Free Republic

The largest growing criminal organization in the world has infiltrated its way into the United States, said an El Paso FBI agent. The Tren de Aragua, or the “Aragua Train,” gained notoriety after its founding in 2012 by Hector Guerrero, alias “Niño Guerrero” or Warrior Kid, in the state of Aragua located in the north-central region of Venezuela. Operating initially from Tocorón prison in Venezuela, the gang made headlines after 11,000 police officers raided the prison back in September, uncovering a zoo, nightclub, swimming pools, and a children’s playground. What they did not find was any sign of Guerrero, the...

They took a bite out of this crime. New Jersey police arrested the zoo visitor who brazenly hopped a fence and got terrifyingly close to a Siberian tiger that tried to chomp on the woman’s hand last week. Zyair Dennis, 24, is facing a defiant trespassing charge along with violating two city ordinances after she climbed the fence at the Cohanzick Zoo and stuck her hand inside the tiger’s enclosure, Bridgeton police said Monday in a statement. Police last week had shared jaw-dropping footage of Dennis’ Aug. 18 antics.

A zoo in China has come under fire after it was revealed that they painted chow chow dogs to look like pandas. The zoo, located in Jiangsu Province, showcased the "panda dog" on Labor Day holidays from May 1 to May 5. While thousands of people came to see supposed pandas, a few thought that their behaviour was strange as they shook their heads like dogs. Nevertheless, many people believe that they are real pandas, as per reports. Visitors' clips seemed to depict the puppies as having black limbs, ears, and eye rings, but their doglike characteristics were still clearly...

A Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden employee was hospitalized Thursday after she was bitten by a highly venomous rattlesnake. The eastern diamondback rattlesnake snapped at the employee around 4 p.m. in a “behind the scenes area” not open to guests, the zoo’s communications director Michelle Curley told the Cincinnati Enquirer. The unnamed staffer — who works in the reptile house — was taken to the hospital in stable condition. She had only received a partial bite and did not require antivenom, Curley said, adding her prognosis is good.

A zookeeper at a Japanese safari park died after a lion apparently attacked him as he tried to bring the animal to its cage, police said on Friday (Sep 29). Kenichi Kato, a 53-year-old worker at Tohoku Safari Park in the Fukushima region, was found bleeding from his neck and unconscious inside the lion's cage on Thursday afternoon, a local police spokesman told AFP. "It is believed that he was feeding a lion," the spokesman, who declined to be named, said.

WASHINGTON—There are constants to life in the nation’s capital: sweltering summers, political dysfunction and, for much of the last 50 years, giant pandas. Later this year, though, the three pandas living in the National Zoo will be sent to China, which has the rights to pandas in captivity all over the world. Their departure will leave Washington without at least one of the rotund, cuddly-looking bears for only the second time since Richard Nixon’s breakthrough with Beijing in 1972. The breakdown in U.S.-China relations is bamboozling many in the city. Norma Valentini, a 52-year-old registered nurse who grew up in...

It might be easier than usual to spot the newest baby giraffe that's recently been born at a zoo in Tennessee - and even easier to give her a name. The unnamed baby was born on July 31 with no spots, making it the only known living spotless giraffe. Video shows the new calf playing and being nurtured by her mother, who continues to care for her while she makes her public debut. The Brights Zoo in Limestone, Tennessee, has debuted the baby giraffe after finding out just how rare she was. 'Giraffe experts believe she is the only solid-colored...

The Toronto Zoo has posted signs near the enclosure for the gorillas asking visitors not to show cellphone videos or photos to the animals. that one gorilla, Nassir, has become particularly enthralled by videos and photos. Some visitors will press their phones to the glass to show Nassir images, Maria Franke, the zoo’s director of wildlife conservation and welfare, tells The Star

Zoo officials said the 3-year-old has been lonely since losing both his parents and not being taken in by a kangaroo family next door, but there may be brighter days ahead — a girlfriend.SEOUL, South Korea — A young lonely zebra had a rare day out when he ran away from a zoo in Seoul and trotted around the streets of the South Korean capital, before being sedated and captured a few hours later. Sero, a 3-year-old male whose Korean name refers to his vertical stripes, escaped from the Seoul Children’s Grand Park zoo Thursday afternoon by breaking through the...

