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THE RSPCA today condemned "stupid, irresponsible" pranksters who stole a sheep, put it into a shopping trolley and wheeled it into a supermarket. The youths were caught on CCTV at 3am today as they pushed the sheep into the Asda store in Bexleyheath, south east London, and took photos. RSPCA inspector Andrew Kirby, who is investigating the incident, said: "This stupid, irresponsible stunt would have terrified this poor sheep and caused it great stress by removing it from its flock. "We have tracked down the sheep's owner but we can't return it to its flock for six days because of...

The workers at the Teller County Regional Animal Shelter in Colorado stopped at nothing to revive a frozen kitty who came to them on the last legs of its nine lives. On a recent snowy Friday morning in Woodland Park, Colo., animal control received a call about a cat that may or may not have been alive under a deck. When they arrived they found the cat nearly frozen to death. According to shelter worker Sharon L. Peters, who told her story to USA Today, the black and white cat's eyes were closed and it wasn't moving. But when it...

When we think of spiders, us Brits tends to imagine the black and brown creatures that thrive in dry corners and give us a fright when we least expect it. Australians, the other hand, are privy to much more exciting sights, as these pictures of the 'peacock spider' prove. While it may be eight-legged like every other spider, this one has an impressive mating ritual to attract a partner. It shows off a rainbow of colours to impress nearby females by fanning out two brightly patterned flaps at the back of his body. Displaying its spectrum of shades in an...

Pictured: Squirrel Mother Goes Nuts And Attacks Dog Trying To Eat Her Baby 25th November 2009 They have a bit of a reputation for a vicious streak, but this dog certainly got more than it bargained for after pouncing on a baby squirrel it found on the ground. Moments before the hapless baby would have been torn apart, these images show its mother appearing to leap off a nearby tree and attacking the surprised dog. Barking mad: The squirrel gets ready to leap off the tree and its terrified baby is pounced on by the dog [Pic in URL] Using...

A new amphibian species can survive on land with no nostrils, lungs, or legs, say researchers who discovered the bizarre beast. The creature, found in Guyana, is part of the wormlike group of amphibians known as caecilians. Only one other caecilian species is known to live without lungs.

Prized for their impressive antlers, red deer have been caught in the hunters' sights for generations. But a deer's antlers are much more than decorative. They are lethal weapons that stags crash together when duelling. John Currey, from The University of York, UK, has been intrigued by the mechanical properties of bone for over half a century and has become fascinated by the mechanical properties of antler through a long-standing collaboration with Tomas Landete-Castillejos at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha. 'Antlers look as if they are dry,' says Currey, 'but no one knew if they really are dry when used...

This is an older video, by a couple years but it is amazing to watch. The experiment pits Japanese researchers vs chimps in a memory experiment.

Man commits suicide after disappearance of prized bull semen stocks IKI, Nagasaki -- Both the prefecture and the Japan Agricultural Cooperative (JA) branch here are investigating after some 1,300 tubes of prized bull semen went missing and a person connected with the material committed suicide. A prefectural inquiry discovered the frozen semen -- valued at 1,220-510 yen per tube for a total loss of about 1.5 million yen -- was missing in August, and JA Iki has set up a special investigative committee to try and shed light on the disappearance. According to the prefecture's animal husbandry section, the 0.5...

It's no surprise men like women with ample cleavage - but do dog owners feel the same about their pups? According to a kennel in England they do. At the Wallace Kennels in Essex, a pair of chocolate Labradors now have homes thanks to £1,200 breast enhancements.

The end of the trail is near for Isobel. The nine-year-old Siberian husky-malamute cross will retire in January, five years after she lost her sight. In January 2005, veterinarians told her owners, Gerald and Jenofar Azure of Churchill, that Isobel couldn't work as a sled dog ever again due to blindness from a virus. Isobel, however, had other ideas. "Isobel went absolutely wild, she wanted to run," recalled Jenofar Azure. The dog's story is one of incredible heart that has caught international attention. NBC will air a feature about Isobel during its 2010 Winter Olympics coverage. Tourists come to Churchill...

