The Boston Globe
Kennedy faces fight on Cape Wind
Key lawmakers oppose his bid to block project
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
WASHINGTON -- As record oil prices turn attention to the need for renewable fuels, momentum is building in Congress to buck Senator Edward M. Kennedy's bid to block the proposed Cape Cod wind energy project, potentially reviving efforts to construct the sprawling windmill farm in Nantucket Sound.
The chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee said yesterday that when the bill Kennedy backs that would effectively halt the wind farm comes up for a vote in the Senate, they will object on procedural grounds. They say they'll argue that a renewable energy project shouldn't be lumped in with a bill governing the Coast Guard.
Meanwhile, a group of rank-and-file House members, worried about the political ramifications of rejecting alternative energy sources while motorists pay $3 a gallon at the gas station, have persuaded House leaders to sidetrack the entire bill for at least several weeks, even though it was slated for action this week. The delay could give supporters of the wind farm time to make their case to members of Congress.
''Are we going to be for developing alternative energy or not?" said Representative Charles Bass, a New Hampshire Republican who helped persuade House leaders to table the bill until at least mid-May. ''The longer you delay it, the longer there is for people to examine the issue, and to determine what's going on here."
The efforts to move the wind farm forward occur amid growing attention to Kennedy's role in the secret, behind-the-scenes maneuvering to stop it. Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, the senator who inserted the wind-farm provision into the Coast Guard bill, has acknowledged discussing the matter privately with the Massachusetts Democrat.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/27/kennedy_faces_fight_on_cape_wind/
Memories turn chilling
Cancer fears haunt those who grew up by Ashland plant
By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
ASHLAND -- As a boy, Reginald Mimms recalls, he fired a pellet gun at canisters behind the Nyanza Inc. chemical and dye plant, cheering with his friends as they exploded into a cloud of steel-gray vapor.
Long foul balls sent Neil MacLennan wading thigh-high into pools of sludgy, iridescent water, as his baseball buddies watched from the bank.
In a game of tag that was an after-school ritual, Kathy Zilioli chased her younger brother, as he shrieked with delight, into the marshy woods behind their house.
These were idyllic memories of childhood in Ashland, a middle-class suburb 25 miles west of Boston. Now, decades later, these recollections are flooding back, not as the escapades of carefree youth, but as horrific moments those who experienced them wish had never happened.
A new study by the state Department of Public Health has shown that for hundreds who grew up in Ashland, swimming or wading in the foul water behind the plant put them at a far higher risk of developing cancer.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/04/27/memories_turn_chilling/
State releases Ashland cancer estimates
Up to 600 people at greater risk
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
Up to 600 former or current Ashland residents could be at greater risk for developing cancer because they played in contaminated water at or near a toxic waste site, according to data released yesterday by the state Department of Public Health. But the number could be as small as 200.
The state issued a broad warning Tuesday to Ashland residents who waded or swam in areas polluted by the now-closed Nyanza Inc. dye manufacturing plant between 1965 and 1985. State officials said these people should consult with a doctor about their cancer risk, but could not immediately say how many people to whom the alert applied.
Yesterday they provided the Globe with more detailed data from the study, which concluded that residents who were between 10 and 18 in those years had a risk of developing cancer that was two to four times greater if they came into contact with the water.
The state estimates that 2,751 residents were in that age group during two decades when the plant's grounds were accessible to the public -- ages when people were most likely to play in the pools, streams, and wetlands on and around the property. They tracked down and interviewed about half of that group, and found that between 7 percent and 22 percent of those interviewed reported having been in contact with contaminated water in the three highest-risk areas, said Suzanne Condon, assistant commissioner of the State Department of Public Health who oversaw the study. That means that between 200 and 605 people in the target age group could be at risk.
The warning has sparked deep concern in the suburban community of almost 15,000 about 25 miles west of Boston, though doctors and health officials in the area reported receiving only a smattering of calls from residents yesterday. The physicians and health agents said they were unsure precisely what to advise patients or how to monitor their health, because the state study found an elevated risk for cancer in general, not any one particular type.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/04/27/state_releases_ashland_cancer_estimates/
Healey vows to shift from Romney's path
Draws differences on policy, style
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey made clear yesterday that she plans to step out of Governor Mitt Romney's shadow and set a sharply different style of governing by attempting to establish a strong working relationship with the Democrat-controlled Legislature if she is elected.
In an interview on the eve of the state Republican convention, Healey promised to be an ''extremely hands-on, personally involved governor" with lawmakers to advance a frugal, pro-business agenda that is markedly more socially moderate than Romney's.
''Each governor is different," she said when pressed on whether she had a different governing style than Romney, ''and I believe that I would be an extremely hands-on, personally involved governor who would work with the Legislature to advance the best interests of the people of the Commonwealth."
Her description of the role she envisions contrasts with the image of Romney, who is seen by many legislators, special interest groups, and some business people as aloof and disengaged, except on a few issues such as healthcare legislation.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/politics/candidates/articles/2006/04/27/healey_vows_to_shift_from_romneys_path/
When parents' values conflict with public schools
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist April 27, 2006
OF THE FIVE candidates running to succeed Mitt Romney as governor of Massachusetts, all but one have chosen to send their children to private schools. Nothing wrong with that -- millions of parents would move their kids out of public schools tomorrow if they thought they could afford something better. For millions more, government schooling isn't an option in the first place: They would no sooner let the state decide what their children should learn than they would let it to decide whom they should marry.
In an interview this month, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the only Republican in the race, explained why she and her husband picked a private school for their son and daughter. "I want my kids to be in an environment where they can talk about values," she said -- talk about values, that is, "in a way that you can't always do in a public school setting."
It's hard to see anything objectionable in Healey's words, but they triggered a broadside from Attorney General Thomas Reilly, a Democrat and the only gubernatorial candidate whose children all attended public schools.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/27/when_parents_values_conflict_with_public_schools/
Fleeing guerrillas, Colombian tribe makes perilous journey
By Indira A. R. Lakshmanan, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
ISTMINA, Colombia -- With just the clothes on their backs and enough bananas for the journey, the people of one of Colombia's oldest indigenous tribes are fleeing for their lives.
In one teeming motorized canoe after another, more than 700 Wounaan people made harrowing 13-hour journeys upriver from their ancestral lands in western Colombia in recent days, escaping Marxist rebels who had murdered two of the tribe's leaders and vowed to exterminate 14 others on a hit list. More than half of the terrified tribe was left behind when the community ran out of money to buy fuel for the canoe engines.
The Wounaan of Chocó province are among as many as 3 million displaced Colombians who have been forced off their land in the past 20 years to escape execution by rebel groups, recruitment into illegal armies, obligatory cultivation of coca leaf and opium poppy, or military operations.
The vicious campaign by leftist rebels against the Colombian government has persisted for four decades and faded from international headlines, but the war continues to create one the world's largest populations of displaced people. The United Nations says Colombia's is one of the worst internal refugee crises since World War II, and Human Rights Watch this year called it the most serious human rights situation in all of Latin America.
Last year alone, an average of 850 people fled their communities every day in this nation of 43 million people, according to Codhes, an independent Colombian watchdog group that tracks displaced people. In the capital, Bogotá, 1,100 new displaced families have registered for public assistance in the past month, according to the government.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2006/04/27/fleeing_guerrillas_colombian_tribe_makes_perilous_journey/
Israeli barrier draws artists to a cause
Many Palestinians object to paintings as disguising reality
By Matthew Kalman, Globe Correspondent April 27, 2006
RAMALLAH, West Bank -- For Israelis, the 451-mile security barrier snaking through the West Bank has been highly effective in keeping out would-be suicide bombers. For Palestinians, it's an ugly symbol of Israeli control over every aspect of their lives.
For European artists who sympathize with the Palestinian cause, the concrete urban portion of the barrier has become the world's most inviting canvas. Some Palestinians say they appreciate that artistic support. But many Palestinian artists have expressed outrage, saying the art disguises the reality of the wall.
Most of the barrier is being built through the wilderness close to the Green Line, the old West Bank border between Israel and Jordan before the 1967 Six-Day War. On those isolated hills, the barrier is a see-through fence equipped with electronic sensors, topped with barbed wire and flanked by an anti-tank ditch.
The five percent of the barrier that passes between houses in urban areas is a much narrower and starker 30-foot-high, gray cement wall. It has been daubed with slogans, posters, and even advertisements by local shopkeepers. But it is the eye-catching paintings adorning these sections of the barrier that have ignited a sharp debate.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04/27/israeli_barrier_draws_artists_to_a_cause/
Nepal's rebels call 3-month cease-fire
By Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press April 27, 2006
KATMANDU -- Nepal's communist rebels, who backed the opposition protests that forced King Gyanendra to restore parliament, declared a three-month, unilateral cease-fire today in their violent campaign against the monarchist government.
The announcement came a day before the reinstated parliament convenes in Katmandu. It is expected to elect a new prime minister and initiate the process for electing a special assembly that would write a new constitution.
''We declare a unilateral cease-fire for three months," the elusive rebel leader Prachanda said in a statement. He said the rebels would hold their fire ''to express deep commitment to people's desire for peace."
The rebel decision follows a meeting between Prachanda and Girija Prasad Koirala, who is likely to be named prime minister. Their talk cleared up misunderstanding between the alliance of seven opposition parties and the rebels.
The rebels initially had been angered by the alliance's acceptance of Gyanendra's offer to hand over power and reinstate parliament that would form a new government, saying it was a betrayal of an understanding between the alliance and the rebels.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/04/27/nepals_rebels_call_3_month_cease_fire/
Peace Corp.
As the international community dithers over Darfur, private military companies say they've got what it takes to stop the carnage, if only someone would hire them.
THREE YEARS OF FIGHTING in the Darfur region of Sudan have left an estimated 180,000 dead and nearly 2 million refugees. In recent weeks, both the UN and the US have turned up the volume of their demands to end the violence (which the Bush administration has publicly called genocide), but they've been hard pressed to turn their exhortations into action. The government in Khartoum has scuttled the UN's plans to take control of the troubled peacekeeping operations currently being led by the African Union, and NATO recently stated publicly that a force of its own in Darfur is ''out of the question." Meanwhile, refugee camps and humanitarian aid workers continue to be attacked, and the 7,000 African Union troops remain overstretched and ineffective.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/04/23/peace_corp/
Modern love
Style is softer and warmer now, often mixing with traditional elements
By Paul Frederick Roberts, Globe Correspondent April 23, 2006
Kathy Ball-Toncic loved the open floor plan and ample windows that bathed the Cambridge condominium in sunlight. But she was concerned the building's unusual design would be a turn-off to her husband, an architect with particular tastes.
It turned out he loved the place on Bellis Circle, too. But after the couple moved in last September, they learned some of their new neighbors were not so taken with it.
''One person actually said to me, 'Well, at least you're nice!' " recalled Ball-Toncic.
With its flat roof, sharp angles, and metal protuberances, the Bellis Circle building strikes an aggressive, modernist profile that homeowners seem to either love or hate. Like it or not, such intensely styled houses are making a quiet comeback.
Unlike their early 20th century predecessors, which were often derided as impractical and sterile, even jarring, today's modern homes strive for warmer, softer touches, even going so far as to blend modernist elements with more traditional, familiar, or comforting architectural features.
http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2006/04/23/modern_love/
Roll out the second home
A younger generation develops a passion for RVs
By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff April 27, 2006
Darlene Bell and her husband, Jason, bought a second home in New Hampshire a few years ago but quickly realized they weren't using it as much as they had assumed they would -- a situation made more irksome by the fact that they were paying property taxes and utility bills for that largely unused house.
So they put the house on the market and did what an increasing number of young Americans are doing: They bought a recreational vehicle, or RV. Theirs is a 25-foot-long towable trailer with a bed, bathroom, kitchen with microwave and refrigerator, and hookups for cable TV. It has become, in effect, their second home, but a cheaper one that has turned summer weekends into a moveable feast.
''We don't always have to go to the same place all the time," said Bell, 31, who lives in Hanover. ''We can go to New Hampshire if we want, or we can go to Maine, or down the Cape."
Think RV, and you might think of retirees burning up their children's inheritances as they tool down the road in an oversized, gas-guzzling motor home. But the reality is that people under 35 -- who came of age watching MTV's ''Road Rules," in which an RV was a vehicle for youthful adventure -- now constitute a fast-growing segment of RV buyers. Last year the number of RV owners in the United States younger than 35 topped 1 million, up from 850,000 four years earlier.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/home/articles/2006/04/27/roll_out_the_second_home/
Jane Jacobs, 1916-2006
April 27, 2006
JANE JACOBS, the groundbreaking urban thinker who died Tuesday, never made her home in Boston, but she had strong views on how the city had changed and great affection for one neighborhood that hadn't: the North End. Her 1961 book, ''The Death and Life of Great American Cities," influenced many people who would guide development of the city in the 1970s and '80s -- and more by what they didn't build than what they did.
''It was a great experience to read her book," said Frederick Salvucci, former state secretary of transportation in a telephone interview yesterday. ''She was writing what I was thinking."
Jacobs wasn't antiautomobile, but she detested expressways that cut through urban neighborhoods. In the 1960s, she helped defeat a plan to slice a highway through Greenwich Village in Manhattan, where she lived. Salvucci and other activists drew inspiration from her insights as they fought to spare Boston and Cambridge from the Inner Belt and the Southwest Expressway.
