| May 29, 2009 | - A man in Munich received a two-year suspended sentence for beating another man with a swan.
| Source:
Spiegel
|
| January 2, 2009 | - A rare red-browed Amazon parrot at a wildlife conservatory in Loxahatchee Groves, Florida, terrorized by New Year's fireworks, beat itself to death against the cage it shared with its mate/
| Source:
Miami Herald
|
| September 24, 2008 | - A flock of wild turkeys terrorized a town in Oregon.
| Source:
Gazette Times
|
| July 30, 2007 | - It was proven that crows remember their enemies.
| Source:
KING 5 NEWS
|
| July 30, 2007 | - A lost and distraught lovebird flew amok on a flight from Bangkok to Manila.
| Source:
Inquirer via Global Nation
|
| July 29, 2007 | - Ornithologists remained unsure as to why some duck species have such long, swirly penises or convoluted vaginas that spiral in the opposite direction and feature pockets and culs-de-sac.
| Source:
Philadelphia Inquirer via Sun Journal
|
| July 1, 2007 | - A New York man attacked a peacock he claimed was a vampire.
| Source:
My Way
|
| May 30, 2007 | - It was revealed that young sparrows learn their songs by eavesdropping.
| Source:
UPI via ScienceDaily
|
| May 24, 2007 | -
President Bush expressed his continuing support for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden. “I've got confidence in Al Gonzales doin' the job,” said Bush, as a passing sparrow shit on his sleeve.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| May 11, 2007 | -
Peruvian
scientists were concerned that an itinerant penguin from Chile “could suffer discrimination” among Peru's penguins.
| Source:
BBC
|
| April 6, 2007 | - Herding dogs were being used to control the spiraling goose population in New York's Central Park.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 30, 2007 | - In Germany, a black Australian swan named Petra was in love with a paddleboat.
| Source:
Ananova
|
| February 3, 2007 | -
Britain's top female paraglider was mauled by eagles. “Eagles,” said a colleague, “are the sharks of the air.”
| Source:
NZPA via stuff.co.nz
|
| January 31, 2007 | - After it ransacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Washington, D.C., residence, a small black bird was captured in a brown bag and released. “She kept thinking to herself,” said a spokesman, “‘Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”’”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| January 29, 2007 | - A ring-neck duck named Perky, who was found alive in a hunter's refrigerator two days after being shot, died, then came back to life in Tallahassee.
| Source:
BBC
|
| January 26, 2007 | - An egg crate full of pigeons exploded at a pet market in Baghdad, killing 15 people and injuring 35. “My friends and I rushed to the scene,” said a witness, “where we saw burned dead bodies, pieces of flesh, and several dead expensive puppies and birds.”
| Source:
BBC
|
| November 22, 2006 | - In Washington, D.C., President George W. Bush
pardoned two turkeys, Flyer and Fryer.
| Source:
AP via local6.com
|
| November 22, 2006 | - In Ramsey, New Jersey, a flock of turkeys was spotted waiting for a New York-bound train.
| Source:
AP via Seattle Post-Intelligencer
|
| November 21, 2006 | -
Indian officials announced that they would establish seven vulture havens in order to relieve shortages at the Towers of Silence, where Zoroastrians leave their dead to be eaten.
| Source:
Mumbai Mirror
|
| November 20, 2006 | - Two Texas penguins that survived a truck crash hatched a chick.
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
|
| November 16, 2006 | - Parents in Illinois were lodging complaints against an elementary school library for carrying And Tango Makes Three, a children's book based on a true story about gay male penguins.
| Source:
CBS 3
|
| November 12, 2006 | - Fourteen ducklings were stomped to death in Florida.
| Source:
TBO.com
|
| October 26, 2006 | - A pelican attacked and ate a pigeon in London's St. James's park.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| October 19, 2006 | - A Denver woman was ruled criminally insane for stabbing her 21-month-old granddaughter 62 times with a butcher knife after she received “spiritual messages from the geese flying overhead.”
| Source:
Denver Post
|
| 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 4, 2006 | - A laser-equipped research aircraft owned by NASA was being used to locate woodpeckers in the Mississippi Delta.
| Source:
CNN
|
| July 29, 2006 | -
New York a man bit the head off a rooster that he accused of harming his pigeon.
| Source:
AOL News
|
| July 21, 2006 | - An American scientist claimed that parrots are as intelligent as five-year-old children.
