowling alley with a plumbing snake,.
| Source:
WNBC
|
| October 19, 2006 | - The king of Spain denied that he had shot and killed a drunken bear.
| Source:
IHT via New York Times
|
| October 17, 2006 | - A Gypsy pressure group filed suit to stop British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's latest film from being shown in Germany. The group accuses him of antiziganism, or hostility to gypsies; Cohen's fictional alter-ego Borat claimed that Gypsies had molested his horse.
| Source 1:
Reuters via Yahoo
Source 2:
Wikipedia
|
| October 15, 2006 | -
Donkeys were increasingly popular with Mexican farmers.
| Source:
Christian Science Monitor via Arizona Daily Star
|
| October 11, 2006 | - In Uganda, a mob armed with spears, machetes, and clubs killed a lioness, mutilated the carcass, and imprisoned the remains.
| Source:
The Monitor via allAfrica.com
|
| October 10, 2006 | - Thousands of villagers in the Indian state of Jharkhand fled their homes in order to avoid a herd of rampaging elephants. “The elephants,” said a forestry official, “are out to avenge.” “They destroy our crops in the field,” complained a farmer. “Sometimes they damage our houses also.”
| Source 1:
Reuters
Source 2:
ANI via DailyIndia.com
|
| October 8, 2006 | - Researchers found that Human-Elephant Conflict, or H.E.C., was on the rise. “Where for centuries humans and elephants lived in relative peaceful coexistence,” said professor Gay Bradshaw of Oregon State University, “there is now hostility and violence.” Bradshaw hypothesized that elephants are suffering from species-wide chronic stress brought on by poaching, habitat loss, and other traumas, which may explain why young male elephants have been observed raping and killing rhinoceroses.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| October 6, 2006 | - Swiss researchers in Syria discovered the remains of an extinct species of giant camel.
| Source:
iol.co.za
|
| September 29, 2006 | - Men boxed kangaroos in Shanghai's fourth annual Animal Olympics.
| Source:
Daily Mail
|
| September 20, 2006 | - Hybrid lions were dying from a mystery disease in northern India.
| Source:
The Drudge Report
|
| September 15, 2006 | - A Nigerian man accused of murder explained to authorities that he had actually killed a rogue goat with an axe, but the dead goat had then turned into the corpse of his brother.
| Source:
AP via the Buzz
|
| September 15, 2006 | - More polar bears
drowned in the Arctic.
| Source:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
|
| September 3, 2006 | - Tropical Storm Ernesto killed at least six people and four seals in the United States,.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| September 3, 2006 | - Police broke up a ring of badger-baiting gangs in Scotland.
| Source:
Sundaymail.co.uk
|
| September 1, 2006 | - Forty Australian
seals were killed in a drive-by shooting.
| Source:
The Australian
|
| August 30, 2006 | -
Danish researchers reported that pollutants may shrink the genitals of polar bears, foxes, and whales.
| Source:
local6.com
|
| August 29, 2006 | - Marine biologists said that manatees are not stupid so much as unmotivated.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 29, 2006 | -
Swiss hikers were warned not to hug cows.
| Source:
Independent Online
|
| August 10, 2006 | - In Texas a truck carrying zoo animals overturned, immediately killing one penguin; three more penguins were killed by oncoming traffic. The octopus was not harmed.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| August 10, 2006 | - In Florida a man was missing after a large turtle pulled him into the sea.
| Source:
Local6.com
|
| August 4, 2006 | - Racer Cristiano da Matta's Champ Car collided with a deer in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
| Source:
cnnsi.com
|
| August 2, 2006 | -
Wild bison took over a small Canadian town. “Try and get an insurance claim done after your car was kicked by a buffalo,” said one local resident. “The adjustor will just laugh at you.”
| Source:
Mail and Guardian
|
| July 31, 2006 | - A study conducted at Texas A&M University found that cigarette smoking reduced the impact of alcohol on inebriated rats. “I hope people won't interpret that as a good thing,” said lead researcher Wei-Jung Chen.
| Source:
Seed Magazine
|
| July 31, 2006 | - Hot weather killed 141 people (as well as 25,000 cattle and 700,000 fowl) in California, at least 170 people in France, Italy, and Spain, and dozens of racing dogs in Oregon, and shut down MySpace.
| Source:
CBS
|
| July 30, 2006 | - It was reported that Private Steven D. Green, who is charged with raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, then killing her and members of her family, had said that, in Iraq, “killing people is like squashing an ant, I mean, you kill somebody and it's like, 'All right, let's go get some pizza.'”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| July 27, 2006 | - A man in Sumatra was squashed by an elephant.
| Source:
news24.com
|
| July 25, 2006 | - The Israeli military deployed llamas in southern Lebanon.
| Source 1:
Ynetnews
Source 2:
JTA
|
| July 24, 2006 | - A Tennessee
elephant named Winkie was found not to have killed her handler on purpose.
| Source:
AP via Forbes
|
| July 17, 2006 | - Thieves stole a 14-foot inflatable sheep from a store in Rochester, Minnesota.
| Source:
WCCO.com
|
| July 10, 2006 | - It was feared that the West African black rhino was extinct.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| July 7, 2006 | - The world's oldest crow died in Bearsville, New York.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| July 6, 2006 | - President Vladimir Putin of Russia explained that he had recently kissed a young boy on the stomach because he “wanted to stroke him like a cat.”
| Source:
Agence France-Presse
|
| June 27, 2006 | - Bruno the bear was shot and killed by German authorities, ending his seven-week rampage through Germany and Austria; Bruno, officially tagged Rampant Brown Bear JJ 1, had killed sheep and rabbits, stolen honey, eluded Finnish bear trackers and elkhounds, and squashed a guinea pig. “Sexual frustration,” said a German official, “may be a reason for the random killings.”
| Source:
Times Online (U.K)
|
| June 26, 2006 | - A three-foot-long escaped porcupine named Twinkle was captured in Langwathby, England.
| Source:
BBC
|
| June 26, 2006 | - Scientists in Borneo found a snake that can spontaneously change color from reddish-brown to white.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| June 24, 2006 | - Lance Corporal William Windsor, a billy goat in the British army, was demoted for “lack of decorum.”
| Source:
BBC
|
| June 20, 2006 | - Researchers in Texas successfully convinced fringe-lipped bats that poisonous sympatric cane toads were edible.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| June 18, 2006 | - In India an autopsy determined that the rogue elephant known as Master Killer died from multiple organ failure. “I had lost my two children,” said the elephant's distraught trainer. “But when I discovered this naughty tusker . . . I thought, 'Here's a newborn that will help me forget my own loss.'”
| Source:
The Peninsula
|
| June 18, 2006 | -
Baboons in Saudi Arabia ruined a picnic.
| Source:
Arab News
|
| June 17, 2006 | - In Thiruvananthapuram, India, the recently captured rogue elephant Master Killer died in a cage.
| Source:
The Hindu
|
| June 14, 2006 | - In Rangamati, Bangladesh, villagers fled in boats after their town was destroyed by rampaging elephants.
| Source:
Reuters via MSNBC
|
| June 14, 2006 | -
Archaeologists said that ancient Mexicans wore decorative dentures made from wolves' teeth.
| Source:
AP via MSNBC
|
| June 9, 2006 | -
Florida's
wildlife officials decided to remove the manatee, which has a mild taste that readily adapts itself to recipes for beef, from the state's endangered-species list.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 6, 2006 | - It was reported that scientists have created a new type of synthetic snakebite antivenom.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| June 2, 2006 | - A Baghdad pet market was bombed, killing 5 people and several doves.
| Source 1:
Guardian Unlimited
Source 2:
Canada.com
|
| June 2, 2006 | - Officials in south India said that they had captured an alcohol-abusing, homicidal rogue elephant named Master Killer.
| Source 1:
New Kerala
Source 2:
The Peninsula
|
| June 2, 2006 | - A snake bit a woman at a Wal-Mart in Florida. “Thank goodness for sweat pants with elastic,” said the woman, “because he tried to climb up my britches' leg.”
| Source:
WFTV.com
|
| June 2, 2006 | - A woman married a cobra in the Indian state of Orissa. “Though snakes cannot speak or understand,” said the bride, “we communicate in a peculiar way.”