Jacobs didn't have much use for the concept of high buildings scattered about plazas: ''vertical concentrations of people, separated by vacuities," she called them. ''She altered the way people thought about cities," said Beatrice Nessen, one of the leaders of the successful struggle to prevent construction of Park Plaza, a high-rise complex between Tremont and Arlington streets in the 1970s.
''Her book was a beacon," said Stephen Coyle, who read it as an undergraduate at Brandeis. When he became director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority in 1984, Jacobs's insights guided BRA policy to insist on active public uses for the first floors of commercial buildings. Jacobs's thinking guided the authority as it stressed the necessity of neighborhood input into development. ''She allowed alternative thinking to grow up, that all wisdom did not reside in those in power, " Coyle said.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/04/27/jane_jacobs_1916_2006/
Journalism at Risk
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHES OUT ON FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
Governments, Nongovernmental Organizations Promote Press Freedom
World Press Freedom Day celebrates accomplishments, marks problems
Washington – Each year, May 3 marks World Press Freedom Day when the importance of a free press to civil society is celebrated and the state of press freedom around the world is evaluated. The day also serves as a reminder to governments to respect their commitments to uphold the fundamental rights of journalists and their public audience’s right to be informed about the state of their countries and the world.
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed May 3 as World Press Freedom Day in 1993 to be a reminder to the world that in many countries the independence of the media is threatened by government censorship of newspapers and other media, and in some cases, the lives of journalists are threatened as they work to bring light to issues of public importance.
Press freedom and the extent to which independent media thrive vary greatly around the world, according to organizations such as Freedom House and the Committee to Protect Journalists that support a free press. Press freedom is nonexistent in some countries but thriving in others. Often, there is a mixture involving some degree of press freedom but also serious restrictions. Consequently, the task of supporting independent media is complex and very much dependent on the reality of life in particular areas.
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=April&x=20060425144727maduobbA0.5204737&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
MediaNews to acquire more Bay Area papers
San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times transactions part of McClatchy sale
MediaNews Group of Denver has agreed to acquire the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times -- the Bay Area's second and third largest newspapers -- as well as newspapers in Monterey and St. Paul, Minn., from McClatchy Co. in $1 billion deal that creates a regional newspaper power.
The Hearst Corp. of New York, publisher of The Chronicle, would provide financial backing for the transaction in exchange for a minority ownership stake in MediaNews newspaper operations outside the Bay Area, the companies said Wednesday. The deal would give MediaNews and its CEO, William Dean Singleton, a commanding presence in the region.
The company owns nine Bay Area papers, including the Oakland Tribune, the Marin Independent Journal and others in Alameda, San Mateo and Solano counties, with a combined daily circulation of 300,000 as well as two local weeklies. Adding the Mercury News, with a daily circulation of 274,000 and the Contra Costa Times, with 185,000, plus an assortment of Knight Ridder local weeklies, would give MediaNews a combined circulation of well over 700,000 and a dominant footprint in six counties.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/27/SINGLETON.TMP
Think yourself lucky if your big worry is the future of journalism
Thursday, 27 April 2006
The British media is fond of studying itself. The relationship and rivalry between print and digital journalism is today's preoccupation. Can printed and digital publications survive alongside each other and, if so, for how long? Is one platform better than the other? Are newspapers doomed? And so on.
And on and on. This never-ending neurosis about technology and the future crowds out some timeless struggles going on beyond the borders of the media-rich continents of Europe and America. The journalists involved in these timeless battles over free expression do not have the luxury of time to blog about the editorial standards at huffingtonpost.com.
Do the names U Win Tin, Al- Sanussi Al-Darrat and Dawit Isaac ring any bells?
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/270406/think_yourself_lucky_if_your_big_worry_is_the_future_of_journalism
Days of dictatorship are over
Keshab Raj Seadie
New York,
April 26, 2006
Freedom of press is a hallmark of democracy. Despite King Gyanendra's statements that he wants revive democracy in Nepal, recent actions have presented a different picture.
According to media reports, approximately 200 journalists marched through Kathmandu on April 15.
Police blocked the rally and beat them with batons.
The journalists were simply calling for restoration of press freedom and the release of journalists who had been jailed since King Gyanendra seized power on February 1, 2005.
Reports indicate that seven journalists were wounded and at least a dozen detained during the peaceful protest.
The Federation of Nepalese Journalists continues to denounce such actions.
On April 14, King Gyanendra issued a statement calling for conversation with seven major political parties in Nepal and suggesting general election.
At the same time, he did not offer any specifics.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1683181,0093.htm
High time for donors to support an all-Ethiopian Conference - NES
Thursday 27 April 2006 00:21.
Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES)
Scandinavian Chapter
Press Release No. 28
April 26, 2006
Title: It is High Time that Donors Support an Agenda for an All-Ethiopian and All- Inclusive National Conference and Dialogue
"We have no enemies in this struggle; ...... our struggle is to create a level playing field where everyone’s voice is heard and the collective vision that comes out of that is one shared by all. That is what the Ethiopian people hoped for in May 2005. That is what our leaders are in jail for. That is what our compatriots have paid the ultimate sacrifice for. That is what we will continue to struggle towards, for as long as it takes." Kinijit Open Letter, to the US Ambassador in Ethiopia, April 19, 2006
“... Only when we have wiped the tears from the faces of all, have we truly arrived as a nation”. M. Ghandi
http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15293
Ethiopia jails two more journalists, squashes private enterprise
Posted Wed, 26 Apr 2006
Addis Ababa - Ethiopia has sentenced two more journalists to jail on revived charges under the country's 1992 press law, said the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists' sources on Tuesday.
The sources said that Wosonseged Gebrekidan, who is already jailed on anti-state charges, was sentenced to 16 months for defamation on April18 2006, while freelance writer Abraham Reta was sentenced Monday to one year and he was jailed on the same day.
Gebrekidan, editor of the now banned Addis Zena, is one of the 14 journalists on trial with dozens of opposition leaders for allegedly trying to overthrow the constitutional order.
They were arrested in a crackdown following anti-government protests in November 2005 and could face a possible death sentence or life imprisonment under the country's Criminal Code.
Since the start of the crackdown, several journalists have also been sentenced to prison terms on old charges under the press law.
Gebrekidan is already serving an eight-month sentence for defamation handed down in December.
These circumstances work against Ethiopia’s policy of becoming a middle-income country through sustainable growth as private enterprise is undermined. Furthermore, the alleged treatment of these journalists does not show a country that is interested in developing first world rights and so the possible benefits of growing wealth are undermined. -panapress
http://www.businessinafrica.net/news/east_africa/269778.htm
Reporters without Borders
Income and expenditure
The Reporters Without Borders budget in 2004 was €3,235,928 and the financial situation remained steady. Self-generated funds increased and the organisation achieved a surplus while substantially expanding its activities.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10594
Ethiopia: Two More Journalists Sentenced to Jail On Old Charges
PRESS RELEASE
April 25, 2006
Posted to the web April 26, 2006
Ethiopia
Two more journalists have been sentenced to jail on revived charges under Ethiopia's 1992 press law, according to CPJ sources. Wosonseged Gebrekidan, who is already jailed on antistate charges, was sentenced to 16 months for defamation on April 18. Freelance writer Abraham Reta was sentenced yesterday to one year and jailed the same day.
Gebrekidan, editor of the now banned Addis Zena, is one of 14 journalists on trial with dozens of opposition leaders for allegedly trying to overthrow the constitutional order. They were arrested in a crackdown following antigovernment protests in November and could face a possible death sentence or life imprisonment under the country's Criminal Code. Since the start of the crackdown, several journalists have also been sentenced to prison terms on old charges under the press law. Gebrekidan is already serving an eight-month sentence for defamation handed down in December.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200604260675.html
From the Right, as if there is anything else intended …
Reporters and Investigations
There is no reason for delay in pursuing the CIA leak case.
National Review's Byron York sensibly asks: what are the next steps in the investigation into the intelligence community's leaking of classified information to the press, including the deeply sensitive detention arrangements for high-ranking al Qaeda captives (the so-called "black-site" prisons)? That disclosure profoundly harmed our nation's critical relationship with foreign intelligence services which have been assisting the war effort.
In connection with the internal CIA end of that probe, one intelligence officer, Mary O. McCarthy, has been terminated for unauthorized contacts with members of the media, including the Washington Post's Dana Priest. It was Priest who reported the black-sites story last year. Thus, it came as no surprise this weekend when several press accounts, including an Associated Press story published by the Post itself, identified McCarthy as a black-sites source.
McCarthy, however, has now flatly denied that this is the case, asserting that she did not even have access to such information. Today, the Post reports that at least one senior intelligence official familiar with the probe is supporting McCarthy's claims. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the CIA's public statements, while strongly suggestive of McCarthy's having leaked classified information, did not tie her directly to the black-sites disclosure.
http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200604251149.asp
Time to Support Haiti
Tuesday 25 April 2006
By Michael Deibert [1]
Op-Ed submitted to AlterPresse - 23rd April 2006
On 14th May, if everything goes according to plan, Haiti will inaugurate René Garcia Prèval as its new president. Shortly thereafter, the country will install new senators and deputies for its upper and lower houses of parliament. Mr. Prèval, who served as Haiti’s president from 1996 until 2001, will take over the leadership of a country courtesy of a ballot supervised by the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and replace an unelected interim government that has overseen convulsing violence and economic stagnation since the flight of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.
MINUSTAH, lead by former Chilean Foreign Minister Juan Gabriel Valdès and consisting of 7,519 UN peacekeeping troops, 1,776 police and a staff of 1,132 civilian personnel, has been widely and often accurately criticised for its inability to impose order in Haiti’s lawless capital, Port-au-Prince. The city has seen hundreds, possibly thousands, killed in waves of kidnappings, gang wars, blanket police retaliation and vigilante justice since Aristide fled amid an armed rebellion and massive street protests against his rule. But the mission, even despite the timid turnout for this month’s second-round vote, must nonetheless be congratulated on pulling off in the first round a feat that even a few months before many would have thought impossible: mass participation in an electoral process now widely viewed as legitimate in a country riven by class and political hatreds.
http://www.alterpresse.org/article.php3?id_article=4536
Campaign highlights press freedom
DELENE PIENAAR
ON PRESS Freedom Day – on May 3 – attention is drawn to the more than 500 journalists world-wide who were arrested last year simply for doing their jobs.
The theme for this year’s campaign, run by The World Association of Newspapers (Wan), is: “Don’t lock up information – stop jailing journalists”.
Their website speaks of journalists like Raul Rivero who spent two years behind bars in Cuba; San San Nwe, a Burmese journalist, who was released from prison after seven years and her colleague U Win Tin who has been jailed 16 years.
The most intriguing story is that of Pius Njawe, one of Africa’s most prominent journalists. He was arrested 126 times over the past 34 years in Cameroon.
http://www.news24.com/Regional_Papers/Components/Category_Article_Text_Template/0,,541-545-549_1922448~A,00.html
London Nepal Embassy Protest Sat 29th
NEPAL OR NOTHING
Our correspondent in Kathmandu writes..
In Nepal the showdown between a fat power-crazed king and a huge pro-democracy movement has shut down the entire country since April 6th. The strike is absolute - no driving vehicles, no work, often no shops at all. Hospitals, commercial airlines and banks are on strike. Food is getting expensive and fuel is scarce, but until the king stands down and returns democracy and human rights to the people, the strike is likely to continue.
The media and the world in general has paid little notice. Nepal is not rich in oil or uranium, and doesn't export much. The only thing at stake here is the freedom and future of its 23 million citizens.
The police and army are loyal to King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev - a man who believes he is an incarnation of Vishnu with a divine right to screw the country. Everybody else thinks he's a fat old nutter who killed off the entire royal family and blamed his son-in-law, who then conveniently died, in order to become king. He decided a year ago to take over complete control as a divine ruler and dump democracy and parliament. Famously he declared that the "days of monarchy being seen but not heard... are over". All human rights have been canceled and thousands have been jailed without trial.
Massive numbers have hit the streets in virtually every town in the country. The andolan (protest) was initially called for April 6th-9th, but in response to police violence it was extended indefinitely. Every part of society has held marches and demos against the king. Lawyers, journalists, doctors, women, old people, families of 'disappeared' people, professors, schoolkids, tourists, government workers, NGO workers, students and families of police have taken part. Police have attacked all of the above, perhaps with the exception of their own families!
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/04/338730.html
New Zealand Herald
All beneficiaries to be offered work
27.04.06 4.00pm
New beneficiaries will get help to find work regardless of the type of benefits they are on after it was found that one-in-five said they are able to work, Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope said today.
"From May 2006, all new Work and Income clients will be case managed differently to improve the focus on getting people into the right job," Mr Benson-Pope said.
"The starting point will be what a person can do rather than what benefit they are entitled to."
Work and Income has been piloting an employment case management approach to beneficiaries not receiving the dole -- such as the Domestic Purposes, Sickness or Invalid's Benefit - similar to the approach taken with the unemployment benefit.
"The pilots we ran showed that up to 20 per cent of clients who get a non-unemployment related benefit were identified as being able to work now, be it part-time or full-time," Mr Benson-Pope said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10379212
Former Catholic brother jailed for sexually abusing boys
27.04.06 1.00pm
Disgraced former Catholic brother Bernard Kevin McGrath has been jailed for five years -- his third prison term for the sexual abuse of boys.
