Alligator found in Chicago River

An alligator was found in the Chicago River on the South Side Friday afternoon, police said.

The alligator, which is about 5 1/2 to 6 feet long, was found near 37th Street and the Chicago River about 2:15 p.m. by a citizen who called police.

The city’s department of Animal Care & Control, 2741 S. Western Ave., took the alligator, which was alive, and no injuries were reported.

Source: Chicago SunTimes

Air travel is really starting to stink

MIAMI (AP) — An uninvited passenger created a smelly situation on a plane in Miami. American Airlines Flight 915 from Miami to Bogota, Colombia, was delayed Wednesday night after a skunk was found in the back of the cargo hold.

When crews tried to remove the skunk, the animal released its notorious rotten smell. No one was injured, but the odor filtered through the cabin and passengers were taken off the plane.

The skunk was removed from the plane, but it was unclear where it was taken or how it got on the aircraft.

Animal management by morons

The animal shelter in the town of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, was so run down a regional humane society worker cut the locks last winter and released all the dogs.

The city then moved the operation to a temporary fenced-in area outdoors at the city sanitation department.

Still, people complained that the animals were not properly cared for at the temporary quarters, so the mayor decided the dogs would be better off fending for themselves in the St. Francis National Forest.

Mayor James Valley authorized the city street director to release about 10 dogs into the forest after the animals were fed and watered.

"They are better off free," the mayor said Thursday in a telephone interview.

The mayor said if animal control officers get a call now, "they're going to pick the dog up and probably just take them to the other side of town. And it's going to be someone else's problem. ... or maybe they will take them to the forest."

Source: The Daily World

Mayor Valley's email: mayorjfvalley@gmail.com

Bear spotted taking a dip at the Hard Rock pool in Orlando

Orlando police are at Universal Studios, looking for a bear seen taking a dip in the pool at the Hard Rock Hotel.

abcNews reports that officers believe the young black bear is hiding out or sleeping in a wooded area on the Hard Rock Hotel property. Florida Fish and Wildlife is asking anyone who sees the bear to stay away and they're begging people not to go out looking for him.

Photo: HotelChatter

No kidding!

Police thought they had a goat surrounded after it was spotted going the wrong way on the Cross Island Parkway. An ambulance and fire engine blocked traffic Monday while sheriff's deputies tried to corral the animal on the Charles E. Fraser Bridge, but she jumped.

Fire Battalion Chief Cliff Steedley told The Island Packet of Hilton Head Island the frightened goat plunged as much as 50 feet into Broad Creek.

Rescuers borrowed a boat to get the 70-pound nanny out of the waist-deep pluff mud as it worked its way through the marsh. One firefighter got stuck in the mud and had to be rescued.

Veterinarian Frank Murphy said the goat was fine after the smelly mud was washed off and there has been at least one offer to adopt it.

Why you should always wash your fruit before eating it

Kevin Hudson of Suffolk, got a rude surprise as he was washing grapes to give to his four-year-old son. He spotted a tarantula lurking in the bunch of grapes.

"I was a little bit shocked," he said.

"Spiders don't bother me too much, although it would have been a different story if my wife had been washing them."

Source: BBC News

First it was dogs; now . . . turkeys?

While rain and snow may not deter the postal service, wild turkeys are a bird of a different feather.

Between five and 10 large male turkeys, or toms -- apparently a little giddy with the onset of turkey breeding season -- have been bullying postal workers as they make their rounds, pecking at them and even trying to rough them up with the sharp spurs on their legs. One of the birds launched itself through the open door of a mail truck and scratched the driver.

Eric Lobner, regional wildlife program supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, is on the case, investigating the turkey gang.

Source: Wisconsin State Journal

Couldn't find any rocks

A New Zealand man could face five years in prison if convicted after being accused of using a hedgehog as a weapon.

According to police, the man threw the hedgehog to hit a 15-year-old boy last month. Police say the hedgehog "hit the victim in the leg, causing a large red welt and several puncture marks."

It's not known if the hedgehog was dead or alive when it was thrown, but it was dead when police collected it as evidence.