| Source:
Breitbart
|
| June 1, 2006 | - A zoo in Vancouver was charged with cruelty to a hippo.
| Source:
The Calgary Sun
|
| May 30, 2006 | - The first wild bear seen in Germany since 1835 continued to attack farm animals and elude capture. “For security purposes,” said Bavarian Environment Minister Werner Schnappauf, “the permission to open fire must be maintained.” Authorities said the brother of the bear had killed Swiss
sheep last summer.
| Source:
Fox News
|
| May 30, 2006 | - A senior citizens' community in Washington was overrun by marmots.
| Source:
Yakima Herald-Republic
|
| May 24, 2006 | -
Senator Bill Frist helped give a gorilla a root canal.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| May 23, 2006 | - In Australia, a psychiatrist named Stephen Allnutt testified that financier Brendan Francis McMahon had believed he was helping animals when he mutilated 17 rabbits and a guinea pig while under the influence of methamphetamine. "I wonder," McMahon reportedly said, "if I made a mistake because I never asked the rabbits?"
| Source:
The Sydney Morning Herald
|
| May 23, 2006 | -
Scientists in North Carolina said that they could grow new, functional rabbit
penises.
| Source:
Fox News
|
| May 22, 2006 | - In Norway a grevling, or badger, wrecked a man's bedroom.
| Source:
Aftenposten
|
| May 18, 2006 | - A rogue elephant was on the loose in Rwanda.
| Source:
IOL.co.za
|
| May 18, 2006 | -
Scientists in Germany said that apes can plan ahead.
| Source:
AP via Breitbart.com
|
| May 17, 2006 | - A camel ran amok on the Trans-Israeli Highway.
| Source:
YNetNews.com
|
| May 17, 2006 | - In Alaska an elephant named Maggie was refusing to use her $100,000
treadmill.
| Source:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
|
| May 16, 2006 | - In Louth, England, a group of youths kicked a pet rabbit to death.
| Source:
LouthToday
|
| May 15, 2006 | - At a zoo in the Netherlands three bears ate a monkey. "The macaque," said an eyewitness, "was shrieking and resisting."
| Source:
Breitbart.com
|
| May 14, 2006 | - In Florida an alligator that recently killed a jogger was caught with the jogger's arms in its stomach.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| May 11, 2006 | - In Canada
scientists confirmed that an odd-looking bear shot and killed in April was a "grolar" bear (half polar bear, half grizzly), thus exempting the hunter who shot the bear from paying a grizzly-killing fine.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| May 11, 2006 | - In California a 1,500-pound sea lion was biting people.
| Source:
SFGate.com
|
| May 11, 2006 | - Authorities in gas masks entered a residence in California to remove 98 guinea pigs, 84 cats, 27 dogs, 14 rabbits, three potbellied pigs, and one bird.
| Source:
AP via Breitbart.com
|
| April 28, 2006 | - In Denver, Colorado, a 17-year-old boy on his first bucking bronco ride was killed when the horse rolled on top of him. "It was," said his mother, "his first and last ride."
| Source:
SFGate.com
|
| April 24, 2006 | - In the Netherlands authorities fined an advertiser for placing advertisements on sheep blankets. “If we start with sheep,” said Bert Kuiper, the mayor of Skarsterlan, “then next it's the cows and horses.”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| April 7, 2006 | - A dead, noseless, cyclops kitten was sold to a creationist museum in New York.
| Source:
KSAT.com
|
| April 2, 2006 | - An Australian nudist, attempting to kill a spider, suffered burns over 18 percent of his body after he poured gasoline into the spider's hole and lit a match.
| Source:
The Sydney Morning Herald
|
| March 30, 2006 | - It was revealed that lobbyist Jack Abramoff had once helped look for a child's missing hamster.
| Source:
The Miami Herald
|
| March 23, 2006 | - A tortoise named Adwaita died in India from complications brought on by a cracked shell; he was between 150 and 250 years old.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| March 23, 2006 | - American researchers found that whale songs have a hierarchical structure, but there is no evidence that whales can discuss distinct or abstract objects.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| March 8, 2006 | - Details from recently released Guantánamo Bay transcripts continued to emerge. "We lost our goats," explained one prisoner. "That's why we were looking through binoculars."
| Source:
The Christian Science Monitor
|
| March 7, 2006 | -
Japanese
scientists extracted sweet-smelling vanillin from cow dung.
| Source:
The New Zealand Herald
|
| March 7, 2006 | -
Britain planned to kill one third of its wild badger population--about 100,000 badgers--in order to slow the spread of bovine
tuberculosis; critics of the plan argued that slaughtering badgers will speed the spread of bovine tuberculosis.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| February 27, 2006 | -
Paleontologists announced that they had discovered the 164-million-year-old fossil remains of a beaver-like animal that lived with dinosaurs.
| Source:
ABC
|
| February 24, 2006 | -
Sudanese villagers forced a man to marry a goat after he was found having sex with it; the man also was required to pay the goat's owner 15,000 Sudanese dinars as dowry.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| February 23, 2006 | - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals criticized a teacher in Rosamond, California, for castrating a live pig in front of a high school group; a school superintendent countered that animal castration is an important skill for students to learn.
| Source:
LA Daily News
|
| February 19, 2006 | - Toxoplasma parasites, found in cat
feces, were causing deadly brain disease in U.S. otters.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| February 17, 2006 | - Researchers in Australia found that tiger feces repel wild goats.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| February 16, 2006 | -
Scientists in Italy found that the effects of Ecstasy on rats were intensified when the rats were made to listen to loud music.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| February 15, 2006 | -
Australian
cane toads were out of control.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| January 31, 2006 | - The year of the dog began.
| Source:
The Star Online
|
| January 22, 2006 | - It was cold in Russia. People were smearing goose fat on their bodies to stop frostbite, and near Moscow zookeepers fed an Indian elephant a bucket of vodka to keep it warm; the elephant then went on a rampage, tore radiators from a wall, and calmed down only after it was given a hot shower.
| Source 1:
HindustanTimes.com
Source 2:
The Toronto Star
|
| January 21, 2006 | - In London a northern bottlenosed whale swam up the Thames, sparking a massive rescue effort before the whale died.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| January 19, 2006 | -
Greenpeace dumped a 55-foot fin whale in front of the Japanese Embassy in Berlin.
| Source:
Fox News
|
| January 18, 2006 | -
Scientists in London found more evidence of a link between the parasite Toxoplasma gondii in cat feces and the development of schizophrenia in rats.
| Source:
Imperial College London
|
| January 10, 2006 | - Further investigation showed that it may have been the wind rather than a burning mouse that caused a house fire in New Mexico. The homeowner held to his story, however: “I have an awful hate for those critters.”
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| January 9, 2006 | - A noseless one-eyed kitten died in Oregon.
| Source:
AP
|
| January 8, 2006 | - A man in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, caught a mouse and threw it into a pile of burning leaves; the mouse, on fire, ran back into the man's house, which then burned down.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| January 6, 2006 | -
Pet
obesity was on the rise in Britain.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| January 6, 2006 | - It was reported that street vendors in Shanghai were secretly replacing mutton with cat meat.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| January 5, 2006 | - A policeman in Florida tasered a bear.
| Source:
SFGate.com
|
| January 5, 2006 | - The New Orleans
puppy population was out of control.
| Source:
IndyStar.com
|
| January 1, 2006 | - In Malaysia people were searching for a 10-foot-tall ape that walks upright.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| January 1, 2006 | - Authorities in New Zealand shot and killed 41 stranded pilot whales.
| Source:
Toronto Star
|
| December 30, 2005 | - A British woman married an Israeli
dolphin after fifteen years of courtship. “I am just waiting for everyone to leave,” said the woman, “so we can have a private moment.”
| Source:
NBC10.com
|
| December 24, 2005 | - Scientists in Mauritius discovered the bones of 20 dodos.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| December 21, 2005 | - In South Africa a mugger running from security guards fled into a tiger enclosure, where he was mauled to death.
| Source:
SFGate.com
|
| December 21, 2005 | - It was discovered that bad hay had led to the deaths of 900 goats in Saskatchewan.
| Source:
CBC.ca
|
| December 20, 2005 | - In the Isle of Wight, England, authorities were looking for Toga, a three-month-old Jackass penguin that they believe was stolen so that it could be given as a Christmas present. "Toga," said a zoo manager, "is very, very vulnerable."