At a sentencing following a four-week trial in the High Court at Christchurch, Justice Lester Chisholm told the 58-year-old that he was sceptical about his claims of remorse.
In setting the length of the jail term, he had to take into account a 1993 jail term imposed on McGrath in Christchurch, and a nine-month term in Sydney later.
The latest offending was against boys at Marylands School in the 1970s, where McGrath was a brother, teacher and housemaster.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10379187
NZ soldier caught up in new Egypt blast
27.04.06 9.05am UPDATE
A New Zealander has escaped injury in twin suicide attacks targeting security personnel in Egypt.
The attacks came two days after triple bombings killed 24 people in a resort further south.
One suicide bomber targeted an Egyptian police officer and peacekeepers from the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) near the Gaza Strip border town of Rafah.
The second suicide bomber targeted Egyptian police as they rushed to the scene of the first explosion.
The soldier was named today as Army Private Joshua Roewen, who has been in the Army for three years and is 21-years-old. He was driving close to the North Camp base at the time of one of the explosions.
Private Roewen's quick actions assisted in getting the vehicle away from the danger area, the army said.
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Shatford said: "He is coping well with the situation and is undergoing critical incident management support from MFO staff, which occurs routinely after any significant event. He is expected to remain with the MFO to complete his deployment."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10379139
Radiation therapists go on strike
27.04.06 1.00pm
Hundreds of cancer patients nationwide are having their radiation therapy deferred today, as radiation therapists go on strike.
The therapists are walking off the job for 14 hours in protest at the rejection of their claim for a cost of living rise. They say the district health boards are offering them a zero increase.
But DHBs say radiation therapists are already getting between two and six per cent more this year, as part of a package negotiated in 2002 to address the severe shortage of trained people in their profession.
They say the therapists' salaries have increased 25 per cent in three years, and there's now no shortage.
The DHBs say radiation therapists are not just claiming a cost of living increase, but also want a six per cent superannuation contribution and an extra week's leave.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10379159
Iran threatens to strike at US targets
27.04.06 1.00pm
TEHRAN - Iran vowed today to strike at US interests worldwide if it is attacked by the United States, which is keeping military options open in case diplomacy fails to curb Tehran's nuclear programme.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the threat two days before the UN nuclear watchdog reports on whether Iran is meeting Security Council demands to halt uranium enrichment.
Iran says it will not stop enrichment, which it says is purely for civilian purposes and not part of what the United States says is a clandestine effort to make atomic bombs.
"The Americans should know that if they assault Iran their interests will be harmed anywhere in the world that is possible," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television.
"The Iranian nation will respond to any blow with double the intensity," he said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379176
Sri Lanka strikes at Tigers as thousands flee homes
27.04.06 1.00pm
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's military launched air and artillery strikes on Tamil Tiger targets in the island's northeast on Wednesday, with thousands fleeing their homes a day after a suicide attack damaged an already fragile cease-fire.
Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said the latest strikes came after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fired at the military near the northeastern port of Trincomalee. By night, the army said the island was quiet.
The rebels said they would retaliate if the government continued the attacks, launched after a suspected Tiger suicide blast in the capital killed 10 and wounded the army commander.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379194
UK finds bird flu in dead chickens
27.04.06 10.15am
LONDON - Dead chickens on a farm in eastern England have tested positive for bird flu, the British government has announced.
First tests suggest they had the H7 strain of the disease, and not the H5N1 strain, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said in a statement. H5N1 has killed more than 100 people since late 2003, most of them in Asia.
"Further tests are being carried out to determine the strain of the virus and more will be known tomorrow," it said.
Britain said all the birds will be killed at the farm near the market town of Dereham, in the eastern English county of Norfolk, an agricultural center which is home to some of Europe's biggest poultry farms.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379167
Oxfam withdraws backing for trade deal talks
27.04.06 1.00pm
By Philip Thornton
Oxfam has abandoned its support for the current talks on a new trade deal, saying Europe and the US have failed to live up to their promises to use trade to cut poverty in the world's poorest countries.
In a marked U-turn after four years of support for the painfully protracted negotiations, the global aid agency will today warn poor countries the deal currently on the table would make them worse off.
The move comes as MPs blame the UK for failing to use its presidency of the EU last year to force through a better deal.
It said no deal was better than a bad deal, accusing the leading rich countries of failing to offer meaningful cuts in farm subsidies and tariffs.
It blames Peter Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, and his US counterpart Rob Portman for playing a game of brinkmanship that has sidelined the poverty agenda - at the heart of the talks when they were launched in November 2001.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379163
Jolie speaks about schools, not babies or Brad
27.04.06 1.00pm
JOHANNESBURG - Heavily-pregnant Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has broken her silence from her African hideaway, but she wasn't talking babies or Brad Pitt.
Jolie, whose trip to Namibia has sparked a blaze of interest in the international media, took time to promote one of her favourite causes: boosting educational opportunities for the world's poor.
Talking to reporters in a teleconference with British finance minister Gordon Brown, Jolie said it was time for the world to get behind the Global Campaign for Education, a new plan aimed at giving 100 million children in poor countries the chance to go to school.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379150
White House aide Rove testifies in leak case
27.04.06 10.30am
WASHINGTON - Karl Rove has appeared before a US grand jury probing the leak of a CIA officer's identity but his lawyer said there was still no sign the top presidential adviser will face charges in the case.
Rove remains under investigation but has not received any indication from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about whether he would be charged, attorney Robert Luskin said.
"He testified voluntarily and unconditionally ... to explore a matter raised since Mr. Rove's last appearance in October 2005," Luskin said in a statement. "Mr. Fitzgerald has affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges."
Fitzgerald has told Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser, that he is not a target of the investigation, Luskin said, meaning that he has not received a letter indicating that legal charges are likely.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379171
Wrong body returned to Australia from Iraq
27.04.06 9.20am
Defence Department officials in Australia have revealed a body which has arrived in Melbourne, is not that of the first Australian troop killed in Iraq.
The family of Private Jake Kovco had gathered at Melbourne Airport to claim the soldier's body, only to find out the wrong one had been sent from Baghdad.
It is not yet known how the error happened, but Private Kovco's body is still in Kuwait and Australia's Defence Department is promising to make all efforts to return it as quickly as possible.
The 26-year-old soldier was cleaning his weapon on Friday, when he accidently shot himself.
There are 110 Australian troops in Baghdad as part of a security detachment assigned to protect officials.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379154
Rice joins Rumsfeld in Iraq to meet new PM
27.04.06 8.00am
BAGHDAD - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said after meeting Iraq's new prime minister-designate on Wednesday they were impressed with his commitment to unite the country.
President Bush, who has called for a national unity government in Baghdad to help defeat a Sunni Arab insurgency and end sectarian blood-letting, dispatched Rice and Rumsfeld to Baghdad to hold talks with Nuri al-Maliki.
"He was really impressive," Rice told reporters after the meeting with the tough-talking Shi'ite Islamist, nominated last week at the end of four months of political paralysis in Baghdad over the formation of a new government after December elections.
On top of the long-running insurgency there has been an explosion of sectarian violence in Iraq since a Shi'ite shrine was bombed in February, raising fears among many Iraqis of a possible slide into civil war.
The bloodshed has threatened Bush's hopes of starting to withdraw some of the 133,000 US troops in Iraq before US congressional elections in November.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379144
Bush blocks assets related to Hariri killing
27.04.06 7.25am
WASHINGTON - President George W Bush has issued an order blocking the assets of anyone connected with the February 14, 2005, assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
Bush in a statement said the new order blocks the property and interests of anyone determined to have been involved in Hariri's assassination and that additional steps were being taken "concerning certain actions of the government of Syria."
A UN report last year implicated senior Syrian security officials in Hariri's killing and said Syria was impeding the inquiry. Syria has denied involvement.
Bush's order does not designate anyone specifically, but establishes the criteria for who would fall under the order.
In addition to blocking the assets of anyone found to be involved in Hariri's assassination, the order targets anyone involved in an assassination or bombing in Lebanon since October 1, 2004, related to Hariri's killing or implicating the Syrian government, an administration official said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379140
Egypt hit by more bombings
27.04.06
ISMAILIA, Egypt - Two men blew themselves up in Egypt's north Sinai in what appeared to be abortive attacks by a mysterious militant group on a multinational peace force and on the Egyptian police.
One bomber died near an airport used by the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), which monitors the border with Israel, and another close to an Egyptian police vehicle. No one else was hurt, the Interior Ministry said.
Cabinet spokesman Magdy Rady said he thought the incidents could be linked to bombings which killed 18 people in the budget resort of Dahab on Monday - the third attack in two years on Sinai resorts frequented by foreign tourists.
The state news agency MENA quoted informed security sources as saying all the attacks were related and the Dahab bombings could have been the work of three Sinai Bedouin who have been on the run in the mountainous region since last July.
"The sources said ... that the perpetrators of the Dahab bombings were from the fugitive remnants of the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings (in July 2005)," the agency said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379142
Nepal's Maoist rebels declare ceasefire
27.04.06 11.25am
KATHMANDU - Nepal's Maoist rebels declared a three-month unilateral ceasefire from Thursday and said the move reflected their desire for the formation of a special assembly to write a new constitution.
"Our People's Liberation Army will not carry out any offensive military action during this period and will remain defensive," rebel chief Prachanda said in a statement.
"Our party believes that this declaration will highly respect the aspiration for the constituent assembly, a democratic republic and peace that is seen on the street."
The Maoists have been fighting to overthrow the monarchy since 1996 and at least 13,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379178
Book on Maasai tribe fuels debate on lost lands
27.04.06 1.40pm
NAIROBI - Kenya's Maasai lost their best land through British colonial swindling and their own political intrigues, a historian has written in a new account of the struggle by one of Africa's most emblematic tribes.
A century on, the Maasai still suffer from a colonial hangover they say was aggravated by post-independence government policies that keep them estranged from ancestral lands.
But slim knowledge about the signing of 1904 and 1911 treaties between Britain and illiterate Maasai tribesmen, and a 1913 lawsuit, have led to confusion about how the disastrous moves came about, author Lotte Hughes said.
"It is not a black and white issue, and I do not mean racially," Hughes, a historian at Britain's Open University, told Reuters at this week's launch in Kenya of her book.
"Moving the Maasai: A Colonial Misadventure" has already given new fodder to Maasai activists seeking to sue Kenya and Britain for the return of their lands.
Among Kenya's smallest but best-known tribes, Maasai, with their spears, bright red clothes and beads, represent an almost mythic image of Africa.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379195
Suspected US agent silenced
27.04.06
DERA ISMAIL KHAN - Officials said pro-Taleban militants beheaded a cab driver on suspicion of being an informer for the United States, the fourth such killing in Pakistan's restive Waziristan region this month.
The body was found by the roadside in Shavai Kainari, 25km south of Wana, the main town of South Waziristan that borders Afghanistan in an area where US-led forces are hunting al Qaeda militants and their allies.
An intelligence official said the driver was kidnapped by the Muslim militants last week.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379057
Bush picks Fox News host as press secretary
26.04.06 4.20pm
WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush has picked Fox News Radio host Tony Snow as his new White House press secretary and is expected to announce the choice as early as Wednesday, a Republican official said today.
Snow will replace Scott McClellan, who announced his resignation last week as part of a staff shake-up engineered by new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten aimed at reviving Bush's presidency.
Sources familiar with the situation said Snow wrestled with the decision for several days on whether to take the gruelling job. A former speechwriter for former President George Bush, he was treated for colon cancer last year.
Fox News said on its website Snow was given a clean bill of health by his oncologist Tuesday, following a CAT scan and other tests that were undertaken last Thursday.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379031
Chinese trio get death for killing 9 prostitutes
27.04.06 4.20pm
BEIJING - A Chinese court has sentenced three men to death for robbing, raping and killing nine women, most of whom were prostitutes, and then skinning one of them.
Hong Kong's Beijing-funded Wen Wei Po newspaper said the Shaanxi province High Court upheld death sentences handed down by the Intermediate People's Court in the city of Xian to Yin Xiaomin, Cao Ying and Hu Yuelong.
They dismembered their first victim, a prostitute who had worked at a barber shop serving as a front for a brothel, in 1993 after raping and robbing her of 20 yuan ($4), according to Beijing's mouthpiece in Hong Kong.
The gang also kidnapped and skinned a nightclub hostess and made a vest out of her skin, the newspaper said.
Crime was virtually unheard of in China in the years after the Communists swept to power in 1949 but it has staged a comeback since economic reforms introduced in the late 1970s widened a wealth gap and left an ideological vacuum.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10379204
Flowers and tears mark Chernobyl anniversary
27.04.06 8.00am
CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -Mourners laid red carnations - symbols of grief - in the shadow of the ruined Chernobyl power station on Wednesday as they marked the 20th anniversary of the world's worst civil nuclear accident.
Hundreds filed past a memorial wall engraved with the names of the local fire crew. They were among the first to perish when Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 blew up on April 26, 1986, spewing radioactive dust across Europe.
One old woman in a headscarf made the sign of the cross as she stooped to lay a single carnation at the foot of the wall.
Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko said it was time to start healing the scars left by the disaster.
