Sea Lion Attacks Raise Flags

A series of sea-lion attacks on people near San Francisco's Fisherman's Warf in recent months has led experts to warn that the animals are not as cute and cuddly as they appear.

"People should understand these animals are out there not to attack people or humans. But they're out there to survive for themselves," said Jim Oswald, a spokesman for the Marine Mammal Center across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.




In the most frightening of the recent episodes, a rogue sea lion bit 14 swimmers this month and chased 10 more out of the water at San Francisco's Aquatic Park, a sheltered lagoon near the bay. At least one victim suffered puncture wounds.

Some scientists speculate that the animals' aggressive behavior is being caused by eating fish contaminated by toxic algae, or by a shortage of food off the coast. But wildlife experts say even healthy sea lions are best left alone.

In Southern California in June, a sea lion charged several people on Manhattan Beach and bit a man before waddling into the water and swimming away. In Berkeley, a woman was hospitalized last spring after a sea lion took a chunk out of her leg.

Last year, a group of sea lions took over a Newport Beach marina and caused a vintage 50-foot yacht to capsize when they boarded it. And a lifeguard in Santa Barbara was bitten three times while swimming off El Capitan State Beach.

In Alaska, a huge sea lion jumped onto a fisherman's boat in 2004, knocked him overboard and pulled him underwater; he escaped without serious injury.

Sea lions, which can reach 1,000 pounds, typically bite only if they feel threatened or cornered. And they are more likely to flee than fight if they can escape. Researchers have described the most recent attacks, in which some swimmers were chased through open water, as abnormal behavior.

Still, with a population numbering about 200,000 and growing, these playful, social creatures are increasingly likely to cross paths with humans.

Sea lions accustomed to the easy pickings of seafood scraps in popular fishing areas can become aggressive toward people if they fear their food is about to be taken away, Oswald said.


The Berkeley attack, for example, was at a marina where fishermen dock their boats and feed fish scraps to sea lions. After they ran out of scraps, the sea lion turned aggressive and bit a crew member.

At the same time, a food shortage off the Southern California coast could be driving more hungry sea lions than usual to San Francisco Bay, said Lynn Cullivan, a spokesman for San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

Humans could also be contributing to aggression in sea lions in another way: Toxic algae blooms fed by agricultural runoff and other pollution can lead to the poisoning of marine mammals by a chemical called domoic acid, which can cause brain damage. The Marine Mammal Center treated more than 200 sea lions for domoic acid poisoning last year.


Veterinarians at the center believe the brain damage caused by the poison could have led to the marauding animal's erratic behavior in Aquatic Park, Oswald said, though they cannot be sure without actually examining the sea lion.

So far park rangers have not been able to track the attacker down. Nevertheless, the lagoon where the attacks occurred has been reopened to swimmers, though with new signs warning people to stay away from sea lions.

"People who swim with the lions — though I'm sure that's nice — it's probably not the best thing to do," Oswald said. "It's a wild animal. And you want to keep them wild."


References:Discovery.com

Fire Hits Orlando's Gatorland

ORLANDO, Fla. — A fire early Monday destroyed a section of Gatorland, one of Florida's oldest tourist attractions, and killed as many as three pythons and crocodiles.

The blaze badly damaged the gift shop, entrance and some administrative offices. The giant concrete gator head that serves as the main entrance was charred, its white teeth blackened with soot, its mouth full of debris.

Two 8-foot-long pythons kept in a holding pen near the gift shop died in the blaze, as did a 5-foot crocodile, said Gatorland spokeswoman Michelle Harris. Another 5-foot crocodile managed to survive by dipping into a pond, she said.

The 110-acre park opened in 1949 and attracts about 400,000 tourists each year. It features people wrestling gators, a"jumparoo"show where the big reptiles leap for food, and up-close encounters where guests can hold snakes, scorpions, spiders and birds.

In all, Gatorland has a few thousand animals, said Tim Williams, the park's director of media production.

Turn a Child's love of Animals into a love of Reading!


The cause of the fire was under investigation.

Officials will try to reopen the park as soon as possible, but it was unclear how quick that might be, Harris said. The gator mouth entrance may be salvageable.