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| December 18, 2005 | -
Scientists decoded the mitochondrial DNA of the woolly mammoth and confirmed that the mammoth was more closely related to the Asian elephant than to the African elephant.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| December 18, 2005 | - Researchers discovered that the lack of ice floes in the Arctic Ocean was causing polar bears to drown.
| Source:
Times Online
|
| December 7, 2005 | - Veterinarians in Rome inserted 50 24-karat gold pellets into a lion named Bellamy to treat his arthritis. “The lion,” explained a veterinarian, “is getting old.”
| Source:
AP
|
| December 6, 2005 | - In the rainforests of Borneo, scientists were attempting to trap a newly discovered carnivorous cat-fox creature; the creature appears to have a muscular tail.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| December 6, 2005 | - In West Virginia five deer leaped to their deaths from the top of a five-story garage.
| Source:
The Mercury News
|
| December 4, 2005 | - In Gavle, Sweden, vandals burned a huge straw Christmas
goat.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| December 1, 2005 | - In Russia a pack of squirrels attacked and, according to an eyewitness, “literally gutted” a large dog that was barking at them. When humans approached the squirrels ran away, some carrying flesh.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| December 1, 2005 | - In Gabon and Congo, scientists traced the origin of the Ebola virus to three different species of fruit bat; by stopping people from eating the bats, a scientist suggested, the spread of the virus could be slowed.
| Source:
LA Times
|
| November 30, 2005 | - Surgeons in France performed a partial face transplant, taking the nose and lips of a brain-dead donor and grafting them onto the face of a woman who had been severely disfigured by a dog.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| November 28, 2005 | - A Wausau, Wisconsin, hunter shot and killed a buck that lacked testicles.
| Source:
Wausau Daily Herald
|
| November 25, 2005 | - In Australia, bestiality charges were dropped against financier Brendan Francis McMahon, because prosecutors were unable to prove that his penis penetrated any rabbits. McMahon, who told a psychiatrist named Steven Allnutt that he could “communicate with animals through a third eye,” was still charged with mutilating 17 rabbits and one guinea pig.
| Source:
The Sydney Morning Herald
|
| November 21, 2005 | -
Scientists found the gene that regulates fear in mice and created mice that are not afraid.
| Source:
Newsday
|
| November 18, 2005 | - Eight possibly pregnant South African Boer goats were missing in Lincoln, Nebraska.
| Source:
KIROTV.com
|
| November 17, 2005 | - A former student at Oxford University was in trouble for calling a policeman's
horse “gay.” “Sam was adamant,” said an eyewitness, “his equine gaydar was accurate.”
| Source:
The Oxford Student
|
| November 16, 2005 | - The Night Safari Zoo was preparing to open in Thailand; its buffet will feature tiger, lion, elephant, and giraffe.
| Source:
Canadian Press
|
| November 15, 2005 | - Two Iraqi businessmen accused U.S. troops of caging them with lions in 2003. The men were also severely beaten after they were not able to tell Army interrogators where to find Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction. “I thought he was joking, so I laughed,” said one of the businessmen. “He just hit me.”
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| November 9, 2005 | - In Thailand an official wedding ceremony was held between two pandas to encourage them to mate. “Start making children soon,” ordered Chinese Consul Peng Dong.
| Source:
IOL.co.za
|
| November 7, 2005 | - A new study found that Gigantopithecus blackii, a 10-foot-tall ape weighing up to 1,200 pounds, coexisted with early humans in Southeast Asia for over a million years.
| Source:
Live Science
|
| November 2, 2005 | - Twenty-three people had died in Brazil from rabies transmitted by vampire bats.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| October 31, 2005 | - A South African woman tried to help a seal back into the sea only to have it bite off her nose.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| October 31, 2005 | -
Oregon officials forced a father and son to give up the pet bear, Windfall, that had lived with them for two years. While at their home the bear showered, had her hair blow-dried, and slept in a bed. “The only thing we did wrong,” the father said of the bear, “was love one another.”
| Source:
KIROTV.com
|
| October 28, 2005 | -
Beavers were re-introduced to the British countryside for the first time in 500 years by a millionaire beaver enthusiast.
| Source:
Times Online
|
| October 25, 2005 | - In Maryland the first kill of bear season was credited to Sierra Stiles, an eight-year-old girl, who shot a 211-pound bear twice in the chest with a .243-caliber rifle. “They won't eat now,” Sierra said of bears. “They won't eat a thing.”
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| October 22, 2005 | -
Scientists released a brown Norway rat on a deserted, rat-free island off of New Zealand in order to find out why rats are so hard to kill. Even though they fitted the rat with a radio collar, used traps and bait, and pursued the rat with sniffer dogs, the rat was not caught for four months. It was finally captured on a nearby island using a trap baited with penguin meat.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| October 14, 2005 | - More details emerged in the case of the New Zealand financier arrested in Australia for bestiality with rabbits. Police said that when they arrested the man he had scratches on his hands and face; the man's lawyer said he molested the rabbits under the influence of methamphetamine. The head of the Australian Companion Rabbit Society pointed out that prostitutes were once called “bunnies.”
| Source:
The Advertiser
|
| October 12, 2005 | - A Chinese man was killed and eaten by the six black bears he was raising for their bile.
| Source:
News.com.au
|
| October 12, 2005 | - A Wisconsin man was arrested for putting an electric dog collar on his eight-year-old stepdaughter and zapping her for not eating fast enough.
| Source:
WorldNetDaily.com
|
| October 10, 2005 | - An Australian
tortoise named Harriet was nearing her 175th birthday. The tortoise was originally collected from the Galapagos Islands, and misidentified as a male, by Charles Darwin.
| Source:
News.com.au
|
| October 10, 2005 | -
Londoners were concerned about crack-addicted
squirrels.
| Source:
The Register
|
| October 7, 2005 | - Two Oklahoma teens were arrested for shooting eight cows and videotaping the massacre. “Cows,” said one of the teens in the video. “I hate cows more than coppers.”
| Source:
KTUL.com
|
| September 30, 2005 | - A white South African farmer was sentenced to life in prison for killing one of his black employees and feeding the corpse to lions.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| September 30, 2005 | -
Journalist Judith Miller was released from jail and said she wanted to hug her dog.
| Source:
Editor & Publisher
|
| September 29, 2005 | - Two goats, strangled and drained of blood, were found in Nebraska.
| Source:
NBC4.TV
|
| September 25, 2005 | - Thirty-six military-trained
dolphins with toxic dart guns were reported missing in the Gulf of Mexico.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| September 15, 2005 | - In Alaska a 20-foot-long treadmill was installed at a zoo to help an elephant named Maggie lose a few hundred pounds.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| September 7, 2005 | - Saparmurat Niyazov, President for Life of Turkmenistan, declared that a zoo for penguins would be built where the Kara Kum desert begins.
| Source:
Mail and Guardian Online
|
| September 5, 2005 | -
The Superdome and Convention Center were finally evacuated, but evacuees were not allowed to take their pets with them. “Snowball!” cried a little boy after police took away his dog. “Snowball!”
| Source 1:
MSNBC
Source 2:
The Charlotte Observer
|
| August 29, 2005 | -
Scientists announced that they had created mice that could regrow amputated extremities.
| Source:
The Australian
|
| August 26, 2005 | - Brigitte Bardot called on fishermen to stop using live puppies and kittens as shark bait.
| Source 1:
AFP
Source 2:
AZCentral.com
|
| August 22, 2005 | -
Hunters with rifles shot bullfrogs in France.
| Source:
News.com.au
|
| August 22, 2005 | - South Florida's
iguana problem was growing more severe. "It was like Jurassic Park in my toilet," said a Pompano Beach woman.