<p>For two weeks, an owl that escaped the Central Park Zoo has eluded capture as legions of fans worry about its ability to survive in New York City.</p><p>Professional dog walker Jim Buck heads uptown early on July 2, 1996, with his charges in tow on New York's Upper East Side. Buck is a pioneer in the field known as urban dog handling and serves as an all-around dog adviser to Manhattan's gentry. (AP Photo/Rick Maiman) Fecal bacteria ‘rampant’ on New York sidewalks, researchers find Read more Would Flaco, a majestic Eurasian eagle-owl, go hungry because he had not developed an ability to hunt while in captivity? The answer was a resounding no: Flaco is feeding on park rats.</p>

Japanese zookeepers believe they have solved the mystery of how a gibbon became pregnant despite living alone in her cage. Momo, a 12-year-old white-handed gibbon, shocked her keepers at the Kujukushima Zoo and Botanical Garden in Nagasaki in February 2021 when she gave birth despite having no known male companionship. Now two years later, following a DNA test on her baby, the zoo has worked out who the father is – and even has a theory about how the gibbons mated. The test showed the father to be Itō, a 34-year-old agile gibbon, who was in an adjacent enclosure to...

Dallas Police have a released a photograph of a visitor to the Dallas Zoo who they think may have information about the two Tamarin Monkeys that disappeared from their habitat.

A Swedish zoo said Thursday it had to shoot dead three chimpanzees after they escaped from their enclosure, with the situation still not under control. A fourth primate was injured by gunshot, according to the company that runs the Furuvik Zoo around 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Stockholm. "A chimpanzee is considered a high-risk animal. If this kind of animal gets out into the zoo, it can pose a threat to people's lives", Annika Troselius, a spokeswoman for Parks and Resorts, told AFP. Five of the zoo's seven chimps managed to escape from their enclosure on Wednesday shortly after...

A lion at Ghana’s Accra Zoo mauled an intruder to death after he climbed a fence in an alleged attempt to steal a rare white cub, officials said.At around noon local time on Sunday, security guards on patrol at the zoo noticed that the middle-aged victim had scaled a 20-foot-tall mesh fence and entered the enclosure housing a lion, a lioness and two cubs.“The intruder was attacked and injured by one of the lions,” Ghana’s state Forestry Commission said in a statement, adding that the unnamed man had died from wounds he sustained in the attack.Authorities said they have not...

Officials in the city of Amarillo, Texas on Wednesday asked for help regarding a peculiar problem: identifying a "strange" human-like animal that was seen outside a local zoo last month.

When you're at the zoo, you're probably looking out to see the exotic animals. However, one should pay even more attention to the surroundings and signage. Ilham, a tour guide in Indonesia, was driving tourists through Sinka Zoo in West Kalimantan on Thursday (June 9) afternoon when he stopped to change the car's tire as it had a puncture. The 49-year-old then jumped over a fence to wash his dirty hands at a pond, not knowing it houses one of the zoo's crocodiles, reported Detik News, an Indonesian online news platform. "When the victim was at the edge of the...

The image in the video above is a security camera photo of a bizarre figure walking outside the Amarillo Zoo. (Officials have confirmed the image is real)

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - The City of Amarillo is asking for help identifying a strange figure seen on surveillance camera at the Amarillo Zoo. Security cameras captured the image around 1:25 a.m. on May 21 inside a perimeter fence at the Amarillo Zoo. The zoo staff discovered the odd photo while going through security cameras. The city is encouraging the public to submit ideas for what the figure could be in the spirit of fun and curiosity. “We’d love to hear feedback from the community on what they think it might be. It’s a very unique picture, and we’re excited...

INCINNATI (WKRC) - On May 28, 2016, a small boy fell into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo. What happened next prompted internet outrage across the world: a gorilla was killed. That gorilla was named "Harambe". Harambe was the 17-year-old western lowland gorilla who had noticed that the boy fell into the enclosure. He approached the boy and grabbed him. Video shows Harambe dragging the young boy around the retaining pool in the enclosure as onlookers shout and scream in response.

OBION COUNTY, TN — Two people died after they were attacked by a camel at a petting zoo in Obion, Tennessee, investigators confirmed Friday. The Obion County Sheriff's Office says it received a call about a camel was on the loose and attacking people near Shirley Farms on South Bluff Road in Obion, Tennessee, around 4:44 p.m. Thursday. The Jackson Sun reports that the camel was a featured animal at the Shirley Farms petting zoo. More...