"This park is like an old alligator. Gators fight, they get scarred up, they get beat up, they tear each other up, but they're resilient,"Williams said."This park's been here for 57 years. We're not going anywhere."

Site Link:Gatorland




Reference:foxnews

Man Gets 6 Months for Animal Cruelty

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 6, 2006


SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A man who pleaded guilty to putting his wife's puppy in a 200-degree oven, crippling it, was sentenced Monday to six months in jail.

Third District Judge William Barrett ordered Marc Christopher Vincent, 36, to serve six months in jail without the chance of early release. He must also pay a $500 fine and $986 in veterinary bills for the dog.

Vincent, 36, pleaded guilty Sept. 18 to one count of misdemeanor aggravated animal cruelty for putting the dog in an oven for five minutes on May 25 during a fight with his wife, Rhonda, who has since filed for divorce. The black Chihuahua mix named Henry suffered permanent damage to its front paws and now limps.

As part of the plea agreement, a second charge of animal cruelty was dropped. Prosecutors had accused Vincent of turning a leaf blower on the dog in a separate incident, damaging the dog's eye so badly it had to be removed.






Vincent was ordered to serve two years' probation after his jail sentence, seek anger management therapy, have no contact with his wife or any animals, and get a mental health evaluation.

Salt Lake County prosecutor Elizabeth Henry said Utah is one of nine states that has only misdemeanor punishment for animal cruelty.

References:nytimes

Elephants Recognize Themselves in Mirror

Looking Good
An elephant checks out its reflection. In a study, researchers introduced three adult female Asian elephants to a large mirror placed in their exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in New York City. The animals showed signs of self recognition, such as inspecting their mouths and ears and, in one case, touching a mark on its head.

When presented with a jumbo-sized mirror, elephants recognized their reflections and even took the opportunity to investigate the inside of their mouths and ears, according to a paper published in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


Such self-awareness is rare. Scientists previously believed only humans, apes and dolphins possessed self-recognition skills.






All of these animals are highly intelligent and seem to feel empathy, a quality that likely is linked to self-awareness.


"What they have in common is complex sociality that includes high levels of cooperation, altruism and large brains," coauthor Frans de Waal told Discovery News. De Waal is a psychology professor at Emory University in Atlanta and director of Living Links at the university's Yerkes Primate Center.


He added, "In literature about human children, there is speculation as to how increased self-awareness makes it possible to set the self apart from others, which in turn permits the self to take the other’s perspective — a prerequisite for complex forms of empathy."



For the study, de Waal and colleagues Diana Reiss and Joshua Plotnik introduced three adult female Asian elephants — Happy, Patty and Maxine — to a large mirror placed in their exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in New York City.


According to the paper, animals typically have a social response toward the reflection they see in the mirror. They then try to inspect the mirror, for instance by looking behind it. Most animals, such as parrots, dogs and cats, show these behaviors.


The three elephants, however, had different reactions to their reflections. Each elephant played a sort of peek-a-boo by swaying their heads, trunks and bodies in and out of mirror view. They even brought food in front of the mirror and watched themselves eat.

investigating the inside of her oral cavity. She also used her trunk to pull her ear slowly forward toward the mirror.


The researchers next painted two "X" marks on the foreheads of the elephants. One mark was invisible to control for odor and tactile cues, while the other was fully visible. This "mark test" is the scientific standard for determining whether an animal recognizes itself in a mirror.

As soon as Happy saw the visible mark, she touched it with her trunk in front of the mirror. She did this 47 times. Maxine and Patty, however, ignored the marks on their foreheads.


"We believe that because elephants love to dust bathe and throw food and dirt on their backs for storage, such a relatively small mark on their head might not bother them," Plotnik told Discovery News. "Chimpanzees and humans groom themselves by picking things off their bodies, while elephants love to be covered in dirt and mud."


Lori Marino, a senior lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory, worked on the earlier dolphin/mirror study. She told Discovery News she was not surprised that elephants have mirror self-recognition abilities.


"Like dolphins, great apes and humans, elephant brains are large and highly convoluted and their social lives are extraordinarily complex," Marino said.