| Source:
UPI
|
| August 15, 2005 | -
Elephants rampaged through a resort town in Zimbabwe, destroying homes.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| August 14, 2005 | - A toad infestation struck Big Sandy, Montana, and made the roads sticky.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| August 14, 2005 | - Approximately 2,000 dolphins gathered off the coast of Wales, but no one knew why.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| August 10, 2005 | - Twelve headless kangaroos were discovered on a golf course near Melbourne, Australia.
| Source:
Sky News
|
| August 9, 2005 | - A Chinese artist was criticized for grafting the head of a human fetus onto a bird's body. “I thought putting them together like this,” he said, “was a way for them to have another life.”
| Source:
Chinese Artist Defends Fetus Artwork
|
| August 4, 2005 | - Prairie dogs in Colorado were found to have the plague.
| Source:
9News.com
|
| July 29, 2005 | - Monsoons in India killed at least eight hundred people and scattered the carcasses of seventeen thousand goats around Bombay.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| July 28, 2005 | - In Pinetown, South Africa, two little boys found a fetus without legs or a head; police said that they found no animal saliva on the fetus.
| Source:
The Mercury
|
| July 26, 2005 | -
Florida was infested with iguanas.
| Source:
St. Petersburg Times
|
| July 14, 2005 | - In Enumclaw, Washington, after a man died of internal bleeding from having sex with a horse, police were investigating a reputed bestiality farm. “We've got more investigating to do,” said a sergeant.
| Source:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
|
| July 13, 2005 | - A native Alaskan was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for killing six walruses.
| Source:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
|
| July 9, 2005 | -
Bulls gored four people in Spain.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| July 8, 2005 | - A Massachusetts
parrot appeared to understand the concept of zero.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| July 7, 2005 | -
Polar bears were dying in greater numbers due to global warming.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| July 6, 2005 | - It was announced that up to 4,700 birds, including burrowing owls, red-tailed hawks, and golden raptors, were being killed each year by a wind farm in Altamont, California.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| July 5, 2005 | - A South Carolina courthouse was vandalized by a goat.
| Source:
TheKansasCityChannel.com
|
| July 5, 2005 | - Cedric, a seventy-year-old turtle prone to attacking drainpipes and lawn mowers, was wandering loose in Borrowash, Derbyshire.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| June 30, 2005 | - The estimated number of hedgehogs in Britain was found to have dropped 20 percent since 2001, probably because tidy gardens alienate hedgehogs.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| June 30, 2005 | - In Tobe, Japan, a panther stood on its hind legs and clasped its paws together in the posture of prayer.
| Source:
Mainichi Daily News
|
| June 29, 2005 | - A kangaroo was loose in Indiana.
| Source:
ABC13
|
| June 29, 2005 | - It was discovered that and that baby dolphins do not sleep.
| Source:
CBC
|
| June 24, 2005 | - A sixty-million-year-old venomous mouse fossil was discovered by a Canadian.
| Source:
Hindustan Times
|
| June 23, 2005 | - Gnawing rats shut down telephone, mobile, Internet, and electronic-banking services for 100,000 New Zealanders.
| Source:
AP
|
| June 21, 2005 | - In Ethiopia a twelve-year-old girl was abducted and was about to be forced into marriage but was rescued by lions, which ran her captors off and guarded her until police and relatives came to her rescue.
| Source:
AP
|
| June 16, 2005 | - A two-faced kitten was born in Oregon.
| Source:
SFGate.com
|
| June 15, 2005 | -
Florida police found six endangered gopher tortoises in the back of a car. The owner of the car said that he was planning a soup.
| Source:
Chicago Sun-Times
|
| June 15, 2005 | - In Bullskin Township, Pennsylvania, four men were accused of butchering a pet pygmy goat so that they could trade its meat for either money or crack cocaine.
| Source:
Post Gazette
|
| June 13, 2005 | - A llama was found on the freeway in Pennsylvania.
| Source:
TheWGALChannel.com
|
| June 11, 2005 | - A dead goat's head was found in the Maryland woods.
| Source:
Sentinel and Enterprise
|
| June 10, 2005 | - Two crows attacked a jogger in London, drawing blood.
| Source:
This is London
|
| June 8, 2005 | - In Augsburg, Germany, zoo officials were being criticized for a planned attraction that will show elephants and rhinos in their "natural environment" by surrounding them with black men in grass skirts.
| Source:
The Scotsman
|
| June 6, 2005 | - An Australian woman was arrested for attempting to bring fifty-one tropical fish into the country hidden in her skirt.
| Source:
AP
|
| June 6, 2005 | - A grizzly bear killed a woman near a golf course in Canada.
| Source:
CBC News
|
| June 5, 2005 | -
Scientists found that a single “switch gene” determined whether a fruit fly turned out gay or not.
| Source:
The Independent
|
| June 2, 2005 | - Zoo officials in Japan were worried that Futa, the red panda that became famous when it stood up on two legs, would be worn out by all of the attention. “His primary purpose here,” said an official, “is to mate.”
| Source:
Canada.com
|
| June 2, 2005 | - Seventy-four false killer whales (which are less aggressive than true killer whales, but, like true killer whales, are not whales but dolphins) beached themselves in Australia. One thousand five hundred volunteers worked to return seventy-three of the whales to the sea; one whale died. A volunteer described the whales as “very heavy.”
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
News.com.au
|
| June 1, 2005 | - Police in Nigeria arrested a cow for murder.
| Source:
AFP
|
| May 25, 2005 | - A hamster-borne
virus, transmitted through donated human organs, was linked to the deaths of six people since 2003.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| May 24, 2005 | - A man caught a 124-pound catfish in the Mississippi River.
| Source:
AP
|
| May 24, 2005 | -
Iraqi militants bragged of eating wild raw cats with their bare hands.
| Source:
News.telegraph
|
| May 19, 2005 | - In West Virginia, a 1,500-pound camel sat on a woman as she painted a fence.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| May 19, 2005 | - In Houston large black grackles swooped down from magnolia trees to attack passersby, including a lawyer.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| May 18, 2005 | -
Pakistan was working to stop bearbaiting.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| May 12, 2005 | - Two tiger cubs died in Burma, despite being breastfed by a woman. The cubs will be stuffed.
| Source:
SIFY.com
|
| May 9, 2005 | - Two swans were stabbed to death in the Bronx.
| Source:
NY1.com
|
| May 6, 2005 | - A Washington woman found a snake with legs.
| Source:
Tri-City Herald
|
| May 6, 2005 | - In San Francisco, twelve penguins died of chlamydia.
| Source:
AP
|
| April 29, 2005 | - In South Africa, two men were convicted of feeding a coworker to lions.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 29, 2005 | - In Peru, authorities saved four thousand frogs from being put into blenders and made into cocktails.
| Source:
CNN
|
| April 28, 2005 | - An ivory-billed woodpecker, thought extinct for over fifty years, was spotted in Arkansas. “It is kind of like finding Elvis,” said a representative of the Audubon Society.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 24, 2005 | -
Zimbabweans barbecued nine elephants.
| Source:
The Independent
|
| April 23, 2005 | - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who belonged to the Hitler Youth before he became a priest, won the papacy by a landslide and styled himself Benedict XVI. The new pope dislikes homosexuality (he moved quickly to condemn a Spanish bill that would permit gays to marry), abortion, and the death penalty, but he loves little kittens. In 2001, he ordered Catholic bishops to hide allegations against pedophile priests from the public.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
New York Daily News
Source 3:
The Observer
|
| April 23, 2005 | -
German
toads were exploding for unknown reasons.
| Source:
AFP
|
| April 22, 2005 | - A woman in Burma was breastfeeding three tiger cubs.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| April 20, 2005 | - The zookeepers in Ramat Gan, Israel, fed their gorillas
kosher matzo crackers for Passover.
| Source:
Newsday
|
| April 14, 2005 | - A study found that executions by lethal injection carried out in the United States did not meet veterinary standards.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 12, 2005 | - The Governor of Wisconsin announced that he opposed cat
hunting.
| Source:
The Charlotte Observer
|
| April 10, 2005 | - The United Arab Emirates tested prototypes of robotic camel jockeys, which will replace child camel jockeys.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| April 8, 2005 | - In Florida, investigators traced an outbreak of E. coli to a petting zoo.