PORTLAND, Maine ― Beneath the cold ocean waters off the coast of Maine, the nation's lobster breadbasket, lie hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of old wire lobster "ghost traps." Lost over the years to storms, boats — even the knives of fishermen who've cut them from their buoys to settle scores — many of the traps continue catching lobsters. Marine biologists say lost and abandoned lobster, crab and other fish traps plague coastal waters around the globe, putting pressure on a number of already-stressed fish populations. In U.S. waters alone, millions of dollars' worth of marketable seafood is lost each...

Australian authorities plan to corral about 6,000 wild camels with helicopters and gun them down after they overran a small Outback town in search of water, trampling fences, smashing tanks and contaminating supplies. The Northern Territory government announced its plan Wednesday for Docker River, a town of 350 residents where thirsty camels have been arriving daily for weeks because of drought conditions in the region. "The community of Docker River is under siege by 6,000 marauding, wild camels," local government minister Rob Knight said in Alice Springs, 310 miles (500 kilometers) northeast of Docker. "This is a very critical situation...

How are forest-thinning projects on Boulder County open space land affecting the tassel-eared Abert's squirrel? Which shorebirds and waterfowl are nesting at county ponds? How well have county wetland restoration projects really worked? These are the kinds of questions the Parks and Open Space Department hopes a new corps of volunteers will help answer when the county's new Natural Resource Monitor program begins next year. "We have a lot of acreage, and we have really diverse natural resources on our open space," said Michael Bauer, education and outreach specialist for the county's open space department... As the county designed the...

IT was a dark and stormy night — actually four stormy nights — when Jayme Otto, 31, and her husband, Ryan Otto, 33, drove 1,200 miles from their home in Boulder,Colo., to her parents’ house in Cleveland for Christmas. “We traveled all this way to bring our yellow Labrador, Cody Bear, home to spend time with his grandparents,” Ms. Otto said, “grandparents” being dog-person-speak for her parents. Besides wanting Cody Bear “to participate in his favorite yearly activity of unwrapping gifts and destroying all the boxes,” as Ms. Otto put it, they wanted the dog to meet her brother’s fiancée....

Briton Sam Brookes, who was visiting the park with his girlfriend when the attack happened, said: 'I looked in after I heard people screaming. 'The bear was standing over him and throwing him back and forth. 'Some yelled, "Get stones" to throw at the bear. I think most people had an awful shock. I can still see it when I close my eyes.' Police and zoo officials say there has been an outpouring of public sympathy - for the bear. Bouquets of flowers and pots of honey have been placed outside his enclosure.

The unsettled stomach of a 120-kilogram pig was to blame for a fumy false alarm ... Fifteen firefighters and two tankers rushed to respond to a report of a strong smell of gas... when the crews arrived at the house in Axedale 10 minutes later, the source of the offending smell was clear. "I don't know what they were feeding this thing but we certainly heard it." Mr Harkins said he had captained the rural fire brigade for "a number of years" and it was the first time it had been called to a "farting pig". "We did hose it...

The sequence of events happens dozens of times every day at the BP gas station/convenience store at U.S. 19 at Nursery Road. An unsuspecting customer pulls up to the drive-through window. But instead of a store clerk, up pops two paws, deep brown eyes and the tongue-flapping grin of a happy chocolate Labrador retriever named Cody. Kids in the back seats of minivans often squeal with joy. Even the usually stony faces of gruff construction worker-types can't help but crack a smile under the dog's unpretentious greeting. "He hears the bell and goes running. When he pops up, that sets...

A man was just moments away from death as he hung in the jaws of a bear he tried to have a picnic with in a Swiss zoo. But in the end it was the bear who ended up fighting for his life after police shot it in order to save the life of the uninvited intruder into his enclosure. These dramatic photographs were taken by a visitor to the Bern Park, Switzerland, on Sunday when Finn, a European brown bear aged four, suddenly realised the unwanted human guest in his home. The 25-year-old man's bid to party with Finn...

I want to feathered turkey to take a trip to the kitchen and be prepared as it should be. There is nothing like freshly killed turkey. damnmit!