"After 20 years of pain and fear, this land must feel progress," he told mourners in Chernobyl - epicenter of a still-contaminated 30-km "exclusion zone" that straddles parts of Ukraine and neighboring Belarus.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379147
King gets judges to sort out crisis
27.04.06
BANGKOK - Thailand's top judges are to meet tomorrow to find a solution to the country's political crisis in response to a rare intervention by revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
The ruling Thai Rak Thai party and the three main Opposition parties were separately holding talks.
The King summoned senior judges to tell them he could not produce a solution to the crisis. The Opposition's election boycott on April 2 had produced a undemocratic one-party Parliament.
The boycott has made it unlikely Parliament will be able to meet to begin the process of forming a new Government.
It was the King's first direct political intervention since 1992 when he stepped in to end a bloody confrontation between a military Government and a "people power" street protest.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379058
Solomons PM forced out after eight days
27.04.06
By Ainsley Thomson
HONIARA - "We need change, we need change," they yelled, waving palm branches and shouting with joy, as news filtered through to a jubilant crowd that their Prime Minister had stood down.
The same Solomon Islanders who eight days ago went on a violent rampage to protest against Snyder Rini's election, yesterday took to the streets in celebration after the Opposition pulled together the numbers to force his resignation.
Resident Luke Hoasi told the Herald people expected a change of government.
"We don't want any of the old ministers in the new government, we want a completely new government."
Rini was associated with the old guard of politics in the Solomon Islands and with the failed governments of the past, which led to the armed intervention in 2003 by New Zealand and Australia to end five years of civil strife.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10379130
Antarctica
Protection sought for islands off Antarctica
11.03.06
The Government plans to seek United Nations protection in the Ross Sea equivalent to a marine reserve around the icy Balleny Islands, which may provide a foothold for wildlife dispersed by the effects of global warming.
A scientific expedition that returned from the islands on March 5 found there had been a surge in the population of chinstrap penguins.
Numbers were well up on the previously recorded population of about 30, said the expedition's scientific leader, Franz Smith.
"We did one shore landing and found 300 birds," he said. "One interpretation of that ... is that this could be something to do with climate change."
One island in the Balleny group, Sabrina Island, is already listed as a special protected area because its population of a few dozen chinstrap penguins was thought to be the only ones of that species for thousands of kilometres along the Antarctic coast.
The Ballenys are a 195km-long chain of volcanic ice-covered islands, 250km off the coast of Antarctica, which scientists describe as an "oasis".
They rise from a seafloor depth of nearly 2000m, directly in the path of circumpolar ocean currents, forcing an upwelling of nutrient-rich waters where the Ross Sea meets the Southern Ocean.
Because they are the only islands at this latitude for thousands of kilometres in both directions they also provide essential breeding and nesting habitat for land-dependent Antarctic seal and seabird populations.
Several whale species are known to feed in the area, some of them migrating long distances to get there.
Dr Smith said the diversity of marine life there was unique.
To obtain a high seas marine protected area around the Balleny Islands under the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, New Zealand will have to show ecological processes around the islands are critical to the healthy functioning of the larger Ross Sea ecosystem. It will also need permission under the Antarctic Treaty System.
- NZPA
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/location/story.cfm?l_id=2&ObjectID=10372042
continued …
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Morning Papers - concluding
Zoos
Earth Day: Zoo helps kids' views
About 2,000 schoolchildren went on a scavenger hunt at the Montgomery Zoo on Thursday for treasure more valuable than gold or precious jewels -- the knowledge of how to protect and preserve the Earth for future generations.
The hunt was part of the zoo's Earth Day Safari, a two-day event that teaches children about the environmental problems plaguing their world. Students from schools throughout central and south Alabama turned out for the event.
Steven Pierce, program services director for the zoo, said about 3,500 more students were expected today.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060421/NEWS/604210321/1001
Kids make toys for bored zoo animals
TOYS FOR TIGERS: Boys & Girls Club helps alleviate animal boredom at zoo.
BY SHELLEY NELSON
NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Imagine being penned up in a cage all day with nothing to do.
Children at the Boys & Girls Club in Lincoln Park thought about that when they listened to a member of the Lake Superior Zoo staff discuss the problem of boredom faced by some of the animals.
And the kids decided to come up with a solution.
Club members mounted an attack on animal boredom by creating toys designed to enrich the animals' environment as part of National and Global Youth Service Day.
"With the toys that we made, (the animals) could have fun and be active," said 10-year-old Carly Johnson of Duluth.
Club members created and decorated papier-mache boxes and strung beads on knotted shoelaces to donate to the zoo for the animals' enjoyment. Carly helped with both projects.
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/local/14394829.htm
Parasite kills endangered tigers in Pakistan zoo
21 Apr 2006 11:54:53 GMT
Source: Reuters
KARACHI, April 21 (Reuters) - A blood parasite that has killed scores of tigers in India and Bangladesh has now killed two endangered Bengal tigers at a zoo in Pakistan, officials said on Friday.
The tigers died in Lahore Zoo on Wednesday, victims of the "Trypanosoma" parasite which is spread by flies and mosquitoes, Nasir Saleem, a deputy director of the zoo, said.
The parasite is known to have killed over 100 tigers in India and Bangladesh in the last six months.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK127262.htm
Zoo's success
Apr 21 2006
Chester Chronicle
GROUP visits to Chester Zoo are at an all-time high, with bookings up 54% on last year.
Groups have been taking full advantage of the benefits they get and the zoo's tourism co-ordinator, Julie Benn, has been inundated with inquiries and bookings for the summer.
More than 100,000 people visit Chester Zoo each year as part of a group of 15 people or more. From April, groups can enjoy a special admission price.
http://iccheshireonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=16976044&method=full&siteid=50020&headline=zoo-s-success--name_page.html
Zoo Veterinarians Examine Sloth Bear Cub
Sloth Bear Cub Appears Strong, Healthy
POSTED: 2:48 pm EDT April 21, 2006
UPDATED: 3:40 pm EDT April 21, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Veterinarians at the National Zoo have gotten their first look at the sloth bear cub that was born in Jan. 9.
They were able to conduct a quick exam Thursday after numerous attempts by animal care staff to separate the cub and its very protective mother, Hana. Veterinarian Carlos Sanchez, who gave the cub a de-wormer and a rabies shot, said the male cub, which weighs about 11 pounds, appears strong and healthy.
Zoo officials said this is the third cub for 11-year-old Hana. She gave birth to two cubs in December 2004, but both cubs died within four days of being born.
At birth, sloth bear cubs are very small, fragile and dependent on their mothers. They are known to stay in their dens until they are a few months old.
http://www.nbc4.com/news/8886386/detail.html
NEW DELHI: First snakes and now cats, all kinds of non-human threats are besieging Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's sprawling residence.
Anxious not to be caught catnapping on the job, security officials at the august residence sought the expertise of senior Delhi Zoo officials in tackling the feline menace.
"Though we only deal with wild animals, our experts will try to suggest ways to put an end to the problem," said a zoo official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Senior officials said it was only after stray cats were seen ambling in and around 7
Race Course Road, a complex of four spacious bungalows linked to each other, that they had to press the panic button and ask for help from the zoo officials.
A few months ago, the prime ministerial residence had to deal with the menace of non-
venomous snakes in the leafy gardens.
"Our job is to protect the prime minister and we are taking all steps to do our job," said a senior official of SPG (Special Protection Group).
Officials said the snakes that were found in the gardens, which the prime minister uses for his morning walks, were non-venomous wolf snakes.
"These snakes have large fangs but are not poisonous," said the zoo official.
However, not all animals go hiss over here.
The gardens are also home to friendly peacocks which preen and dance in front
of photographers and television cameras during major prime ministerial event.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1025400
Zoo plans semi-annual volunteer training class
Beardsley Zoo is planning its semi-annual volunteer training class for new Zoo Friends and Zoo Gardeners. Prospective volunteers must meet with Volunteer Coordinator Tracy Benham prior to April 30. She can be reached at (203) 330-6046.
A nominal fee for training materials and dues is required. A minimum of six volunteer hours per month is requested.
Zoo Friends help run the zoo’s special events and enhance visitors’ experiences by answering general questions. Zoo Gardeners work in the Victorian Greenhouse, help maintain flower and herb beds on zoo grounds, and may assist with exhibit landscaping.
http://news.newstimeslive.com/story.php?id=82909&category=Regional
Zoo's New Ad Gets Some Negative Attention
Monkey Exhibit Ad In Union-Tribune
POSTED: 5:49 pm PDT April 21, 2006
UPDATED: 6:25 pm PDT April 21, 2006
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SAN DIEGO -- San Diego Zoo officials said their latest ad campaign was not intended to offend anyone, but it has.
The advertisement promotes the zoo's newly reopened monkey exhibit.
The campaign's been going on for about a year now and has hit its first snag.
The latest ad in the campaign is a single page in the Union-Tribune, promoting the monkey exhibit. The newspaper did not receive any negative calls about it, and neither did 10News. The zoo received very few.
http://www.10news.com/news/8893751/detail.html
Adoptions draw human, animal closer
http://www.chinaview.cn/ 2006-04-22 07:51:45
BEIJING, April 22 -- For Zhang Yifeng's third birthday, his mother gave him a present more surprising than the typical toy cars or baseballs -- she adopted a chimpanzee for him.
Zhang Yifeng visits the chimpanzee his mother adopted for him at the Beijing Zoo.
Zhang's mother made a donation to the Beijing Zoo in June last year and, in return, the zoo allowed her to adopt the chimpanzee for her son.
Zhang's parents, who named the creature Ding Ding, take him to the zoo almost every weekend to visit his "good friend."
"I love Ding Ding," said the boy.
Zhang is not alone. More private individuals and households have adopted and befriended animals of the Beijing Zoo after the zoo's donation and adoption programme was initiated in early 2001.
The programme is designed to raise money to take better care of the animals. It also aims at getting more individuals, households and enterprises involved in the efforts to protect wild animals, said Ye Mingxia, an official with the Beijing Zoo's publicity department.
Donations are used to improve animals' living conditions, including disease prevention, facilities upgrading and scientific research, Ye said.
According to the programme, any domestic and overseas individual, household or enterprise is allowed to adopt animals after donating a sum of money.
It requires the minimum 500 yuan (US$61.70) donation to adopt an animal. People can name the animals if the donation reaches at least 1,000 yuan (US$123.30), according to Ye.
"Most adopted animals were birthday presents from parents to their children, and there are also some young men who gifted adoptions to their girlfriends," said Zhang Jinguo, vice-director of the Beijing Zoo, adding that a total of 36 families adopted animals last year.
"Public interest in animal donation and adoption has been on the rise."
The donation and adoption programme is expected to arouse people's passion for animals and let them develop a closer relationship with animals, said Zhang.
Most of the animals that get adopted are pandas and monkeys, said Zhang.
Beijing's Hepingmen Middle School donated 10,000 yuan (US$1,233) for a golden monkey, and that money has been used to improve the animal's living conditions.
The golden monkey, originally living in the alpine area, is not used to Beijing's droughty weather. As a result, the zoo used the money to buy moistening treatment facilities to improve its living conditions, according to Ye.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/22/content_4459327.htm
Fort Wayne Children's Zoo Opens
April 23, 2006 04:31 PM EDT
New State Slogan Getting Mixed Reviews
The Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo opened for the summer season on Saturday. This year the zoo has a new and improved gift shop. The space was doubled and the shop has been Wild Things.
On opening day three tiger cubs will celebrated their second birthdays. Teddy, Sparky and Cantik were born at the zoo in 2004. They now weigh between 175 to 235 pounds. Visitors to the zoo will also got a chance to see a young baby Siamang named Tucker. Tucker is a 10-month old ape who can be seen with his dad in the Indonesian Rain Forest. Other additions to the Rain Forest are the thorny devils insects and two new species of birds. Thorny devils look like tree bark and are 6 inches long. Golden-crested mynahs and Pekin robins will join other birds in the domed jungle. Also new for visitors is a jungle carpet python. The snake has yellow and black coloring and will be housed in the Australian Adventure.
The zoo hours are daily from 9 a.m. to 5p.m. The zoo season lasts through October 15th. Adults are $7.50 and children are $5. For more information on the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo click here.
http://www.wane.com/Global/story.asp?S=4801583&nav=0RYb
Longer Stay
By STAFF
Those who missed out on sneaking a final peek at the Calgary Zoo's visiting baby hippo have another chance.
Splash, originally slated to fly home to Quebec on Thursday, will be sticking around for a few more weeks, said zoo spokeswoman Kathleen Hewitt yesterday.
"His new habitat isn't quite ready, so they've asked us to keep him a bit longer," Hewitt said, about Splash's home at the Granby Zoo.
Splash has caused quite a stir since his arrival last December.
"We've been taking a lot of phone calls about him, he's become so popular with everyone," she said.
Splash has doubled in size to 690 lb. (314 kg) during his stay, requiring zoo staff to build a new crate to ship him May 4.
"We're going to miss him," said Hewitt.
Previous story: Busiest roadwork year yet
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2006/04/22/1545622-sun.html
Painful cuts could result from failure of zoo levies
By JENNI LAIDMAN
BLADE STAFF WRITER
It will be time for painful decisions at the Toledo Zoo if either of its two levies fails at the polls May 2.
But if the issues pass, zoo officials say, it won't mean free spending or rapid growth.