| Source:
KansasCity.com
|
| April 4, 2005 | -
Canada decided not to deport a flying squirrel.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| April 1, 2005 | -
Scientists in Connecticut inseminated a whale.
| Source:
Live Science
|
| March 31, 2005 | - Olga, the first Siberian
tiger ever fitted with a radio collar, was killed by poachers.
| Source:
Eurekalert!
|
| March 30, 2005 | -
Turkeys attacked elementary school students in Indiana.
| Source:
IndyStar.com
|
| March 21, 2005 | -
Pollution has killed all but thirteen river dolphins in China's Yangtze River.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| March 20, 2005 | - Schiavo's husband, who wants to let her die, wondered why Congress was expending so much energy on the case. “Why doesn't Congress worry about people not having health insurance?” he asked. “Or the budget? Let's talk about all the children who don't have homes.” Schiavo described House Majority leader Tom DeLay, who is leading the fight to reinsert Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, as a “little slithering snake.”
| Source:
The Terri Schiavo Case
|
| March 14, 2005 | - The Washington state legislature was trying to decide whether to classify goat-napping as a misdemeanor or a felony.
| Source:
The Seattle Times
|
| March 10, 2005 | -
Panda
breeding season began. In Atlanta, zookeepers were watching Lun Lun the panda for signs of ovulation; when she is ready to mate they will reintroduce her to Yang Yang.
| Source:
AP
|
| March 9, 2005 | - and police in York, Pennsylvania, arrested a fifty-three-year-old serial sheep
molester in a barn. The man said he was just petting the sheep, even though it was 3 A.M., it was not his barn, and he had baler's twine in his back pocket, which can be used to bind sheep.
| Source:
York Sunday News
|
| March 3, 2005 | - A group of researchers at Stanford University were preparing to use stem cells from aborted fetuses to create a mouse that has human brain cells.
| Source:
News.telegraph
|
| March 2, 2005 | - In South Africa a goat adopted a baby rhino.
| Source:
NBC5
|
| February 19, 2005 | - Two former caretakers of Koko, the gorilla that can speak in sign language, sued for harassment. The caretakers claim they were pressured into exposing their breasts to satisfy Koko's nipple fetish.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| February 18, 2005 | -
dogsDogs in Australia were licking toads to get high.
| Source:
The World News
|
| February 16, 2005 | - Two paintings of dogs playing poker sold for $590,000.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| February 13, 2005 | - A study showed that lobsters probably don't feel pain when boiled.
| Source:
Capital News 9
|
| February 1, 2005 | -
Scientists determinedthat rats are responsible beer drinkers.
| Source:
University of Florida News
|
| January 26, 2005 | -
Chimpanzees were found to have a sense of justice.
| Source:
Scientific American
|
| January 21, 2005 | - Thousands of nocturnal frogs were shrieking loudly in Honolulu.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| January 11, 2005 | -
Herpes struck the horses of Michigan.
| Source:
San Jose Mercury News
|
| January 7, 2005 | - The U.S. decided not to classify the sage grouse as endangered,
| Source:
GJ Sentinel
|
| January 6, 2005 | - and the evolution of the great tit, a kind of bird, contradicted Darwin.
| Source:
London Times
|
| January 4, 2005 | - Scientists discovered that gecko feet are self-cleaning.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| January 4, 2005 | - and federal regulators made it easier to kill wolves.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| December 29, 2004 | - Officials at Sri Lanka's largest national park were wondering how all the wild animals had survived,
| Source:
Reuters
|
| December 24, 2004 | - A study found that young owls learn new skills more quickly than do old owls.
| Source:
This is London
|
| December 11, 2004 | - The fate of Pale Male, a virile red-tailed hawk residing on the cornice of a New York City building for 11 years, was uncertain after the family nest was removed by the co-op building's board; the next day Pale Male was seen carrying twigs from Central Park in a futile attempt to rebuild. Those supporting the eviction took exception to the occasional bloody carcass of a prey pigeon or rat falling to the sidewalk, but protestors bearing signs that read "Honk 4 Hawks" began a daily vigil.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| December 1, 2004 | - The U.S. government refused to protect sage grouse and salmon.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| December 1, 2004 | - A British artist publicly ate a fox to protest all the attention being paid to a ban on fox hunting. "Everyone gets really worked up about a furry animal," the performance artist said after his meal, "but no one cares about each other."
| Source:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
|
| November 23, 2004 | - A buck was captured and euthanized after running through Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
| Source:
ABC 7 Chicago
|
| November 17, 2004 | -
Bush spared two Thanksgiving turkeys from death. “By virtue of an unconditional presidential pardon, they are safe from harm,” he said. The turkeys, named Biscuits and Gravy, were chosen by an Internet poll, beating out Patience and Fortitude.
| Source 1:
Reuters
Source 2:
White House
Source 3:
White House
|
| November 5, 2004 | -
Coyotes were spotted in Washington, D.C.
| Source:
CNN
|
| November 1, 2004 | - It was discovered that the stem cell lines approved for federally funded research in the United States are tainted with mouse characteristics.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| October 26, 2004 | - Young mice treated with Prozac, a study found, grow up to be depressed.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| October 14, 2004 | - The Global Amphibian Assessment announced that 1,856 of the 5,743 known amphibian species are at risk of extinction; nine species are known to have died out since 1980, and 113 have not been seen in recent years; forty-three percent are in decline.
| Source:
BBC
|
| October 3, 2004 | -
Squirrel season opened in Louisiana.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 25, 2004 | - A group of Australian scientists developed a vaccine to cut down on the methane emitted by sheep when they belch and fart.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| September 22, 2004 | -
Scientists were hoping to use rat brainwaves to find people buried by earthquakes.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| September 7, 2004 | -
Hippos were dying in Uganda.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| September 3, 2004 | - New research revealed that pollution affects the behavior of many animals such as egrets, gulls, snails, quail, rats, macaques, minnows, mosquito fish, falcons, and frogs. Endosulfan, for example, weakens newts' sense of smell, lead disrupts the balance of gulls, and goldfish become hyperactive when exposed to atrazine.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| September 3, 2004 | -
Chinese zookeepers were showing videos to a giant panda in an attempt to teach her how to take care of her two cubs.
| Source:
Agence France-Presse
|
| August 25, 2004 | -
Sheep, scientists found, feel calmer when they look at a picture of another sheep of the same breed.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| August 22, 2004 | -
Hippos were dying in Uganda.
| Source:
Agence France-Presse
|
| August 17, 2004 | - an Australian drunk ate a cup of maggots, a pint of anchovies, drank a pint of mouthwash, and chewed off a mouse's tail in a pub competition.
| Source:
BBC
|
| August 14, 2004 | - A flaming rabbit burned down a British cricket club.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| August 4, 2004 | -
Myanmar was cracking down on peacock poachers.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| August 1, 2004 | - Scientists found the reason why mouse mothers are so brave, and
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| July 30, 2004 | - A white elephant was seen in Sri Lanka.
| Source:
Nature.com
|
| July 30, 2004 | - The UN was urging that domestic Asian ducks be vaccinated for avian flu, which scientists say has become so common that quarantines and culls will no longer be sufficient.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 22, 2004 | - An alligator bit off a landscaper's arm in Florida.
| Source:
CNN
|
| July 19, 2004 | - In Florida, a man was accused of beating his girlfriend with a pet alligator.
| Source:
Independent
|
| July 9, 2004 | - Confused brown pelicans were crashing into streets in Arizona, because heat waves rising from the pavement look like water.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 8, 2004 | - People in Canberra, Australia, were warned to beware of mad starving kangaroos; at least one golden retriever has been drowned by a kangaroo, and a woman was attacked while out walking her poodle.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| July 7, 2004 | - A sinkhole in Louisiana ate a giraffe and an ostrich.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 27, 2004 | - An Iranian mother claimed to have given birth to a frog.
| Source:
BBC
|
| June 24, 2004 | - L. Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Iraq, in one of his final acts before handing over "sovereignty" to Iraq's new interim government, decreed that American forces will remain immune from prosecution by Iraqi courts for crimes against Iraqi citizens or destruction of property. It was noted that a similar grant of immunity in Iran in the 1960s had unfortunate consequences. "Our honor has been trampled underfoot; the dignity of Iran has been destroyed," said the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1964. He said that the order "reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog."