An Oz Outback community is battling to regain control of its town from a 6,000-strong feral camel invasion, which has seen the thirsty dromedaries cause "chaos" in their search for water. According to the Times, the drought-hit beasts have descended on the Northern Territory's Docker River en masse, "trampling through homes, breaking water tanks and even damaging the emergency airstrip".

After the whirlwind attack the mother squirrel springs free of the dog and rushes her baby back up into the safety of the tree. The frustrated dog is left sitting forlornly at the base of the tree as its prey escapes into the upper branches.

LUCKY, the world's oldest sheep, has died and has been buried on the Victorian property where she was born and hand-reared more than 23 years ago. Lucky, who was abandoned by her mother and has delivered 35 offspring of her own, died on her farm at Lake Bolac, west of Ballarat, on Monday morning aged 23 years, six months and 28 days - a Guinness-certified world record age for a sheep. Victoria's recent burst of hot weather greatly weakened Lucky, owner Delrae Westgarth said. "We got up to 36C here and it knocked her around," she said. Mrs Westgarth found...

UP to a million Hindu devotees have gathered in a village in Nepal to witness the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals in a mass sacrifice that has drawn widespread criticism. Worshippers travelled long distances, many coming from India, to attend the two-day Gadhimai festival, which honours the Hindu goddess of power and takes place once every five years in southern Nepal. A huge cry of "Long Live Gadhimai!" went up after the village temple's head priest launched the event with the ritual sacrifice of two wild rats, two pigeons, a rooster, a lamb and a pig. The crowd...

CARROLLTON - If cats have nine lives, one local feline's life span was reduced by at least a third on Monday. Curiosity almost killed the critter when it wandered into the electrical substation serving the city of Carrollton and tripped a fuse that caused power to crash for some 1,500 customers. The event was "cat"-astrophic enough - but it wasn't fatal. "The cat lived through it," Ameren spokeswoman Victoria Busch said. When workers responded to their first call at 1:45 a.m. Monday, they discovered the animal still on the ground, where it had been blown several feet after coming into...

Video at source - no text.

A Real Bale Out! Free will contribution (not through taxing of you and your future grandchildren). No profits for unions or politicians. Real stimulus to the economy through purchase of goods and services made in the USA such as hay, grain, jobs for farmers, US owned animal food companies employees and retailers. Workers are not on union pay scale nor receive bonuses, as a matter a fact every worker is a 100% volunteer. Your Bale Out contribution will go directly to purchase the following: Round bale of hay $40 Square bale of hay $4 Bag of dog food $18 Bag...

To Louise Bowling, it was the fulfilment of a life-long dream. Having bought some land, surrounded by beautiful countryside, she now had space to rear her beloved horses. But. just a few months after purchasing the 1.1 acre plot, Mrs Bowling's dream is in tatters.

A Bridgeville man told police he killed his girlfriend's puppy yesterday afternoon because the animal would not behave before the Steelers football game broadcast. William Woodson, 22, is being held on $25,000 bail in the Allegheny County Jail, pending a preliminary hearing on animal cruelty at 1 p.m. next Monday before District Judge Elaine McGraw in Bridgeville. The puppy, a 13-week-old pit bull named Flip, had been the focal point of recent arguments between Mr. Woodson and his girlfriend, Christine Gielarowski, 21, with whom Mr. Woodson lives on Jane Way. Ms. Gielarowski still may face charges after she gave police...

ZAGREB (AFP) - The Croatian first division match between Sibenik and Medjimurje Cakovec will be remembered for a cat which earned the visiting team's goalkeeper a yellow card, press reports said on Monday. Ivan Banovic was taken by surprise in the 20th minute of Saturday's match, played in the coastal town of Sibenik, when the cat walked on to the pitch near his goals, the Jutarnji List daily reported on its Internet site.