Passage "means that we don't have to make any major deletions of staff or programs,'' said Anne Baker, the zoo's executive director. "We're still going to have to do belt-tightening. We just need to do that to be fiscally responsible.''
On the ballot is an 0.85-mill, five-year operating levy, which helps pay salaries and feeds animals. The other is a 1-mill, 10-year capital improvement levy that will pay for repairs to the antiquated aquarium, eliminate $17 million in debt acquired under the zoo's previous management, and initiate a pay-as-you-go system that will prevent future debt.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060422/NEWS09/604220336
Chaffee Zoo Hosts Breakfast With the Animals
April 22, 2006 - Valley children got the chance to eat breakfast with some very interesting guests and a little song and dance Saturday morning.
The Chaffee Zoo hosted Breakfast with the Animals, so the kids had their usual weekend breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon.
But they also shared some breakfast with the giraffes, who stretched out to get some grub.
The kids also checked on the primates and the sea lions eating their morning meals.
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=local&id=4107094
Zoo to use Smith cash on grizzlies
Plans bear showcase with funds donated by FedEx founder, wife
By Wayne Risher
Contact
April 23, 2006
The Memphis Zoo will build Teton Trek, a showcase for grizzly bears, with a $10 million donation from FedEx founder Fred Smith and his wife Diane.
The largest private contribution in the zoo's 100-year history, the Smith donation is part of a $28 million, 10-year campaign that will also fund a future hippopotamus exhibit.
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Teton Trek, tentatively scheduled to open in spring 2009, will immerse visitors in natural history and the culture of Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Teton mountains.
The grizzlies, namesake of the city's NBA franchise, have been missing from the zoo since 2002; the old bear moats were shut down and the last grizzlies were sent to the Detroit Zoo.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0,2845,MCA_25340_4644464,00.html
Thousands gather for the Topeka Zoo Family Character Fair
Topeka — A couple thousand people showed up at the Topeka Zoo today for the annual Family Character Fair.
The first 500 families at the Zoo this morning received a free book titled Achieving True Success: How to build character as a family.
The day's activities were headlined with a scavenger hunt through the Zoo.
There were also pony rides, inflatable slides, carnival games and face painting for those tiny Topekans to enjoy!
http://www.49abcnews.com/news/2006/apr/22/thousands_gather_topeka_zoo_family_character_fair/
Valley throws Earthly bashes
BY LISA M. SODDERS, Staff Writer
For More Info
• Photo Gallery: Earth Day
With nature walks, songs and educational opportunities, San Fernando Valley residents celebrated Earth Day on Saturday, despite overcast skies that threatened rain.
At the WorldFest celebration in Woodley Park, Dean Spunt, 24, of Hollywood, and his girlfriend, Jennifer Clavin, 22, of Silver Lake, said they made sure they took the Orange Line busway to the festival, rather than drive.
"This is my fourth year, and it just keeps getting better and better," said Spunt, a vegan. "All of these booths give you information and make it easy for you to make choices that are more Earth-friendly. You realize, `I don't have to go out and protest, I can buy this product or not buy this product,' and it's not just all-or-nothing."
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_3740222
Zoo raises awareness on Earth Day
Adriana M. Chávez
El Paso Times
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Hundreds of visitors to the El Paso Zoo learned about the world's endangered species and changing climate Saturday during the zoo's annual Earth Day celebration.
The event featured informational booths by businesses and environmental organizations and a display of hybrid cars. About 60 volunteers, including Mayor John Cook, also read a list of more than 15,000 endangered species.
The zoo's Earth Day event continues from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today.
Lower Valley resident Leah Smith took her little sister, Leslie Astorga, 9, to the zoo on a family outing Saturday afternoon and received information on endangered animals, including the panda.
http://www.borderlandnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060423/NEWS/604230337/1001
Snow forecast for Chiang Mai
Thailand's Zoological Park Organisation gave a greenlight to construct an artificial snow building for a pair of pandas, ambassadors of friendship from China, now living at the Chiang Mai Zoo.
The planned artificial snow habitat is designed to encourage the pandas to produce baby pandas.
Zoo director Thanapat Pongphamorn said that the planned structure was proposed by the zoo to make a new home for Chuang Chuang and Lin Hui similar to their natural habitat in China.
The 50-million-baht project will support natural mating conditions for the panda couple. It is expected to begin next year and to be completed in 2009.
The new building will extend up to two rai (1 acre = 2.5 rai) from their existing enclosure. When the snow environment building is finished, the two pandas will switch to stay there for a period of time, depending on the seasons in China, their country of origin.
Zoo visitors will be allowed to enter the snow building to touch and play with the artificial snow. - (TNA)
http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=92419
Swim on by
Kordell Murphy, 6, is reflected in the glass at the sea lion pool as he watches the animals swim by during opening day for the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, where hundreds came out to enjoy the day. New this year will be a program where visitors can meet with zookeepers and ask questions. The zoo is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Related photo on Page 4C.
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/14410971.htm
Is Claire a former Aussie Zoo girl?
24.04.2006
IT’S almost guaranteed that things will get wild in the Big Brother house, but this year they have an animal handler nearby to help keep things under control.
One of the contestants in the popular show is believed to have worked with the cheetahs at Australia Zoo, but that couldn’t be confirmed yesterday.
On the Big Brother website, housemate Claire lists her occupation as a big cat handler and is quoted as saying she is “going to be the next Steve Irwin crossed with Dr Harry Cooper, but the female version”.
She was described by Big Brother last night as “attractive, smart, strong and competitive and passionate about animal conservation”.
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3681534&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=
Autism Awareness Celebrated at Philadelphia Zoo
April 23, 2006 - Hundreds of kids, adults and athletes took part in a special day at the Philadelphia Zoo.
The seventh annual autism awareness day was filled with plenty of fun and entertainment for all.
Families got a chance to meet members of the Philadelphia Soul team and cheerleading squad.
They also took part in some fancy dancing with the "Soulman" mascot.
In between kids got their faces painted and learned how to spin balls on their fingers.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=local&id=4108864
Shanghai marks Earth Day
http://www.chinaview.cn/ 2006-04-24 08:40:33
Students from Shanghai Rainbow Bridge International School perform during an Earth Day celebration at Shanghai Zoo to raise public awareness about the environment. (Photo: Shanghai Daily)
BEIJING, April 24 -- Earth Day was celebrated in Shanghai over the weekend at Shanghai Zoo. The annual international celebration raises public awareness about the environment.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/24/content_4465496.htm
Tegel Recalls Zoo Animal Chicken Nuggets
4:53 PM, 24 Apr 2006
Tegel Foods is recalling batches of Zoo Animal Chicken Nuggets in the Auckland and Northland area, after metal fragments were found in the product.
Tegel says the affected nuggets are in one kilogram bags and carry the batch codes 16073 AM and 16073 PM.
It says the recall is a precautionary measure and it is investigating how the fragments got into the nuggets.
http://www.newswire.co.nz/main/viewstory.aspx?storyid=313566&catid=33
Committee sets out to ensure Oregon Zoo can outdo itself
Vision - Work begins on a new master plan and maintaining momentum
Monday, April 24, 2006
WADE NKRUMAH
Attendance is at an all-time high and revenues are rising yearly at Oregon Zoo.
This is good news for Tony Vecchio, zoo director.
Still, he's looking over his shoulder. Among the reasons: expenses are outpacing revenues; the zoo site is land-locked, making it difficult to plan new exhibits; and parking is at capacity.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/portland_news/114568715114530.xml&coll=7
State briefs: FedEx founder, wife give $10 million to Memphis Zoo
FedEx founder Fred Smith and his wife, Diane, have given $10 million to the Memphis Zoo for a new, three-acre grizzly bear exhibit.
The donation is the largest private contribution in the zoo's 100-year history and part of a $28 million, 10-year campaign that also will include a new hippopotamus exhibit. Zoo officials said about $18.6 total has been raised.
http://www.rctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060424/NEWS01/604240348/1006/MTCN0301
Toy company and zoo heads among top managers
By: CBW, 24. 04. 2006
The Manager of the Year 2005 awards took place in Prague’s palác Žofín on April 20.
The winner of the 13th annual competition in the men’s category was Pavel Kafka, CEO of the Czech branch of Siemens, and in the women’s category it was Jana Malá of toy producer Moravská ústředna Brno. Best manager of a small company was Josef Šesták of Carlson Wagonlit Travel, while Petr Fejk of the Prague Zoo won in the category of the manager of a medium-sized company. The competition is organized by the Czech Management Association, the Confederation of Industry and Transportation of the Czech Republic and the Confederation of Employers' and Entrepreneurs' Associations of the Czech Republic.
http://www.cbw.cz/phprs/2006042424.html
Parasite Kills Endangered Tigers in Pakistan Zoo
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PAKISTAN: April 24, 2006
KARACHI - A blood parasite that has killed scores of tigers in India and Bangladesh has now killed two endangered Bengal tigers at a zoo in Pakistan, officials said on Friday.
The tigers died in Lahore Zoo on Wednesday, victims of the "Trypanosoma" parasite which is spread by flies and mosquitoes, Nasir Saleem, a deputy director of the zoo, said.
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36094/story.htm
Labor of love
John Bergmann brings compassion and wisdom to Popcorn Park Zoo.
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/24/06
BY BOBBI SEIDEL
STAFF WRITER
Two tall black llamas stroll over to a visitor in their large outdoor enclosure at Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey.
It's obvious from their friendly demeanor that they know the man, who feeds each a graham cracker: John Bergmann, general manager of the zoo and the adjacent Forked River animal shelter, programs of the nonprofit Associated Humane Societies.
Stroll through the zoo with Bergmann, 51, and it's clear: He knows and loves all the animals — about 200 of them — and they return that sentiment.
The cougars, for instance.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060424/LIFE05/604240309/1006/COMMUNITY
Birds Missing From Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
(CBS4) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. Zoo keepers at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs were trying to figure out how two green aracari toucan birds got out of their exhibit over the weekend. Officials feared the birds may have been stolen.
The male and female pair was discovered missing from the exhibit on Saturday morning. They have not been found at the zoo.
The bird and reptile building is equipped with multiple successive sets of doors. According to animal department officials, it is unlikely that both birds could get through the sets of doors without someone noticing.
The green aracari is native to South America. The birds are the smallest of the toucans weighing in at 125 grams.
http://cbs4denver.com/pets/local_story_114085044.html
Milwaukee County Zoo ostrich breaks leg, dies
Associated Press
MILWAUKEE - A 9-year-old ostrich at the Milwaukee County Zoo died last week after breaking a leg when it became caught in a fence, causing massive internal blood loss and releasing blood clots into her system, a pathologist says.
Joan Maurer, a veterinarian technician at the zoo, said it was not immediately apparent what had caused the death of the 207-pound bird named Xena when it was found dead Tuesday at the fence.
Heather Simmons, the zoo's pathologist and a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Veterinary Medicine, then performed a necropsy to determine what had taken place.
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/politics/14416636.htm
At Zoo, day revolves around Earth
Respect for planet fostered by exhibits at facility in West Brighton
Monday, April 24, 2006
By ANDREA BOYARSKY
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER
As the lemurs and leopards curiously looked on, people celebrated Earth Day yesterday at the Staten Island Zoo in West Brighton.
The zoo held its third annual Earth Fair which featured entertainment, education, artwork and, of course, animals. Throughout the zoo, information tables and games were set up to urge people to conserve and care for the planet.
http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/114588456510930.xml&coll=1
Lady banker chooses the zoo
April 25, 2006
Page 1 of 2 Single page
James Chessell studies the bulls, bears, lions, cheetahs, hyenas and monkeys.
Bruce McWilliam … plans approved but still fighting in court.
Illustration: Rocco Fazzari
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GAIL PATRICIA KELLY has picked the occasion of her 50th birthday to visit the zoo.
St George's chief teller notches up the half century today but is waiting until May 6 to celebrate the great day with more than 100 family and friends.
The venue is Taronga Park Zoo, a place that contains a few creatures from her native South Africa.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/cbd/lady-banker-chooses-the-zoo/2006/04/24/1145861284934.html
Pittsburgh Zoo Unveiling Polar Bear Tunnels
(KDKA) PITTSBURGH The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium is unveiling the see-through tunnel in the City of Pittsburgh – and there will be two of them.
The addition will make it possible for visitors to walk through the 30-foot-long polar bear tunnel with a 1,500-pound polar bear or 2,600-pound walrus overhead.
The Water's Edge is the new exhibit that will provide visitors with three large viewing windows.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
http://kdka.com/local/local_story_114114526.html
Power scarcity hits zoo inmates and visitors
HT Correspondent
Kanpur, April 24
OVER SEVEN-HOUR-LONG power rostering affected water supply to zoo on Monday, causing a lot of trouble to inmates, staff and visitors.
As most of big animals — like rhino, chimpanzee, tiger and bear — did not come out of their enclosures throughout the day, and visitors, especially children, were disappointed.
The bird enclosure was devoid of chirpings, as they sat idly under the shade of trees to protect themselves against the heat.