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| June 16, 2004 | - It was discovered that California ground squirrels heat up their tails to intimidate snakes.
| Source:
Nature.com
|
| June 10, 2004 | - Officials in North Dakota were searching for 27,000 missing pelicans.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 4, 2004 | - Scientists in California deleted huge chunks of DNA from the mouse genome to see what would happen to the animals and were surprised to find that they couldn't tell any difference.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| May 29, 2004 | - Authorities in Texas killed 24,000 chickens after avian flu was found on a farm near Sulphur Springs.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 28, 2004 | - Scientists discovered in a seven-year study that mice with the highest metabolic rates lived 35 percent longer, a finding that challenges the usual understanding of the relationship of metabolism and life span.
| Source:
Eureka Alert
|
| May 21, 2004 | -
British intelligence agents in World War II at one point planned to train pigeons to carry bombs or biological weapons. "Pigeon research," said one memo, "will not stand still; if we do not experiment, other powers will."
| Source:
BBC
|
| May 19, 2004 | - French ecologists discovered that the metal bands used to tag penguins hamper swimming and breeding and surviving.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| May 10, 2004 | - African clawed frogs were invading San Francisco.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| May 5, 2004 | - American soldiers allegedly put a harness on an elderly Iraqi woman and rode her like a donkey.
| Source:
Newsday
|
| April 16, 2004 | - A Pentecostal minister in Virginia was killed by a rattlesnake he was handling on Easter as a test of faith.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 9, 2004 | - A chicken
farmer in Alaska
injected eggs with dye to produce orange, red, green, purple, pink, and blue chicks. Colored ducklings were also available.
| Source:
BBC
|
| April 9, 2004 | - Florida police arrested a nine-year-old girl for stealing a black-and-white bunny rabbit named Oreo.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| April 7, 2004 | - A piranha was found in a petting-zoo aquarium in Berlin.
| Source:
ABC.net.au
|
| April 5, 2004 | -
Canadian hunters were busy trying to club 350,000 helpless three-week-old baby harp seals to death.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 30, 2004 | - The feral hog population in East Texas was out of control, wildlife scientists warned, and one rancher said he was afraid to let his children leave the yard.
| Source:
Texas A&M University
|
| March 27, 2004 | -
Vampire bats attacked 20 people in Mansiche, Peru.
| Source:
Herald Sun
|
| March 26, 2004 | - A lamb was born in Hebron with "Allah" spelled out in Arabic on its flank; the lamb's owner said the animal was born on the day Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated. Some people claimed they could see the word "Muhammad" spelled out on the lamb's other side.
| Source:
BBC
|
| March 18, 2004 | -
Ape
hunters in Africa have contracted simian foamy virus, a study found.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| March 16, 2004 | - Environmentalists said that the Sumatran tiger is nearly extinct.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 16, 2004 | - An Afghan soldier was caught having sex with a donkey.
| Source:
News.com.au
|
| March 13, 2004 | - Hundreds of elk in Wyoming were dying of a strange disease.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 5, 2004 | -
British
children found a three-headed frog with six legs.
| Source:
BBC
|
| March 4, 2004 | - An Israeli fashion designer staged a photo shoot along the West Bank wall near Jerusalem; several young models were photographed while posing under Arabic graffiti that read: "I AM A BIG DONKEY."
| Source:
International Herald Tribune
|
| February 28, 2004 | - Dr. Stanley Prusiner, the Nobel Prize-winning expert on prions, said that until all cattle are tested for mad cow disease, none should be considered safe, and he noted that improved feed practices will not prevent spontaneous cases.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 27, 2004 | - Fishermen in the Galápagos Islands were holding about 30 scientists and a number of giant tortoises hostage.
| Source:
BBC
|
| February 27, 2004 | - The Food and Drug Administration banned the feeding of cattle blood to calves. Dinner scraps from restaurants, known as "plate waste," will no longer be fed to cattle either, though rendered cows will still be fed to pigs and chickens, and vice versa.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 25, 2004 | - A scientist with the Department of Agriculture said that government researchers have been pressured by the office of Secretary Ann Veneman to approve
livestock and other products for import without taking proper safety precautions.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 25, 2004 | - The European Union banned live poultry and eggs from the United States because of the bird-flu outbreak, and the United States banned all French meat and poultry.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 22, 2004 | -
President Bush's dog Spot was put down.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| February 16, 2004 | -
Bird flu continued to spread in Asia; some Thai fighting cocks were found to be infected, and a clouded leopard died of the disease in a zoo near Bangkok.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| February 12, 2004 | -
South Korean scientists created 30 human clone embryos and harvested embryonic stem cells from one of them; the stem cells were then injected into mice, where they formed cartilage, muscle, bone, and other tissues.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| February 9, 2004 | - Scientists created a new kind of mouse by moving mitochondrial DNA from one species into another.
| Source:
University of Rochester Medical Center
|
| February 7, 2004 | - It was revealed that two male chinstrap penguins in New York's Central Park zoo have been homosexual lovers for years. They once tried to hatch a rock, and when their keeper gave them a fertile egg to hatch "they did a great job" raising the chick. Scientists, it was noted, have observed homosexuality in more than 450 species.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| February 2, 2004 | - The World Health Organization reported a possible case of human-to-human transmission of the avian flu that has killed millions of birds across Asia and at least 12 people.
| Source:
BBC
|
| January 31, 2004 | - The International Poultry Exposition was held in Atlanta; among the items on display were automated slaughterers, pluckers, and skinners; an antibiotic delivery device that injects 3,500 chicks per hour with pressurized air; metal detectors that cull bits of metal and bone from meat; and a hands-free neck-breaking machine.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 18, 2004 | - The United States placed an import embargo on civet cats, which apparently carry SARS.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 16, 2004 | - Scientists found that the Ebola virus can spread from dead animals such as gorillas to human beings, and genetic analysis suggested that the five recent outbreaks of the disease were caused by five distinct strains of the virus, which is among the most contagious known, rather than one strain that had mutated. "If Ebola is popping up randomly," said one scientist, "then things are pretty hopeless."
| Source:
Nature.com
|
| January 8, 2004 | - A second case of SARS was reported in China, in a waitress who works in a restaurant that serves civet; the first SARS patient, who has apparently recovered, has had no known contact with civets, but there were reports that he had recently thrown a mouse out his window using chopsticks.
| Source:
New Scientist, New York Times
|
| January 7, 2004 | -
Chinese authorities were drowning civet cats in chemicals, electrocuting them, and burning them in hopes of preventing further SARS cases; rats, raccoon dogs, and hog badgers are also being exterminated.
| Source:
New York Times, Associated Press
|
| December 31, 2003 | - In response to the mad-cow crisis, the United States Department of Agriculture banned the human consumption of cow brains, skulls, spinal cords, vertebral columns, eyes, and nerve tissue from cows older than 30 months. Downer cows may no longer be eaten by humans, though they will be boiled down and fed to chickens and pigs, and younger cow brains may still be eaten.
| Source:
Forbes, New York Times
|
| December 31, 2003 | -
USDA officials said that there was no need to test all cattle for mad cow disease before they are eaten.
| Source:
Newsday
|
| December 30, 2003 | - In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a man was in trouble for keeping 114 dead cats in his freezer.
| Source:
The Tennessean
|
| December 25, 2003 | - Frat boys at the University of Georgia killed and ate a rabid raccoon.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| December 25, 2003 | - A South African beauty queen was mauled by a hippo in Botswana.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| December 24, 2003 | -
Mad cow disease was discovered in the United States for the first time, in a Holstein cow that was too sick to walk but was nonetheless slaughtered and sold for meat. The mad Holstein's brain and spinal column were sent to a rendering plant somewhere, possibly to be turned into dog or chicken food; there was no word on whether the cow's blood was processed to be fed to young calves as a milk supplement. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Venemen, a former lobbyist for the beef industry, insisted that even meat from a mad cow is safe to eat, and she promised to feed beef to her family for Christmas.