Source: abc2news

Yes, it's news: Woman bites dog!

A Minneapolis woman bit a pit bull that was attacking her dog.

Amy Rice says she bit the pit bull on the nose while trying to separate the pit bull from her Labrador retriever, Ella.

The dog had jumped a fence to get into Rice's yard, and she feared the pit bull would kill Ella.

Source: AP

The Dog Did It: Woman Gets $300K Deal

A police dog in Ogden, UT, put a pickup truck into gear, injuring a woman on her way to the mailbox in an incident that has ended with a $300,000 settlement.

Mary Frances Stone, 43, was walking to her mailbox in July 2006 when she was hit by a 1990 Ford pickup truck assigned to Officer Taylor Finder.

Ranger, a German shepherd, was in the bed of the idling truck but jumped into the front seat through a sliding door and somehow knocked the automatic transmission into gear, police said.

Stone, who had a broken pelvis, had asked for $580,000 but settled with the city's insurer for $300,000.

Source: AP

Horse visits hospital patient

“I’m coming up to see a relative.”

That’s what a Kauai man said at Wilcox Memorial Hospital on Kauai—before taking a horse three floors upstairs.

Hospital security stopped the reportedly intoxicated man and his steed. He’d already trotted the horse through the hospital’s lobby and into an elevator, all to cheer up his relative.

But when he saw the stallion, the ailing patient said, “That’s not my horse.”

Source: Hawaii Magazine

Animals on the attack

*****A martial arts teacher knocked over by a lion during a photo shoot at Bowmanville Zoo says she is happy to have come away with four broken ribs and a bloodied lung.

The photo session produced a successful cover photo, but from the beginning, the lion was playful and not entirely under the control of its two minders. Watch video.
(thestar.com)

***** A keeper at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C, was taken to a hospital and treated for a laceration on her leg after Tai Shan, the zoo's giant panda cub, made "physical contact" with her. It seems the panda had amorous intentions - the keeper was not in the mood. (via)
(Washington Post)

***** An eagle ray leaped onto a boat off the Florida Keys and stabbed a woman with its barb, knocking her to the deck and killing her. The animal's barb had impaled the woman through the neck which caused her to fall back and hit her head on some portion of the boat.
(New Zealand Herald)

***** Chicago car dealers report they've seen a lot more vehicles damaged this year by animals getting under hoods and chewing on wiring. The culprits are typically squirrels, rats or mice. Whether they're taking shelter from the cold or chewing out of hunger, they can cause thousands of dollars in damages.
(Sun-Times)

***** Rats are invading Thailand - or at least the offices of the ministry responsible for promoting health and hygiene. In the past two days, nearly 50 rats were caught inside the Health Ministry compound in Bangkok, prompting an announcement of a national anti-rodent campaign. The animals have become a nuisance. They bite wires, cables, documents and destroy office equipment.
(AP)

***** Four steer who escaped from a transport truck during a morning accident made their way to a residential area in Mississauga, Ont. and held the community hostage for nearly four hours.

One steer was eventually shot after it knocked a couple of residents off their feet and charged a police officer.
(ctv.ca)

Animals in the news

***** In the Macedonian city of Bitola, a bear was convicted of theft and damage for stealing honey from a beekeeper. Since the bear had no owner and belonged to a protected species, the court ordered the state to pay the 140,000 denars ($3,500) to the beekeeper for damage the bear had caused to the hives.

***** After two years of debate, the Dutch Parliament voted unanimously yesterday to make sex with animals a crime. Sex with animals and making "animal pornography" now carries a penalty of up to six months jail.

*****The government of Randolph, Iowa, has rescinded a five dollar bounty on stray cats . Instead, the town has agreed to work with animal rescue groups on a catch, neuter and release program.