The mats made of khas-khas were put around the bird enclosures and of other small animals to give them shade from the sun. But, such measures failed to provide any relief to zoo inmates.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1682588,0015002500030000.htm
Zoo Tycoon 2
April 24, 2006 Jonathan Lowrie
The "tycoon" genre of games is arguably one of the most popular in computer gaming. First made popular by games such as Railroad Tycoon and RollerCoaster Tycoon, tycoon games have spawned dozens of wanna-be's including titles such as Pizza Tycoon, Airline Tycoon, Lemonade Tycoon, and dozens of others.
http://www.insidemacgames.com/reviews/view.php?ID=660
Playwright Spends Week Inside Cage At Zoo
April 24, 2006 3:03 p.m. EST
Mary K. Brunskill - All Headline News Contributor
Paris, France (AHN) - A French playwright spent up to 10 hours a day in a cage for a week to better understand the life of the panda for a theater project he’s working on.
Norbert Aboudarham, 57, spent his time in the cage in Paris’ Amiens Zoo writing "The Panda’s Flea."
He explained that his reason was "about the universe, you have to put yourself in a cage smaller than the universe."
He worked on his new play on his laptop inside the cage, which he inhabited alone. His neighbors included red pandas, wolves, and raccoons.
This is the third play Aboudarham has written about animals since 2002.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7003301292
Tunnels Give New View At Zoo
Zoo Officials Also Unveil Windows, Exhibits
POSTED: 3:25 pm EDT April 24, 2006
PITTSBURGH -- Monday, Pittsburgh's first see-through tunnels will be unveiled at a couple of exhibits.
A 30-foot-ong tunnel will run underneath the home of a 1,500-pound polar bear at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium.
A 40-foot-long tunnel will run underneath the home of a 2,600-pound walrus in the water's edge exhibit.
The exhibits will also include polar bear, walrus and underwater sea otter windows.
http://www.wpxi.com/news/8962831/detail.html
Lahore Zoo’s latest victim
By Shoaib Ahmed
LAHORE: Another white tiger at the Lahore Zoo has fallen victim to the deadly blood parasite that killed three tigers last week, and while the Wildlife Director General and the zoo management claimed they were about to hire blood parasite expert Dr Tusi to deal with the problem, Dr Tusi denied being updated on the issue.
Lahore Zoo Sources told Daily Times that the tiger was critically ill and could hardly stand. Out of the total six tigers in the zoo, three have already died because of.
Wildlife Director General Imtiaz Tajwar told reporters in a recent press conference that he had contacted Dr Tusi from UAE and planned to hire him to deal with the parasite.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C04%5C25%5Cstory_25-4-2006_pg13_6
Case Of The Missing Zoo Birds
Colorado Springs
Lauri Martin
Two birds are still missing from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and zookeepers are losing hope they are still alive.
The pair of green Aracari Toucans has been missing since Friday night or early Saturday morning. They are native to South America and can't withstand the cold temperatures we’ve been having. "We're concerned since the last few nights were below freezing and there was no food source. The birds eat fruit and there is no budding fruit on the trees," Sean Anglum, zoo spokesperson said.
The birds are able to fly freely inside the exhibit, but in the 5 years that “Salsa” and “Verde’ have been at the zoo, they never tried to get out. Zookeepers are baffled about what happened. There are three sets of doors to get inside and outside the exhibit. They believe the birds were either birdnapped or set free on purpose.
"We think they're valued at $1,000 to $2,000. If you saw them in pet store, they would stick out like sore thumb because they aren't available through pet shops," Anglum said.
Since their disappearance, the Aracari Toucan information plaque has been removed from the exhibit.
http://www.kktv.com/news/headlines/2687041.html
Zoo adds tunnels for polar bear exhibit
Philip G. Pavely/Tribune-Review
By Bill Zlatos
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Tunnels were installed Monday at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium to enable visitors to view a new exhibit of polar bears and walruses.
A crawler crane 190 feet tall and weighing 10 tons positioned the 30-foot-long tunnel for the bears' exhibit into place with an inch clearance on both sides. The polar bears will swim in a pool that holds 148,000 gallons of water.
The tunnel for the walrus exhibit is 40 feet long.
"The walrus tunnel is the only one of its kind in the world," said Barbara Baker, president and CEO of the zoo in Highland Park.
Both tunnels are seamless, 12 feet wide and made of clear acrylic to enhance visitors' view of the animals' underwater activities. The tunnels were built by Reynolds Polymer Technology, of Grand Junction, Colo.
Two male polar bears, Koda and Nuka, will arrive in June from the Denver Zoo and be ready for viewing in July. They will be given new names.
The females will arrive after the males have had a chance to test the new environment.
"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife (Service) is considering designating them threatened or endangered because of global warming," Baker said.
The exhibit, called Water's Edge, also will feature sea otters. They will arrive this fall and the walruses in fall 2007.
The walruses will have a 265,000-gallon pool, and the sea otters a 57,000- gallon pool.
The zoo has raised $14.4 million for the project, which will cost at least $19 million. The campaign also includes construction of a new animal hospital.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_447061.html
Letter: How to improve Taipei Zoo
By Charles Shuttleworth
Tuesday, Apr 25, 2006,Page 8
I am writing in response to recent adverse comment on Taipei Zoo.
From my own knowledge this criticism is justified. And, although there are some mitigating factors, the situation is an appalling indictment of the zoo's management.
For a modern, well-funded zoo to keep an animal, namely a chimpanzee (`Siao Chiang'), in cramped, solitary confinement for nine years simply because he was intelligent enough to manage to escape on two occasions and also misbehaved, is inexcusable.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2006/04/25/2003304507
Islamabad zoo to be relocated to Zone V
Tuesday April 25, 2006 (1118 PST)
ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to relocate Marghazar Zoo to the Zone V of Islamabad Capital Territory.
Capital Development Authority Chairman Kamran Lashari told 'The News' Monday that the current site of the zoo is not suitable for extension. He said that he has given one-week time to the concerned officials of the CDA to identify the new site in Zone V.
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=141724
Tigress dies at zoo
Tuesday April 25 2006 13:42 IST
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sonia, a tigress at the zoo here, died on Monday reducing the number of the striped cats here to six.
The big cat, aged 23 died due to old age, zoo director P.N. Unnikrishnan said.
The carcass of the tigress was burnt as per the existing rules.
“This tigress had been at the zoo for many years. She was brought from Mysore in 1984,” he said.
With Sonia gone, there are three tigers and three tigresses, all a big draw with the visitors to the zoo.
There have been a number of deaths in the zoo recently. A tiger had died on March 26 and a black buck on March 19.
The death of the black buck had kicked up a row after part of its skull and an antler had gone missing.
Later, a supervisor and another employee of the zoo were found guilty of the theft along with an outsider.
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IER20060425032033&Page=R&Title=Kerala&Topic=0
Heat hits Chiang Mai zoo
Chiang Mai zookeepers sprayed down cages and handed out ice creams and frozen meat to their animals on Tuesday as the mercury topped 40 degree Celsius in the northern capital.
When the temperature hit 38C, five water trucks were quickly despatched and zookeepers rigged up temporary shade screens, drew extra water supplies and installed sprinklers in some cages housing animals particularly prone to heat stress.
And today is tipped to be even hotter.
Zoo public relations chief Rossukhon Juikhamwong said constant sprays were set up in the panda viewing zone and the roof of their enclosure periodically soaked with water.
Zoo veterinarian Kwanreun Duangsaard said the animals were being given special foods, such as frozen tuna for the penguins, frozen meat for tigers, ice cubes for elephants and icecream for the orangutans.
Everyone at the zoo was on the lookout for telltale signs of frustration among the animals, so they could be separated if need be, said Kwanreun.
Meteorological Department officials had previously tipped tomorrow to be the Kingdom's hottest this year, solely for the reason that the sun would be directly above Bangkok at noon .
But now, with changes on the way from China, officials are saying today might be the hottest day of the year.
An official at the Weather Forecast Division said 40C in the North was normal for this time of year, because of the orbital movement of the Earth around the sun.
Chiang Mai is particularly affected because it sits in a geographical bowl, surrounded by mountains, which tend to make the city extra hot during the day, but cool at night.
The Nation
http://nationmultimedia.com/2006/04/25/headlines/headlines_30002492.php
Support mixed for zoo's dual levy issues
Public looks divided over capital funding
By JENNI LAIDMAN
BLADE STAFF WRITER
The Toledo Zoo's 1-mill, 5-year operating levy should pass handily on May 2, but the fate of the zoo's 10-year capital levy is too close to call, according to a Blade-Zogby International poll.
In a survey of 804 likely voters, 60.2 percent said they would vote for the tax that helps pay for the zoo's day-to-day operations.
But the fate of a 0.85-mill capital levy was less clear. Polling showed 48.9 percent of respondents in favor of its passage and 43 percent opposed. Because of a plus-or-minus 3.5 percent margin of error, no prediction is possible, said pollster John Zogby.
"I wouldn't even call that a lean, with that margin of error,'' Mr. Zogby said.
The 10-year capital levy would pay for better elephant and rhino facilities, a new parking lot, and an all-weather children's zoo. It would cover repairs on the 66-year-old aquarium, and pay off some $13 million in debt.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060425/NEWS38/604250360
New Polar Bears, Walruses Coming To Pittsburgh Zoo
POSTED: 9:30 am EDT April 25, 2006
UPDATED: 10:38 am EDT April 25, 2006
PITTSBURGH -- Workers installed two transparent acrylic tunnels as part of new polar bear and walrus exhibits planned at Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium.
Zoo visitors will walk through the tunnels, which will run under pools that hold water in which the bears and walruses will swim.
The tunnel for the bear exhibit is 30 feet long and the walrus tunnel is 40 feet long.
Two male polar bears will arrive at the zoo in June and be on display by July. Sea otters will also be added to the exhibit later this year. The exhibit, called Water's Edge, will add the walruses in the fall of 2007, zoo officials said.
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/8982856/detail.html
Zoo says two endangered penguins hatched
April 25, 2006, 4:05 PM EDT
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) _The Rosamond Gifford Zoo announced Tuesday its first two hatchings of Humboldt penguin chicks, an endangered species in the wild.
The first chick was born Saturday and weighed 94 grams, or about 3.3 ounces, said zoo spokeswoman Sarah Fedele. The second chick was born Monday, weighing 74 grams.
The chicks have not yet been named and the genders have not yet been determined, she said. Frederico and Danta, which came to Syracuse from the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago, were incubating these eggs. This penguin couple paired while at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo's $3 million Penguin Coast Exhibit that opened in June 2005.
Danta had one previous clutch of two eggs with a different male while at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Zookeepers will closely monitor the health and progress of the newly hatched chicks, Fedele said.
Humboldt penguin chicks do not begin to explore their surroundings until about 45 days old. The chicks will remain in the nesting box with their parents until then. They don't acquire all their waterproofing plumage until approximately 90 days old.
The zoo's Humboldt penguin colony now comprises 21 birds, including the two newly hatched chicks.
Humboldt penguins are native to Chile and Peru. There are an estimated 12,000 to 30,000 left in the wild.
Rosamond Gifford also has successfully bred other endangered species, including Asian elephants, Amur tigers, red pandas and golden lion tamarins.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--penguinchicks0425apr25,0,2674530.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork
Finally, some good news for animals at Byculla zoo
Panel’s ideas adopted. Animals get bigger enclosures, more guards
Mumbai, April 25: MORE than two months after the death of 10 black bucks and a chausingha due to the entry of a stray dog in the antelopes’ enclosure, the steps taken by the Byculla zoo authorities indicate that the animals’ deaths have served as a wake-up call.
‘‘After the February incident, we wanted to avoid a mishap at all cost,’’ said Superintendent of Gardens P A Naringrekar.
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=179621
Zoo Boise Home to Endangered Squirrels
By Teri Nelson
BOISE -
Tuesday Zoo Boise opened a new exhibit to teach Idahoans about a little critter that seems to be disappearing in the Treasure Valley.
Boise Zoo Director Steve Burns says ground squirrels are an integral part of Idaho's high desert ecosystem--and they're increasingly threatened. According to the zoo the Southern Idaho Ground Squirrel population has dropped from about 40,000 in 1985 to fewer than 5,000 today.
"This is an animal that lives right here in the Treasure Valley that we can take an active role in helping to protect." Burns told KBCI CBS 2 News.
Burns says ground squirrels are a main food source for birds of prey.
http://www2.kbcitv.com/x71272.xml
Fund crunch hits zoo, animals need help
HT Correspondent
Kanpur, April 25
KANPUR ZOOLOGICAL Garden (Zoo) is in need of assistance from philanthropists once again. It not only requires financial assistance but also adoption of big animals by interested persons and organisations.
According to zoo authorities, they were unable to carry out most ambitious programme of developing the zoo into one of the best in the country just for fund crunch. The only hope of promoting welfare schemes for zoo inmates lay on the shoulders of philanthropists, who could adopt animals for their better upkeep, said a senior official of the zoo.
Animal lovers also feel that government assistance alone will not be sufficient for welfare of zoo inmates and people from affluent classes have to take lead in extending direct fiscal support to the zoo or by adopting some of the big animals.
However, it is strange that despite appeal for adoption of animals, no philanthropist offered to adopt animals. But all appeals fell on deaf ears of citizens. On the other hand, one philanthropist alleged the strict government laws relating to animals and tax complications discouraged them to come forward to contribute to welfare of animals.
According to them, unless existing laws pertaining to animals were changed and tax relaxation were introduced by the government, philanthropists would remain helpless in extending their support to zoo animals.