| Source:
Guardian, New York Times
|
| December 24, 2003 | - Princess Anne's English bull terrier Dotty mauled Pharos, Queen Elizabeth's favorite corgi, which had to be put down as a result; the princess was convicted last year under the Dangerous Dogs Act after Dotty attacked two children in a park.
| Source:
BBC
|
| December 24, 2003 | - A large crocodile ate a young man in Australia.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| December 23, 2003 | - Scientists in Texas cloned a white-tailed deer.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| December 19, 2003 | -
Toronto police arrested a man for raping a pregnant Jersey cow.
| Source:
Toronto Sun
|
| December 16, 2003 | -
Scientists were planning to use giant pouched rats to sniff out tuberculosis.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| December 15, 2003 | -
Keiko the killer whale died of pneumonia in a Norwegian fjord. Local officials said it was "downright sad."
| Source:
Aftenposten Nettutgaven
|
| December 10, 2003 | -
Elephants in Thailand were said to be hijacking
sugarcane shipments.
| Source:
Washington Times
|
| December 9, 2003 | - Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly killed more than 70 farm-raised ringneck pheasants during a "canned hunt" in which 500 of the birds were released for the pleasure of Cheney and nine companions; the men were credited with 417 pheasants and an undisclosed number of ducks.
| Source:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
|
| November 28, 2003 | -
Bird-watchers rediscovered the long-legged warbler, a bird that had been thought extinct, on Viti Levu, a Fijian island.
| Source:
Birdlife International
|
| November 27, 2003 | - A poultry expert in Oregon denied that turkeys are dumb.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| November 22, 2003 | -
Iraqi guerrillas were using homemade rocket launchers pulled by donkeys and concealed by piles of hay.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 21, 2003 | - President George W. Bush traveled to Great Britain, along with 650 companions, including five personal chefs, but was unable to move freely in the country because of massive protests. At Buckingham Palace the president dined on roasted halibut with herbs, free-range chicken, potatoes cocotte, salad, and a sorbet bombe but presumably skipped the Puligny-Montrachet and the Veuve Clicquot, Gold Label, 1995. Truck bombs blew up the British Consulate and a British bank in Istanbul, killing at least 27 and wounding hundreds. Bloody victims ran screaming through the streets. Two hotels in Baghdad used by Westerners were bombed as was the headquarters of a pro-American Kurdish group in Kirkuk.
| Source:
New York Times, Daily Telegraph
|
| November 18, 2003 | -
London banned the feeding of pigeons in Trafalgar Square.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| November 17, 2003 | - A crocodile was on the run in Hong Kong.
| Source:
BBC
|
| November 14, 2003 | - Biologists were trying to exterminate nonnative frogs that have invaded the Galápagos Islands.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| November 7, 2003 | - Giant pouched rats were being used to sniff out land mines in Mozambique.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| November 7, 2003 | - A racing
camel
sold for $286,000 in Oman.
| Source:
Agence France-Presse
|
| November 5, 2003 | - Environmentalists sued the federal government to force it to protect the flat-tailed horned lizard.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 5, 2003 | -
Chicken
researchers found that cockerels "allocate sperm differently according to the quality of copulation"; new mates tend to receive more sperm than familiar partners, and the cocks also increase their sperm deposits in the presence of other males. The study was conducted by putting a special harness on females to collect fresh ejaculate.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| November 5, 2003 | - Marine biologists traced a strange submarine farting sound to bubbles that were observed coming from a herring's anus; it was the first discovery of a fish making a sound (which has been labeled a "fast repetitive tick," or FRT) with its anus.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| November 3, 2003 | -
Researchers from the University of Chicago reported that male Guinea baboons fiddle with one another's genitals when they perform a complex greeting ritual; the fiddling follows face pulling and rump presentation. White-faced capuchin monkeys, in contrast, stick their fingers up one another's noses.
| Source:
Nature.com
|
| November 2, 2003 | - A horde of rhesus macaques was tormenting workers in New Delhi.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| November 1, 2003 | - and Australian scientists said they know why animals that live fast die young.
| Source:
New Scientist Magazine
|
| October 31, 2003 | - Population ecologists concluded that the famous boom and bust cycle in the lemming population is a result of predation.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 28, 2003 | - An alligator got loose in the cargo hold of an American Airlines jet in Newark, New Jersey.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| October 28, 2003 | - Neuroscientists determined that motherhood makes female rats
smarter, calmer, and more courageous.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| October 5, 2003 | - New York police officers discovered a 350-pound Bengal tiger in an apartment in Harlem; the police were called by a downstairs neighbor after "large amounts of urine" poured through the ceiling. A four-foot-long caiman was also removed from the apartment.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 7, 2003 | - A man in southern Illinois was charged with raping one horse and killing another.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| August 4, 2003 | - At least 12 whales died off Cape Cod, possibly from red-tide toxins or from damage caused by naval sonar.
| Source:
Nature.com
|
| July 11, 2003 | -
President Bush traveled to Africa where he and his family were entertained by the sight of two elephants
mating.
| Source:
New York Times, Slate
|
| June 9, 2003 | - Pet prairie dogs were spreading monkeypox in the American Midwest.
| Source:
Independent
|
| May 30, 2003 | - President Bush was made an honorary Yale Whiffenpoof.
"We are poor little lambs who have lost our way," he said.
"Baa, baa, baa."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 27, 2003 | - Hungry tigers and lions in Chinese zoos were trying to eat one another.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| April 22, 2003 | -
Marines stationed outside Tikrit were eating fresh gazelle from Saddam Hussein's personal hunting preserve.
For fear that gunshots in the woods might be mistaken for enemy fire, “We hunted them with rocks, as Stone Age as that sounds,” said one soldier.
“We gutted them and skinned them and pretty much carried them over our shoulders barbarian-style.”
| |
| April 22, 2003 | -
Cameroon made it illegal for restaurants to serve gorilla.
| |
| October 8, 2002 | -
The Cow Plachard Company was painting advertisements on the sides of cows in Switzerland.
| |
| October 1, 2002 | -
A British sex-toy company recalled its “Rampant Rabbit” vibrator because of a potentially dangerous defect; the vibrator has been selling exceptionally well since it was praised by a character on Sex and the City.
| |
| May 14, 2002 | -
The director of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., refused to hand over the medical records of a dead giraffe, saying that the doctor-patient confidentiality rule applied “in principle” to animals.
| |
| May 14, 2002 | -
The Pentagon was trying to teach bees to sniff out bombs.
| |
| January 22, 2002 | -
Biotechnologists were still trying to perfect a goat-spider hybrid.
| |
| December 18, 2001 | - Some Oregonians were circulating a petition to repeal the law that bans the eating of roadkill.
| |
| December 18, 2001 | - A scientist observed wild orangutans partaking in homosexual behavior.
| |
| December 18, 2001 | - In Michigan, a postal worker pleaded guilty to throwing ten gallons of porcupine feces on his colleagues.
| |
| November 27, 2001 | - Wild elephants rampaged through two villages in Bangladesh, killing four people.
| |
| November 27, 2001 | - The animals in Kabul's zoo were barely hanging on.
| |
| November 6, 2001 | - America recalled its ambassador from Venezuela after President Hugo Chávez denounced the Afghan
war as “fighting terrorism with terrorism” and a “slaughter of innocents.” A Michigan fisherman was attacked by an enraged 200-pound deer; he wrestled the beast for 45 minutes, strangled it with his belt, and finally clubbed it to death with a piece of wood.
| |
| October 30, 2001 | -
New York was beginning to have trouble with rats in the ruins of the World Trade Center.
| |
| September 11, 2001 | - A federal appeals court found that prison inmates have a right to procreate that “survives incarceration.” A virus was killing thousands of salmon in eastern Maine.
| |
| September 4, 2001 | - Historians in Britain brewed a 5,000-year-old recipe for beer flavored with animal feces.
| |
| September 4, 2001 | - Over a hundred bats attacked a woman in Vienna when she opened her pantry in the middle of the night.
| |
| August 28, 2001 | - A thousand mink were missing after being released from a Dutch farm by animal-rights activists; 200 were killed in traffic.
| |
| August 21, 2001 | - A giant sea turtle that was being tracked via satellite by thousands of schoolchildren was barbecued and eaten at a fiesta in a Mexican village.