| Source:
ABC (Australia)
|
| June 18, 2006 | - The Lakeland, Florida, English
swan population, which is descended from swans given to the city by the Queen of England in 1957, was being eaten by alligators at three times the normal rate.
| Source:
NewsNet5.com
|
| June 15, 2006 | - A Norwegian
hen laid an egg twice normal size, then was killed to stop her suffering.
| Source:
Aftenposten
|
| June 14, 2006 | -
Rome was troubled by seagulls and lice.
| Source 1:
Wanted in Rome
Source 2:
Wanted in Rome
|
| April 26, 2006 | - After 15,000 tries a California scientist was able to teach starlings some grammar.
| Source:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
|
| April 5, 2006 | - In China a woman was selected from 70 volunteers to live for seven days in a cage with Internet access and 300 birds.
| Source:
All Headline News
|
| February 18, 2006 | - Another person died from bird
flu in Iraq. The flu was also found in poultry in Germany, France, and Egypt, and 50,000 chickens died from the disease in India.
| Source 1:
Bloomberg News
Source 2:
People's Daily Online
Source 3:
BBC News
Source 4:
China View
|
| February 12, 2006 | - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney shot and severely injured a fellow hunter while hunting quail at a friend's 50,000-acre Texas ranch.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| January 30, 2006 | - In southern Poland, 66 people were crushed to death when an exhibition hall collapsed during an international pigeon fanciers' fair.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| January 16, 2006 | - An Indonesian girl died of bird flu, and Turkey had killed 306,000 birds.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
BBC News
|
| December 15, 2005 | - A Florida
owl was found to be high on marijuana.
| Source:
9News.com
|
| December 11, 2005 | - It was announced that the Dutch
sparrow that was shot and killed after it knocked down 23,000 dominoes will be preserved and displayed at Rotterdam's Natural History museum, perched atop a box of dominoes.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| November 24, 2005 | - A German woman named Petra Ficker threw her husband, Frank Ficker, out of the house after her parrot cried out the name of Mr. Ficker's mistress, Uta. “It's just me and my parrot now,” said Petra.
| Source:
All Headline News
|
| November 22, 2005 | -
President Bush issued pardons to two turkeys, which were then sent to Disneyland to serve as grand marshals at a parade. “The granting of the turkey pardon,” said the President, “is not a responsibility that I take lightly.” The turkeys, Marshmallow and Yam, earned their pardons when they beat out Democracy and Freedom in an online poll.
| Source:
The White House
|
| November 17, 2005 | -
China announced that it will vaccinate 14 billion poultry against bird flu.
| Source:
Newsday
|
| November 15, 2005 | - At a convention center in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, a sparrow flew in through an open window and knocked over 23,000 dominoes. The sparrow cowered in a corner until it was shot and killed.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| October 24, 2005 | - In the UK a quarantined parrot died from the H5N1 strain of avian flu. Croatian swans were dying of flu, and pigeons in Australia were under close observation.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
CNN.com
Source 3:
ABC News
|
| October 15, 2005 | -
Danish soldiers in Iraq and Kosovo were being issued soothing pillows that chirp like birds.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| October 13, 2005 | -
Avian flu arrived in Romania and Turkey. In response, Bulgaria refused entry to a flock of 20 circus doves that had been performing in Turkey.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
Reuters
|
| August 19, 2005 | -
Washington authorities took an orphaned duck named Gooey away from the woman who had raised it from a duckling and dressed it in duck diapers. "If you don't give me the duck," said a wildlife agent, "I'm going to arrest you." The woman refused to hand over the duck, which was eventually pulled from her arms.
| Source:
AP
|
| July 28, 2005 | - As the culmination of its $1.4 billion “Return to Flight” effort, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Discovery into orbit. Almost immediately, the shuttle shed pieces of insulation and hit a bird. President George W. Bush watched the launch on a small television and clapped his hands, and NASA grounded all future shuttle flights.
| Source 1:
Newsday
Source 2:
Boston.com
Source 3:
The Washington Post
Source 4:
The Washington Post
|
| July 25, 2005 | - An Australian
eel nicknamed Eddie was seen swallowing a goose.
| Source:
Practical Fishkeeping
|
| May 8, 2005 | - A Providence, Rhode Island, man attacked a goose and stomped its goslings to death.
| Source:
TurnTo10.com
|
| May 4, 2005 | -
Vietnam decided to vaccinate 600,000 birds for avian flu.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| February 3, 2005 | -
Scientists learned that birds are not dumb.