ZAGREB (AFP) - The Croatian first division match between Sibenik and Medjimurje Cakovec will be remembered for a cat which earned the visiting team's goalkeeper a yellow card, press reports said on Monday. Ivan Banovic was taken by surprise in the 20th minute of Saturday's match, played in the coastal town of Sibenik, when the cat walked on to the pitch near his goals, the Jutarnji List daily reported on its Internet site.

A VICTORIAN man was almost drowned by a kangaroo after he dived into his farm dam to save his pet dog. Chris Rickard, 49, of Arthurs Creek, is being assessed by Austin Hospital surgeons after being mauled by the 1.5m roo at 9am (AEDT). He only managed to end the attack when he elbowed the kangaroo in the throat as it tried to hold him under water, The Herald Sun reported. By then he had already suffered a deep gash across his abdomen as the kangaroo tried to disembowel him with its hind legs, as well as a deep gash...

Title and link only: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch/3080895/Shylas-a-purr-fect-little-mum

Pharoah the cat has survived after stowing away in a container on a merchant ship that arrived at the British port of Felixstowe after a 3,000 mile journey from Egypt.

A man was left seriously wounded after climbing into a bear enclosure in a Swiss zoo yesterday. The 25-year-man climbed onto a wall surrounding the BärenPark (Bear Park) in the city of Bern, Switzerland, before falling 13ft into the enclosure, police said. The unnamed man, who had learning difficulties, was then attacked by four-year-old bear Finn, who caused severe injuries to the man's head and one of his legs, before a nearby policeman shot the creature - injuring it and forcing it to retreat into a cave.

SCOTLAND. It’s a long way from anywhere to this particular spot on the steep flank of the Hill of Bohuntine, gazing east across the great green heathery abyss of Glen Roy to where it admits the mouth of the more gently scooped-out Glen Glaster. Certainly if you’re coming from the States—from Petersburg, Kentucky, say, or Dayton, Tennessee, or any other of the thousand places where you would be safer lighting a Marlboro off a burning American flag than being caught with a copy of On the Origin of Species—you’re going to find it quite a hike. But you’ll be glad...

BOSTON -- An English mastiff that was ordered to be euthanized after it bit a 23-year-old woman and, separately, the wife of Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield, was spared by a Hingham court official this week who ruled to reverse the dog’s death sentence. Gabriella, the 8-year-old mastiff, had been a fixture at the South Street art gallery owned by Megan and Rob Ullman, the Hingham Square Gallery, for about five years. Police took notice of Gabriella in June 2008, however, when the 37-year-old wife of knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, Stacey Wakefield, was bitten by the dog. Stacey Wakefield, who lives...

The Las Vegas city council passed a new ordinance this past week requiring most cats and dogs to be spay or neutered by four months of age, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. The ordinance, which passed the city council by a vote of 5 to 2, is an effort to help curb pet overpopulation. The ordinance takes effect April 1 and will be reviewed annually. It is in response to Southern Nevada’s pet overpopulation problem and had support from local veterinarians and animal rescue groups, according to the Review-Journal. It's noted that the Lied Animal Shelter, which services Las Vegas,...

November 20, 2009 (DURANGO, Colo.) -- A person in a chicken costume ruffled the feathers of Durango's city council as its members discussed rules for backyard fowl. At a council meeting Tuesday, someone in a chicken costume quietly entered the council chambers just as the mayor was discussing a recently-passed backyard hen ordinance. The costumed chicken took a few turns, flapped its arms, then took a seat in the nearly empty gallery. Several minutes later, the big bird left -- without identifying itself -- after laying an egg on the floor. [snip]

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Posted on November 20, 2009 at 10:39 AM HOUSTON—A woman was severely injured Thursday night when she was attacked by her pit bull. It happened around 8 p.m. at a home at Park York and Mason Road in west Harris County. Precinct 5 constables said the woman’s husband heard a commotion in another room, and when he went to investigate, he found his wife on the floor. The family’s pit bull was on top of her. Constables said the man moved the dog and called 911. The woman was taken via Life Flight to Memorial Hermann. Constables said she suffered...