| |
| July 10, 2001 | -
Britain claimed that the burning of slaughtered animals infected with foot-and-mouth disease, which released dioxins into the atmosphere, posed no health risk.
| |
| July 10, 2001 | - Lauderdale; the arm apparently belonged to an adult male who did not survive an encounter with an alligator.
| |
| June 19, 2001 | - In Florida, a 73-year-old woman attacked a pit bull, biting it on the back of its neck in an attempt to save her Scottish terrier; the pit bull released its victim and was rewarded with another bite from the old woman.
| |
| June 19, 2001 | - A stork's nest fell from the sky and landed on a French woman sitting in a café.
| |
| June 5, 2001 | - A beaver attacked a Finnish hiker and sunk its long yellow teeth into the man's neck.
| |
| May 29, 2001 | - An enraged
cow attacked a golfer in Stockholm.
| |
| May 22, 2001 | - The leader of the research team that cloned Dolly the sheep warned against the premature cloning of farm
animals for meat and milk production; cattle
clones have suffered from severe defects such as diabetes, immune-system deficiencies, giant tongues, intestinal blockages, and squashed faces.
| |
| May 15, 2001 | - A performing rat was killed by a wayward curtain rod at a fashion show in Sydney, Australia; animal-rights groups were investigating the incident.
| |
| May 8, 2001 | -
Police in Japan were looking for a killer disguised as a panda bear.
| |
| April 24, 2001 | - Other scientists discovered that feeding antibiotics to animals, already known to contribute to resistant strains of salmonella and other gut bacteria, has led to the development of resistant strains of soil- and water-borne bacteria beneath farms that use such feed.
| |
| April 17, 2001 | -
President George W. Bush asked Congress to impose a moratorium on lawsuits aimed at forcing the federal government to extend endangered-species protection to unlisted plants and animals.
| |
| April 3, 2001 | -
Britain was burying hundreds of thousands of sheep and cattle that have been killed in an attempt to control the spread of foot-and-mouth disease; scientists were trying to figure out whether the disease can be transmitted via the smoke of burning animals.
| |
| March 27, 2001 | - The United States government fired a mapping specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey who posted a map on the Internet showing caribou calving grounds in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where President Bush hopes to drill for oil.
| |
| March 20, 2001 | - The United States banned imports of European animals and animal products.
| |
| March 20, 2001 | - Seven-year-old Regan Muse convinced her father, a state representative from Maine, to introduce legislation banning elephants from circuses.
| |
| March 6, 2001 | -
Black rhinos were dying under mysterious circumstances in Tanzania.
| |
| February 27, 2001 | -
Britain banned all exports of live animals, milk, and meat, after foot and mouth disease was discovered among some pigs and cattle; Britons were asked to stay away from the countryside; Ireland stationed extra troops along its border to keep out wayward British cows.
| |
| February 20, 2001 | - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals somehow managed to leave a voice-mail message from Jack Lemmon in 18,000 Environmental Protection Agency telephone mailboxes; Lemmon complained about the EPA's chemical-toxicity tests, which are conducted on cute, furry little animals.
| |
| February 13, 2001 | - A television station in Israel broadcast a home video of a rape. A cougar on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, attacked and tried to eat a man.
| |
| February 13, 2001 | - Workers at the Miami Seaquarium made turtle stew from an endangered leatherback sea turtle that died there after it was struck by a boat.
| |
| February 13, 2001 | - A new species of camel was discovered that can survive on salt water.
| |
| February 6, 2001 | - People in Malaysia were tearing up forests looking for tongkat ali, a traditional medicine that, according to researchers, stimulates the libido of rats.
| |
| January 30, 2001 | - After a tanker ran aground, some 240,000 gallons of diesel fuel was spreading through the Galápagos Islands, poisoning the once pristine home of the flightless cormorant, the miniature Galápagos penguin, the waved albatross, and the masked booby. The tanker had been carrying fuel for tourist cruises. Fishermen were trying to skim fuel off the surface of the ocean with buckets.
| |
| January 30, 2001 | -
Rats dream, researchers found.
| |
| January 16, 2001 | -
United States
agriculture officials continued to insist that Americans were at little risk from mad cow disease, despite the fact that testing has not been widespread. Loopholes still exist in regulations concerning feeding ground-up farm animals to other farm animals; deer in several western states are infected with another form of spongiform encephalopathy; an unknown number of sheep have scrapie, a form of spongiform encephalopathy; captive mink in eleven midwestern states developed spongiform encephalopathy after being fed untested “downer cows”; and beef byproducts such as milk, blood, fat, and semen are still imported from the U.K. and Europe. The prions that cause mad cow disease survive freezing, cooking, and incineration, which complicates disposal.
| |
| January 16, 2001 | - The Union of Concerned Scientists estimated that 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics are given each year to healthy farm
animals such as cows, chickens, and pigs; the group warned that such practices encourage the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria.
| |
| January 16, 2001 | - An Asian gaur, a rare ox, was successfully cloned and gestated by a cow, but died a few days later of dysentery; it was the first animal to be gestated by an animal of a different species.
| |
| January 16, 2001 | -
Researchers found that the human love of music was instinctual, a mere animal reflex.
| |
| January 9, 2001 | -
Animal
researchers at Texas A&M University unveiled a bull calf named Bull 86 Squared, a clone of Bull 86, a naturally disease-resistant bull that died in 1997; they say the calf is 100 times more resistant to brucellosis, tuberculosis, and salmonellosis, all of which can be transmitted to humans through beef or milk.
| |
| January 2, 2001 | - Two stolen koala bears were recovered from a dung-filled San Francisco home; the koalas were stolen by two Vietnamese Buddhist
teenagers who broke into the San Francisco zoo through a skylight and tried to give the bears to their girlfriends, who rejected the gifts.
| |
| December 12, 2000 | - The European Union decided to stop feeding ground-up farm
animals to other farm animals for at least six months in an attempt to stop the spread of mad cow disease; all cattle over the age of thirty months must be either tested or destroyed.
| |
| November 21, 2000 | - Maine's wild Atlantic salmon was placed on the endangered species list, to the dismay of Maine's Atlantic salmon fishermen.
| |
| November 7, 2000 | - Rotenone, a common pesticide, produced all the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in laboratory rats, according to a new study, suggesting that such poisons may cause the disease in humans.
| |
| October 31, 2000 | - Scientists at the University of Chicago believe that zebra finches sing songs in their dreams, perhaps in order to memorize the melodies; their conclusion was based on a study of the songbirds' brainwaves.
| |
| October 10, 2000 | - A federal judge ordered that the Animal Welfare Act be extended to protect birds, mice, and rats used in research laboratories; vivisectionists expressed concern that the progress of science might be impeded.
| |
| September 26, 2000 | -
Kraft Foods recalled taco shells that contain StarLink, a type of genetically modified corn that was approved for animal consumption but specifically disapproved for humans.
| |
| September 19, 2000 | - The Bush campaign was preoccupied with a controversy over a negative ad that was said to contain subliminal messages; Governor Bush denied that the flashing word “rats” was “subliminable.” Lawsuits were filed against the makers of Ritalin; lawyers claimed that the company was conspiring to expand the market for the stimulant, which is used to treat hyperactivity in children, beyond its legitimate use.
| |
| September 12, 2000 | - Hutu militiamen killed ten people with machetes in a gorilla sanctuary in southeastern Congo.
| |
| September 5, 2000 | - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was planning to paint a naked woman as a tiger and put her in a cage to protest the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus.
| |
| August 29, 2000 | -
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani threatened to sue People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for using his likeness on billboards which say “Got Prostate Cancer? Drinking Milk Contributes to Prostate Cancer.”
| |
| August 1, 2000 | - A plague of grasshoppers was destroying crops in much of Texas.
| |
| August 0, 2000 | -
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals issued a statement to protest the annual Festival Gastronomico del Gato in Canete, Peru, during which people eat catburgers to ward off bronchial disease.
| Source:
The Sun
|
| June 0, 2000 | - In Nova Scotia a moose fell to its death from a helicopter sling.
| Source:
CBC
|