With the death of a lioness and other big animals during the past years, the zoo also needed their replacement. But, this too was not possible amidst tough wild life laws. Existing laws prohibit exchange or import and export of animals except under certain exceptional conditions with prior permission of wild life authorities.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1683448,0015002500030000.htm
Zoo loans popular albino gator to Pennsylvania animal park
Beth Cochran beth.cochran@arizonarepublic.com
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 26, 2006 12:00 AM
White alligators are rare creatures from the bayous of Louisiana. Legend has it that those who get a glimpse of the reptile will receive good fortune.
The Southwest Valley has until Friday to get one last look at the white alligator, at least until October, at the Wildlife World Zoo.
The 4-year-old albino alligator, named Marie Laveau after a New Orleans voodoo queen, was leased to the zoo in October. The white gator was so popular that the zoo purchased her.
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http://www.azcentral.com/community/westvalley/articles/0426swv-gator26Z2.html
Deadly fungus devastating populations of amphibians
By John Biemer
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 25, 2006, 8:23 PM CDT
A devastating fungus is sweeping the world, wiping out entire populations of amphibians at such a rate that Brookfield Zoo biologists are helping pull together a massive "Noah's Ark" project to capture frogs, toads and salamanders and put them in safe places.
A variety of factors already have combined to cause more than 120 amphibian species to vanish since 1980, in what one biologist has called "one of the largest extinction spasms for vertebrates in history."
A third of the world's nearly 6,000 amphibian species are threatened—their populations weak and susceptible to disease. If they go, ecosystems will tilt out of balance and potential medical breakthroughs—such as potent painkillers or HIV inhibitors—could be lost.
It is hard to determine how many species have been affected by the fungus because they cannot be assessed fast enough, but it has factored into most of the recent extinctions and declines, said Bob Lacy, the zoo's population geneticist and chairman of the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-060425fungalfrogs,1,2016792.story?coll=chi-news-hed
concluding...
Earth Day: Zoo helps kids' views
About 2,000 schoolchildren went on a scavenger hunt at the Montgomery Zoo on Thursday for treasure more valuable than gold or precious jewels -- the knowledge of how to protect and preserve the Earth for future generations.
The hunt was part of the zoo's Earth Day Safari, a two-day event that teaches children about the environmental problems plaguing their world. Students from schools throughout central and south Alabama turned out for the event.
Steven Pierce, program services director for the zoo, said about 3,500 more students were expected today.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060421/NEWS/604210321/1001
Kids make toys for bored zoo animals
TOYS FOR TIGERS: Boys & Girls Club helps alleviate animal boredom at zoo.
BY SHELLEY NELSON
NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Imagine being penned up in a cage all day with nothing to do.
Children at the Boys & Girls Club in Lincoln Park thought about that when they listened to a member of the Lake Superior Zoo staff discuss the problem of boredom faced by some of the animals.
And the kids decided to come up with a solution.
Club members mounted an attack on animal boredom by creating toys designed to enrich the animals' environment as part of National and Global Youth Service Day.
"With the toys that we made, (the animals) could have fun and be active," said 10-year-old Carly Johnson of Duluth.
Club members created and decorated papier-mache boxes and strung beads on knotted shoelaces to donate to the zoo for the animals' enjoyment. Carly helped with both projects.
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/local/14394829.htm
Parasite kills endangered tigers in Pakistan zoo
21 Apr 2006 11:54:53 GMT
Source: Reuters
KARACHI, April 21 (Reuters) - A blood parasite that has killed scores of tigers in India and Bangladesh has now killed two endangered Bengal tigers at a zoo in Pakistan, officials said on Friday.
The tigers died in Lahore Zoo on Wednesday, victims of the "Trypanosoma" parasite which is spread by flies and mosquitoes, Nasir Saleem, a deputy director of the zoo, said.
The parasite is known to have killed over 100 tigers in India and Bangladesh in the last six months.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK127262.htm
Zoo's success
Apr 21 2006
Chester Chronicle
GROUP visits to Chester Zoo are at an all-time high, with bookings up 54% on last year.
Groups have been taking full advantage of the benefits they get and the zoo's tourism co-ordinator, Julie Benn, has been inundated with inquiries and bookings for the summer.
More than 100,000 people visit Chester Zoo each year as part of a group of 15 people or more. From April, groups can enjoy a special admission price.
http://iccheshireonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=16976044&method=full&siteid=50020&headline=zoo-s-success--name_page.html
Zoo Veterinarians Examine Sloth Bear Cub
Sloth Bear Cub Appears Strong, Healthy
POSTED: 2:48 pm EDT April 21, 2006
UPDATED: 3:40 pm EDT April 21, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Veterinarians at the National Zoo have gotten their first look at the sloth bear cub that was born in Jan. 9.
They were able to conduct a quick exam Thursday after numerous attempts by animal care staff to separate the cub and its very protective mother, Hana. Veterinarian Carlos Sanchez, who gave the cub a de-wormer and a rabies shot, said the male cub, which weighs about 11 pounds, appears strong and healthy.
Zoo officials said this is the third cub for 11-year-old Hana. She gave birth to two cubs in December 2004, but both cubs died within four days of being born.
At birth, sloth bear cubs are very small, fragile and dependent on their mothers. They are known to stay in their dens until they are a few months old.
http://www.nbc4.com/news/8886386/detail.html
NEW DELHI: First snakes and now cats, all kinds of non-human threats are besieging Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's sprawling residence.
Anxious not to be caught catnapping on the job, security officials at the august residence sought the expertise of senior Delhi Zoo officials in tackling the feline menace.
"Though we only deal with wild animals, our experts will try to suggest ways to put an end to the problem," said a zoo official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Senior officials said it was only after stray cats were seen ambling in and around 7
Race Course Road, a complex of four spacious bungalows linked to each other, that they had to press the panic button and ask for help from the zoo officials.
A few months ago, the prime ministerial residence had to deal with the menace of non-
venomous snakes in the leafy gardens.
"Our job is to protect the prime minister and we are taking all steps to do our job," said a senior official of SPG (Special Protection Group).
Officials said the snakes that were found in the gardens, which the prime minister uses for his morning walks, were non-venomous wolf snakes.
"These snakes have large fangs but are not poisonous," said the zoo official.
However, not all animals go hiss over here.
The gardens are also home to friendly peacocks which preen and dance in front
of photographers and television cameras during major prime ministerial event.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1025400
Zoo plans semi-annual volunteer training class
Beardsley Zoo is planning its semi-annual volunteer training class for new Zoo Friends and Zoo Gardeners. Prospective volunteers must meet with Volunteer Coordinator Tracy Benham prior to April 30. She can be reached at (203) 330-6046.
A nominal fee for training materials and dues is required. A minimum of six volunteer hours per month is requested.
Zoo Friends help run the zoo’s special events and enhance visitors’ experiences by answering general questions. Zoo Gardeners work in the Victorian Greenhouse, help maintain flower and herb beds on zoo grounds, and may assist with exhibit landscaping.
http://news.newstimeslive.com/story.php?id=82909&category=Regional
Zoo's New Ad Gets Some Negative Attention
Monkey Exhibit Ad In Union-Tribune
POSTED: 5:49 pm PDT April 21, 2006
UPDATED: 6:25 pm PDT April 21, 2006
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SAN DIEGO -- San Diego Zoo officials said their latest ad campaign was not intended to offend anyone, but it has.
The advertisement promotes the zoo's newly reopened monkey exhibit.
The campaign's been going on for about a year now and has hit its first snag.
The latest ad in the campaign is a single page in the Union-Tribune, promoting the monkey exhibit. The newspaper did not receive any negative calls about it, and neither did 10News. The zoo received very few.
http://www.10news.com/news/8893751/detail.html
Adoptions draw human, animal closer
http://www.chinaview.cn/ 2006-04-22 07:51:45
BEIJING, April 22 -- For Zhang Yifeng's third birthday, his mother gave him a present more surprising than the typical toy cars or baseballs -- she adopted a chimpanzee for him.
Zhang Yifeng visits the chimpanzee his mother adopted for him at the Beijing Zoo.
Zhang's mother made a donation to the Beijing Zoo in June last year and, in return, the zoo allowed her to adopt the chimpanzee for her son.
Zhang's parents, who named the creature Ding Ding, take him to the zoo almost every weekend to visit his "good friend."
"I love Ding Ding," said the boy.
Zhang is not alone. More private individuals and households have adopted and befriended animals of the Beijing Zoo after the zoo's donation and adoption programme was initiated in early 2001.
The programme is designed to raise money to take better care of the animals. It also aims at getting more individuals, households and enterprises involved in the efforts to protect wild animals, said Ye Mingxia, an official with the Beijing Zoo's publicity department.
Donations are used to improve animals' living conditions, including disease prevention, facilities upgrading and scientific research, Ye said.
According to the programme, any domestic and overseas individual, household or enterprise is allowed to adopt animals after donating a sum of money.
It requires the minimum 500 yuan (US$61.70) donation to adopt an animal. People can name the animals if the donation reaches at least 1,000 yuan (US$123.30), according to Ye.
"Most adopted animals were birthday presents from parents to their children, and there are also some young men who gifted adoptions to their girlfriends," said Zhang Jinguo, vice-director of the Beijing Zoo, adding that a total of 36 families adopted animals last year.
"Public interest in animal donation and adoption has been on the rise."
The donation and adoption programme is expected to arouse people's passion for animals and let them develop a closer relationship with animals, said Zhang.
Most of the animals that get adopted are pandas and monkeys, said Zhang.
Beijing's Hepingmen Middle School donated 10,000 yuan (US$1,233) for a golden monkey, and that money has been used to improve the animal's living conditions.
The golden monkey, originally living in the alpine area, is not used to Beijing's droughty weather. As a result, the zoo used the money to buy moistening treatment facilities to improve its living conditions, according to Ye.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/22/content_4459327.htm
Fort Wayne Children's Zoo Opens
April 23, 2006 04:31 PM EDT
New State Slogan Getting Mixed Reviews
The Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo opened for the summer season on Saturday. This year the zoo has a new and improved gift shop. The space was doubled and the shop has been Wild Things.
On opening day three tiger cubs will celebrated their second birthdays. Teddy, Sparky and Cantik were born at the zoo in 2004. They now weigh between 175 to 235 pounds. Visitors to the zoo will also got a chance to see a young baby Siamang named Tucker. Tucker is a 10-month old ape who can be seen with his dad in the Indonesian Rain Forest. Other additions to the Rain Forest are the thorny devils insects and two new species of birds. Thorny devils look like tree bark and are 6 inches long. Golden-crested mynahs and Pekin robins will join other birds in the domed jungle. Also new for visitors is a jungle carpet python. The snake has yellow and black coloring and will be housed in the Australian Adventure.
The zoo hours are daily from 9 a.m. to 5p.m. The zoo season lasts through October 15th. Adults are $7.50 and children are $5. For more information on the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo click here.
http://www.wane.com/Global/story.asp?S=4801583&nav=0RYb
Longer Stay
By STAFF
Those who missed out on sneaking a final peek at the Calgary Zoo's visiting baby hippo have another chance.
Splash, originally slated to fly home to Quebec on Thursday, will be sticking around for a few more weeks, said zoo spokeswoman Kathleen Hewitt yesterday.
"His new habitat isn't quite ready, so they've asked us to keep him a bit longer," Hewitt said, about Splash's home at the Granby Zoo.
Splash has caused quite a stir since his arrival last December.
"We've been taking a lot of phone calls about him, he's become so popular with everyone," she said.
Splash has doubled in size to 690 lb. (314 kg) during his stay, requiring zoo staff to build a new crate to ship him May 4.
"We're going to miss him," said Hewitt.
Previous story: Busiest roadwork year yet
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2006/04/22/1545622-sun.html
Painful cuts could result from failure of zoo levies
By JENNI LAIDMAN
BLADE STAFF WRITER
It will be time for painful decisions at the Toledo Zoo if either of its two levies fails at the polls May 2.
But if the issues pass, zoo officials say, it won't mean free spending or rapid growth.
Passage "means that we don't have to make any major deletions of staff or programs,'' said Anne Baker, the zoo's executive director. "We're still going to have to do belt-tightening. We just need to do that to be fiscally responsible.''
On the ballot is an 0.85-mill, five-year operating levy, which helps pay salaries and feeds animals. The other is a 1-mill, 10-year capital improvement levy that will pay for repairs to the antiquated aquarium, eliminate $17 million in debt acquired under the zoo's previous management, and initiate a pay-as-you-go system that will prevent future debt.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060422/NEWS09/604220336
Chaffee Zoo Hosts Breakfast With the Animals
April 22, 2006 - Valley children got the chance to eat breakfast with some very interesting guests and a little song and dance Saturday morning.
The Chaffee Zoo hosted Breakfast with the Animals, so the kids had their usual weekend breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon.
But they also shared some breakfast with the giraffes, who stretched out to get some grub.
The kids also checked on the primates and the sea lions eating their morning meals.
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=local&id=4107094
Zoo to use Smith cash on grizzlies
Plans bear showcase with funds donated by FedEx founder, wife
By Wayne Risher
Contact
April 23, 2006
The Memphis Zoo will build Teton Trek, a showcase for grizzly bears, with a $10 million donation from FedEx founder Fred Smith and his wife Diane.