POLICE are hunting a man whose dog attack another before the owner went on to shout obscenities and threaten a woman. The incident occurred at Freedom Park in Greenbank on September 29 at around 10.40am. The suspect's pitbull dog attacked a woman's dog, causing it to bleed. When the woman remonstrated with the suspect he began to swear at her, threatening to set his pitbull on her dog again and "rip your dog to pieces". The suspect was white, 6ft tall with blue eyes and short mousey brown hair. He is of slim build, with broad shoulders and was wearing...

Buddy Lou, a 10-year old tabby cat, has become the first feline death from H1N1 in the United States. It appears the cat acquired the H1N1 virus from the owner’s niece who had been sick with an influenza-like illness the previous week. H1N1 in cats: Buddy Lou’s illness The cat was brought to the Animal Clinic in Lebanon, Oregon, on November 4, with labored breathing and was initially diagnosed with pneumonia. His breathing worsened by the next day and the cat was admitted to the veterinary clinic for treatment with antibiotics and oxygen. Buddy Lou did not respond to treatment...

We all know dogs like to smell just about everything, including other animals' poo. Now scientists have figured out how to put the canines' odd pastimes to work to help sniff out the dung of endangered rhinos in Vietnam. The collected dung will help scientists to figure out how many Javan rhinos, also called Rhinoceros sondaicus, remain in the wild. The rhinos were considered extinct on mainland Southeast Asia until hunters in Vietnam killed one in 1988. Now two remaining populations exist, with an estimated 10 individuals in the forests of Vietnam and between 28 and 56 such rhinos on...

Sorry, kids—scientists have not discovered the first known bubblegum-blowing sea creature. But they have found the only known corals to eat adult jellyfish, a new study says. Opening wide--yes, that's a mouth--a mushroom coral ingests a roughly 4-and-a-half-inch-wide (12-centimeter) moon jellyfish (pictured) in the Red Sea in March 2009. And this coral wasn't alone. The study, led by scientists from Israel's Bar-Ilan University and Tel Aviv University, witnessed other corals dining on the jellyfish. Marine ecologist Jennifer Smith, who wasn't part of the study, agreed the find was unique, though she's "not entirely surprised." Mushroom corals, which have soft bodies,...

ATHENS -- To the Bulldog Nation, the Uga mascot is royalty, the lineage anointed to represent the University of Georgia. But to the Seiler family, the English bulldogs are family pets. That is sadly evident at times such as these. In only his second season as Georgia's mascot, Uga VII has passed away. Uga VII passed away suddenly Thursday morning at his home in Savannah. At 4 years old, he was practically a pup and had served as Georgia's mascot for not even two full football seasons when he unexpectedly succumbed to heart problems.

A company in the United Kingdom is about to lift the lid on a device that zaps lobster with electricity to kill them, and the inventor said Wednesday his humane alternative to boiling is about to give the entire industry a jolt. British entrepreneur Simon Buckhaven said the CrustaStun system, developed over the past decade by his company Studham Technologies Limited, near London, kills the lobster with an electric charge, so the crustacean feels no "pain or distress." "I am entirely aware this product will be greeted at first with some skepticism among people in the lobster industry in Eastern...

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult...

Police in the Lithuanian town of Kaunas arrested 22-year-old Svajunas Beniukas on animal cruelty charges after internet users helped police identify him and the bridge from which the small brown dog was thrown. The video shows a man holding the dog, called Pipiras, Lithuanian for pepper, and laughing as his friend records the event on his mobile phone. Checking that the coast is clear, he makes a joke about dogs flying and then drops the animal off the bridge. Crashing onto a farm track below, Pipiras yelps in pain, and lies twitching on the ground. But despite falling over 20...

This is the shocking video of a Labrador guide dog being savagely attacked by a pitbull-cross dog in a railway station subway. A 57-year-old blind woman was walking through Cricklewood station when her guide dog, Neela, a brown Labrador, was attacked by another dog. Transport police today issued the images in a bid to trace the violent dog's owner. Detective Constable Gerry Griffin said: “This dog was not muzzled and was dangerously out of control. “The woman was extremely distressed and feared for own safety. What made this awful incident even more harrowing was the fact that the man made...