| Source:
The International Herald Tribune
|
| January 20, 2005 | - The World Health Organization warned that the bird flu virus endemic in Asia was mutating in such a way that it could cause a major, overdue human influenza outbreak with a "best case scenario" of 2 million to 7 million deaths.
| Source: Reuters
|
| January 6, 2005 | - and the evolution of the great tit, a kind of bird, contradicted Darwin.
| Source:
London Times
|
| December 20, 2004 | - Scientists estimated that ten percent of all bird species will become extinct by the end of the century, and enrollment was down at London's premier Santa school.
| Source 1: New York Times
Source 2: Stanford University
|
| December 2, 2004 | -
Po'ouli birds took another step toward extinction.
| Source: New York Times
|
| October 24, 2004 | - Senator John Kerry killed some geese in Ohio and showed reporters his bloody hand to prove it.
| Source: New York Times
|
| July 25, 2004 | -
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released a videotape of workers in a chicken factory stomping on live chickens and throwing them against a wall; the undercover investigator who documented the abuse said that he saw hundreds of cruel acts, including squeezing birds till they explode.
| Source: New York Times
|
| April 20, 2004 | - Federal authorities confirmed that a man in Westchester County, New York, contracted avian flu last fall; there was no evidence that he was ever in direct contact with birds.
| Source: New York Times
|
| January 5, 2004 | -
President Bush spent the first day of the new year killing small birds in Texas; he reportedly resolved to eat fewer desserts.
| Source: New York 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 8, 2003 | -
Israeli soldiers shot dead a ten-year-old Palestinian boy who apparently wandered into a forbidden area while he was trying to catch birds.
| Source: New York Times
|
| April 8, 2003 | -
Animal-lovers were trying to save hedgehogs on the Scottish island of North Uist which are scheduled to be culled to prevent them from eating the eggs of wading birds.
| |
| December 3, 2002 | -
Wildlife officials in Hawaii said they planned to capture the three last po`ouli birds in existence; the three birds live within 2 miles of one another but have never met.
| |
| July 23, 2002 | -
Disney World ended a 30-year tradition of releasing homing pigeons during such shows as “Cinderella's Surprise Celebration” when it realized the birds were routinely being attacked and eaten by red-tailed hawks.
| |
| July 23, 2002 | -
Meow Mix, the cat-food company, was working on a television show for cats, featuring “squirrels, bouncing balls, birds, and all the things cats love to watch.”
| |
| June 18, 2002 | -
The United Nations World Food Summit convened in Rome; delegates dined on lobster, goose stuffed with olives, and foie gras on toast with kiwifruit.
| |
| May 28, 2002 | -
The New York Times reported on its front page, just a few inches below a picture of people jumping to their deaths from the World Trade Center, that editors of the various international editions of Cosmopolitan magazine had descended on Manhattan to sit at the feet of the sages of the Hearst Corporation and were told that “beefcake” is “what's hot now.” Israeli scientists unveiled their new genetically modified featherless chickens, which are supposed to be cheaper to kill, as they need not be plucked, though the naked birds have been unable to mate, because the males cannot flap their wings, and they are vulnerable to mosquito attacks and disease, and they fall down stunned if they happen to wander out into the sunlight.
| |
| May 21, 2002 | -
People and birds were dropping dead in India because of a heat wave.
| |
| April 2, 2002 | -
The Pentagon was lobbying Congress for an exemption from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Noise Control Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the Endangered Species Act because the laws are all inconvenient and expensive.
| |
| June 26, 2001 | - Male birds in Australia were observed mimicking the sound of a cell phone during courtship.
| |
| February 6, 2001 | -
Scientists spent five weeks watching helicopters fly over king penguins in the Antarctic to determine whether the birds topple over backward while watching aircraft. They do not.
| |
| January 23, 2001 | - London officials cancelled the license of the pigeon-food vendor in Trafalgar Square as part of a new war on bird droppings. After animal-rights groups expressed concern over the starvation of the birds, it was announced that the square's 3,000 pigeons would be fed for another month.
| |
| December 12, 2000 | - A fossil of a microraptor dinosaur was said to strengthen the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
| |
| 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 19, 2000 | -
Bird watchers discovered that CBS Sports was routinely dubbing bird calls into its golf broadcasts; CBS has put a stop to the practice.
| |