***** In a bid for privacy, Leanne, the Sumatran tiger at the San Francisco Zoo, licked the video camera being used to monitor her and her newborn cub. To everyone's surprise, Leanne has three new babies, not just the one which had been filmed. The three 9-day-old Sumatran tiger cubs, all males, had their first health exam on Saturday, March 15, 2008. (Photo: George Nikitin, San Francisco Zoo)

***** Daniel J. Collins, 39, of Indiana, is being held on one count each of animal cruelty and battery and two counts of neglect of a dependent. He forced his 7-year-old daughter to kill the family cat by holding a knife in her hand and making her stab the feline. Collins told his 11-year-old son and daughter he wanted them to "learn how to kill."

***** Delta Flight 4704 was delayed more than five hours at the Des Moines International Airport on Thursday morning because of a mouse. Crews set up traps with peanut butter on board the plane when a flight attendant was too frightened to fly with the mouse onboard.

***** In Church Hill, TN, investigators are searching for whomever poured deer urine into an air conditioning unit at a school in eastern Tennessee. About a dozen students became ill after the prank at Volunteer High School.

Confession to cats doesn't hold up in court

David Henton, 72, who had been charged with murdering his partner after police recorded him apparently confessing to his cats was cleared yesterday by a jury that decided his comments were the ramblings of an old man.

During a seven-week trial, the prosecution played hours of secret and largely inaudible recordings of Henton muttering to himself and the cats.

Source: Times onLine

Like Deja vu all over again

Lakeland, FL, resident Adrian Apgar was rescued in 2006 from the jaws of a 12-foot alligator while naked and high on crack cocaine. Police have rescued Apgar again and are holding him in protective custody after he was found standing naked in a pond. He told deputies he had been bitten by a snake while looking for an alligator.

Golfer charged in hawk killing

PGA golfer Tripp Isenhour was charged with cruelty to animals for allegedly killing a protected migratory hawk on purpose - with a deadly accurate drive.

Isenhour allegedly teed off at the bird as it shrieked while circling over an Orlando course just as the golfer was trying to tape a segment for a television program.

Isenhour was charged in Orlando on Wednesday with cruelty to animals and killing a migratory bird, misdemeanors that carry a maximum penalty of 14 months in jail and $1,500 in fines.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Sticks and stones

A Florida man was arrested on a cruelty to animals charge after he yelled an obscenity at a police dog in a patrol vehicle, according to an arrest affidavit.

Police say Moses Rogers yelled an obscene statement in the window as he walked past a patrol vehicle that contained a patrol dog “causing (the dog’s) behavior to become overloaded, tormenting the dog,” the affidavit states.

Source

Try another excuse

A mail carrier was trapped inside her car for nearly two hours at a home near Hanover after a pair of dogs attacked her tires, flattening three of them.

When the police arrived, the dogs attacked the cruiser's tire as well.

Authorities were preparing to tranquilize the dogs Judge and Justice, a Rottweiler and a pit-bull mix, before the surprised and apologetic homeowner arrived.

Stephanie Dekelbaum, the dogs' owner, called them "generally sweethearts" and blamed the attack on a tire toy the dogs had recently been given.

Source: Yahoo news

Crowds flock to monkey 'wedding'

Some 3,000 villagers have attended an elaborate Hindu wedding ceremony in eastern India for two monkeys. The "bride" was dressed in a five-metre long sari and decked in flowers. The "groom", a three-year-old male monkey named Manu, was taken by procession to a temple in the company of hundreds of bemused onlookers, accompanied by loud music, dancing and fireworks.

The monkeys were showered with gifts by those present. They included a gold necklace for the bride, donated by a local businessman.

"I feel as if my own daughter is getting married. I cannot bear the thought that she would not be with us anymore," Mamina, the woman who has been looking after the female monkey said.

The two monkeys, who were kept in chains before the marriage, have now been released by their owners.

They have been spotted hanging out at the temple where the "marriage" took place.

Source: BBC

Bear Hunt in Orland Park, IL

Truffles, a light brown fuzzy Kodiak bear that stands four feet tall has been stolen from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in Orland Park, IL.

The store has video footage of two teen-aged boys taking the bear hostage.

Truffles was last was seen wearing a pink turtleneck, blue overalls and pink ribbons.

The store's owner, Jean Kuhn, is willing to pay a hefty ransom for Truffles; "A box of chocolates or something," she said.

Source: NBC5 Chicago