She added that many other animals possess self-awareness, a multi-faceted, complex phenomenon, which seems to manifest itself at different levels.


Since elephant self-awareness and empathy are on a similar level to that of humans, Plotnik hopes the findings will strengthen our commitment toward conservation, especially as the wild elephant population continues to plummet due to habitat loss and poaching.

Reference:discovery

Florida Landscaper Attacked By Kangaroo

(NBC News) - A south Florida landscaper claims he was attacked by a client's pet kangaroo.

Adam Rushetsky was working in the yard of a home when he says the homeowner's kangaroo ambushed him.

He has scars on his back from where the kangaroo allegedly bit and scratched him.

The pet's owner believes Rushetsky is over exaggerating the incident.

He says the animal is actually a Wallaby and only stands at three feet tall.

Rushetsky plans on taking legal action.




"As I went to pull his arms off of me, he then went ahead and bit me, making coughing noise at the same time," said Rushetsky.

"The kangaroo kind of sprung off his tail and stood up like, kind of with his hands up like six, seven feet."

Reference:ksdk

Humane Society Takes Ownership Of Horses Involved In I-44 Crash

By Erin O'Neill

(KSDK) - The Humane Society of Missouri has been awarded custody of more than two dozen horses injured in a crash on Interstate 44 last month. The horses, which were on their way to a Chicago slaughter house, will soon be available for adoption.

Twenty-five horses and a mule survived the crash. Now that the Humane Society of Missouri has ownership, they have been saved from slaughter a second time.

"It was one of the worst things I've seen, and I've seen a lot of things, so you know it really doesn't get any worse than that," said Tim Rickey, assistant director of rescues and investigations for the Humane Society of Missouri

It was early in the morning on September 27 that a trailer carrying 42 horses flipped over on Interstate 44 just north of Sullivan in Franklin County. A veterinarian who responded to the scene said there were horses everywhere, some trapped on top of others. Rescuing the horses took hours.

In the end, 16 had died, and nine had to be euthanized; 25 horses survived. Most continue to recover at the Humane Society's Longmeadow Rescue Ranch in Union, Mo.

The Humane Society of Missouri received ownership of the animals by agreeing not to seek recovery costs associated with the rescue, treatment and care of the animals. So far, those costs exceed $84,000.

"The community has been very generous in this area, but you know the costs continue to mount up, and we would encourage anybody that wants to make a financial donation for these horses," said Rickey.

If you would like to make a donation to the "Horse Heroes Sponsorship Program," you can call 314-951-1542.





You can also see photos of the animals and an update on their condition on the Humane Society website by visiting the link to the right of this story.

The mule that survived returned to a veterinary hospital for further treatment of leg wounds.

One of the surviving horses, a 13-year-old quarter horse-type mare that rescuers named Darlin, had to be euthanized because of hoof and spine injures that became progressively worse.


Reference:ksdk

Letter Carrier Attacked By Squirrel Is Taken To Hospital

OIL CITY, Pa. (AP) -- Letter carriers occasionally have to deal with angry dogs or maybe even a spider's nest in a mailbox, but a mean squirrel?

Barb Dougherty, a 30-year Postal Service employee, said she was attacked and bitten Monday by a squirrel while delivering mail in Oil City, about 75 miles north of Pittsburgh.




"It was a freak thing. It was traumatic," Dougherty told The Derrick newspaper. "I saw it there on the porch, put the mail in the box and turned to walk away and it jumped on me."

She said the animal ran up her leg and onto her back.

"I eventually got a hold of the tail and pulled it off me," Dougherty said. "No one was home at the house where I was delivering the mail, but the neighbor lady heard me screaming and came over."

An ambulance took Dougherty to a hospital, where she was treated for cuts and scratches. The squirrel was killed with a BB gun and sent to a lab to be tested for rabies. Dougherty was given the first series of rabies shots as a precaution.

Postal officials said the attack is extraordinary.

"In about 230 years of postal history, I bet it is not the first, but I've personally never heard of another squirrel biting," said Steve Kochersperger, spokesman for the Erie district.


Reference:ksdk