The largest private contribution in the zoo's 100-year history, the Smith donation is part of a $28 million, 10-year campaign that will also fund a future hippopotamus exhibit.
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Teton Trek, tentatively scheduled to open in spring 2009, will immerse visitors in natural history and the culture of Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Teton mountains.
The grizzlies, namesake of the city's NBA franchise, have been missing from the zoo since 2002; the old bear moats were shut down and the last grizzlies were sent to the Detroit Zoo.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0,2845,MCA_25340_4644464,00.html
Thousands gather for the Topeka Zoo Family Character Fair
Topeka — A couple thousand people showed up at the Topeka Zoo today for the annual Family Character Fair.
The first 500 families at the Zoo this morning received a free book titled Achieving True Success: How to build character as a family.
The day's activities were headlined with a scavenger hunt through the Zoo.
There were also pony rides, inflatable slides, carnival games and face painting for those tiny Topekans to enjoy!
http://www.49abcnews.com/news/2006/apr/22/thousands_gather_topeka_zoo_family_character_fair/
Valley throws Earthly bashes
BY LISA M. SODDERS, Staff Writer
For More Info
• Photo Gallery: Earth Day
With nature walks, songs and educational opportunities, San Fernando Valley residents celebrated Earth Day on Saturday, despite overcast skies that threatened rain.
At the WorldFest celebration in Woodley Park, Dean Spunt, 24, of Hollywood, and his girlfriend, Jennifer Clavin, 22, of Silver Lake, said they made sure they took the Orange Line busway to the festival, rather than drive.
"This is my fourth year, and it just keeps getting better and better," said Spunt, a vegan. "All of these booths give you information and make it easy for you to make choices that are more Earth-friendly. You realize, `I don't have to go out and protest, I can buy this product or not buy this product,' and it's not just all-or-nothing."
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_3740222
Zoo raises awareness on Earth Day
Adriana M. Chávez
El Paso Times
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Hundreds of visitors to the El Paso Zoo learned about the world's endangered species and changing climate Saturday during the zoo's annual Earth Day celebration.
The event featured informational booths by businesses and environmental organizations and a display of hybrid cars. About 60 volunteers, including Mayor John Cook, also read a list of more than 15,000 endangered species.
The zoo's Earth Day event continues from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today.
Lower Valley resident Leah Smith took her little sister, Leslie Astorga, 9, to the zoo on a family outing Saturday afternoon and received information on endangered animals, including the panda.
http://www.borderlandnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060423/NEWS/604230337/1001
Snow forecast for Chiang Mai
Thailand's Zoological Park Organisation gave a greenlight to construct an artificial snow building for a pair of pandas, ambassadors of friendship from China, now living at the Chiang Mai Zoo.
The planned artificial snow habitat is designed to encourage the pandas to produce baby pandas.
Zoo director Thanapat Pongphamorn said that the planned structure was proposed by the zoo to make a new home for Chuang Chuang and Lin Hui similar to their natural habitat in China.
The 50-million-baht project will support natural mating conditions for the panda couple. It is expected to begin next year and to be completed in 2009.
The new building will extend up to two rai (1 acre = 2.5 rai) from their existing enclosure. When the snow environment building is finished, the two pandas will switch to stay there for a period of time, depending on the seasons in China, their country of origin.
Zoo visitors will be allowed to enter the snow building to touch and play with the artificial snow. - (TNA)
http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=92419
Swim on by
Kordell Murphy, 6, is reflected in the glass at the sea lion pool as he watches the animals swim by during opening day for the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, where hundreds came out to enjoy the day. New this year will be a program where visitors can meet with zookeepers and ask questions. The zoo is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Related photo on Page 4C.
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/14410971.htm
Is Claire a former Aussie Zoo girl?
24.04.2006
IT’S almost guaranteed that things will get wild in the Big Brother house, but this year they have an animal handler nearby to help keep things under control.
One of the contestants in the popular show is believed to have worked with the cheetahs at Australia Zoo, but that couldn’t be confirmed yesterday.
On the Big Brother website, housemate Claire lists her occupation as a big cat handler and is quoted as saying she is “going to be the next Steve Irwin crossed with Dr Harry Cooper, but the female version”.
She was described by Big Brother last night as “attractive, smart, strong and competitive and passionate about animal conservation”.
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3681534&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=
Autism Awareness Celebrated at Philadelphia Zoo
April 23, 2006 - Hundreds of kids, adults and athletes took part in a special day at the Philadelphia Zoo.
The seventh annual autism awareness day was filled with plenty of fun and entertainment for all.
Families got a chance to meet members of the Philadelphia Soul team and cheerleading squad.
They also took part in some fancy dancing with the "Soulman" mascot.
In between kids got their faces painted and learned how to spin balls on their fingers.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=local&id=4108864
Shanghai marks Earth Day
http://www.chinaview.cn/ 2006-04-24 08:40:33
Students from Shanghai Rainbow Bridge International School perform during an Earth Day celebration at Shanghai Zoo to raise public awareness about the environment. (Photo: Shanghai Daily)
BEIJING, April 24 -- Earth Day was celebrated in Shanghai over the weekend at Shanghai Zoo. The annual international celebration raises public awareness about the environment.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/24/content_4465496.htm
Tegel Recalls Zoo Animal Chicken Nuggets
4:53 PM, 24 Apr 2006
Tegel Foods is recalling batches of Zoo Animal Chicken Nuggets in the Auckland and Northland area, after metal fragments were found in the product.
Tegel says the affected nuggets are in one kilogram bags and carry the batch codes 16073 AM and 16073 PM.
It says the recall is a precautionary measure and it is investigating how the fragments got into the nuggets.
http://www.newswire.co.nz/main/viewstory.aspx?storyid=313566&catid=33
Committee sets out to ensure Oregon Zoo can outdo itself
Vision - Work begins on a new master plan and maintaining momentum
Monday, April 24, 2006
WADE NKRUMAH
Attendance is at an all-time high and revenues are rising yearly at Oregon Zoo.
This is good news for Tony Vecchio, zoo director.
Still, he's looking over his shoulder. Among the reasons: expenses are outpacing revenues; the zoo site is land-locked, making it difficult to plan new exhibits; and parking is at capacity.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/portland_news/114568715114530.xml&coll=7
State briefs: FedEx founder, wife give $10 million to Memphis Zoo
FedEx founder Fred Smith and his wife, Diane, have given $10 million to the Memphis Zoo for a new, three-acre grizzly bear exhibit.
The donation is the largest private contribution in the zoo's 100-year history and part of a $28 million, 10-year campaign that also will include a new hippopotamus exhibit. Zoo officials said about $18.6 total has been raised.
http://www.rctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060424/NEWS01/604240348/1006/MTCN0301
Toy company and zoo heads among top managers
By: CBW, 24. 04. 2006
The Manager of the Year 2005 awards took place in Prague’s palác Žofín on April 20.
The winner of the 13th annual competition in the men’s category was Pavel Kafka, CEO of the Czech branch of Siemens, and in the women’s category it was Jana Malá of toy producer Moravská ústředna Brno. Best manager of a small company was Josef Šesták of Carlson Wagonlit Travel, while Petr Fejk of the Prague Zoo won in the category of the manager of a medium-sized company. The competition is organized by the Czech Management Association, the Confederation of Industry and Transportation of the Czech Republic and the Confederation of Employers' and Entrepreneurs' Associations of the Czech Republic.
http://www.cbw.cz/phprs/2006042424.html
Parasite Kills Endangered Tigers in Pakistan Zoo
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PAKISTAN: April 24, 2006
KARACHI - A blood parasite that has killed scores of tigers in India and Bangladesh has now killed two endangered Bengal tigers at a zoo in Pakistan, officials said on Friday.
The tigers died in Lahore Zoo on Wednesday, victims of the "Trypanosoma" parasite which is spread by flies and mosquitoes, Nasir Saleem, a deputy director of the zoo, said.
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36094/story.htm
Labor of love
John Bergmann brings compassion and wisdom to Popcorn Park Zoo.
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/24/06
BY BOBBI SEIDEL
STAFF WRITER
Two tall black llamas stroll over to a visitor in their large outdoor enclosure at Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey.
It's obvious from their friendly demeanor that they know the man, who feeds each a graham cracker: John Bergmann, general manager of the zoo and the adjacent Forked River animal shelter, programs of the nonprofit Associated Humane Societies.
Stroll through the zoo with Bergmann, 51, and it's clear: He knows and loves all the animals — about 200 of them — and they return that sentiment.
The cougars, for instance.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060424/LIFE05/604240309/1006/COMMUNITY
Birds Missing From Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
(CBS4) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. Zoo keepers at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs were trying to figure out how two green aracari toucan birds got out of their exhibit over the weekend. Officials feared the birds may have been stolen.
The male and female pair was discovered missing from the exhibit on Saturday morning. They have not been found at the zoo.
The bird and reptile building is equipped with multiple successive sets of doors. According to animal department officials, it is unlikely that both birds could get through the sets of doors without someone noticing.
The green aracari is native to South America. The birds are the smallest of the toucans weighing in at 125 grams.
http://cbs4denver.com/pets/local_story_114085044.html
Milwaukee County Zoo ostrich breaks leg, dies
Associated Press
MILWAUKEE - A 9-year-old ostrich at the Milwaukee County Zoo died last week after breaking a leg when it became caught in a fence, causing massive internal blood loss and releasing blood clots into her system, a pathologist says.
Joan Maurer, a veterinarian technician at the zoo, said it was not immediately apparent what had caused the death of the 207-pound bird named Xena when it was found dead Tuesday at the fence.
Heather Simmons, the zoo's pathologist and a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Veterinary Medicine, then performed a necropsy to determine what had taken place.
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/politics/14416636.htm
At Zoo, day revolves around Earth
Respect for planet fostered by exhibits at facility in West Brighton
Monday, April 24, 2006
By ANDREA BOYARSKY
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER
As the lemurs and leopards curiously looked on, people celebrated Earth Day yesterday at the Staten Island Zoo in West Brighton.
The zoo held its third annual Earth Fair which featured entertainment, education, artwork and, of course, animals. Throughout the zoo, information tables and games were set up to urge people to conserve and care for the planet.
http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/114588456510930.xml&coll=1
Lady banker chooses the zoo
April 25, 2006
Page 1 of 2 Single page
James Chessell studies the bulls, bears, lions, cheetahs, hyenas and monkeys.
Bruce McWilliam … plans approved but still fighting in court.
Illustration: Rocco Fazzari
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GAIL PATRICIA KELLY has picked the occasion of her 50th birthday to visit the zoo.
St George's chief teller notches up the half century today but is waiting until May 6 to celebrate the great day with more than 100 family and friends.
The venue is Taronga Park Zoo, a place that contains a few creatures from her native South Africa.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/cbd/lady-banker-chooses-the-zoo/2006/04/24/1145861284934.html
Pittsburgh Zoo Unveiling Polar Bear Tunnels
(KDKA) PITTSBURGH The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium is unveiling the see-through tunnel in the City of Pittsburgh – and there will be two of them.
The addition will make it possible for visitors to walk through the 30-foot-long polar bear tunnel with a 1,500-pound polar bear or 2,600-pound walrus overhead.
The Water's Edge is the new exhibit that will provide visitors with three large viewing windows.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
http://kdka.com/local/local_story_114114526.html
Power scarcity hits zoo inmates and visitors
HT Correspondent
Kanpur, April 24
OVER SEVEN-HOUR-LONG power rostering affected water supply to zoo on Monday, causing a lot of trouble to inmates, staff and visitors.
As most of big animals — like rhino, chimpanzee, tiger and bear — did not come out of their enclosures throughout the day, and visitors, especially children, were disappointed.
The bird enclosure was devoid of chirpings, as they sat idly under the shade of trees to protect themselves against the heat.
The mats made of khas-khas were put around the bird enclosures and of other small animals to give them shade from the sun. But, such measures failed to provide any relief to zoo inmates.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1682588,0015002500030000.htm
Zoo Tycoon 2
April 24, 2006 Jonathan Lowrie
The "tycoon" genre of games is arguably one of the most popular in computer gaming. First made popular by games such as Railroad Tycoon and RollerCoaster Tycoon, tycoon games have spawned dozens of wanna-be's including titles such as Pizza Tycoon, Airline Tycoon, Lemonade Tycoon, and dozens of others.
http://www.insidemacgames.com/reviews/view.php?ID=660
Playwright Spends Week Inside Cage At Zoo
April 24, 2006 3:03 p.m. EST
Mary K. Brunskill - All Headline News Contributor
Paris, France (AHN) - A French playwright spent up to 10 hours a day in a cage for a week to better understand the life of the panda for a theater project he’s working on.
Norbert Aboudarham, 57, spent his time in the cage in Paris’ Amiens Zoo writing "The Panda’s Flea."
He explained that his reason was "about the universe, you have to put yourself in a cage smaller than the universe."
He worked on his new play on his laptop inside the cage, which he inhabited alone. His neighbors included red pandas, wolves, and raccoons.
This is the third play Aboudarham has written about animals since 2002.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7003301292
Tunnels Give New View At Zoo
Zoo Officials Also Unveil Windows, Exhibits
POSTED: 3:25 pm EDT April 24, 2006
PITTSBURGH -- Monday, Pittsburgh's first see-through tunnels will be unveiled at a couple of exhibits.
A 30-foot-ong tunnel will run underneath the home of a 1,500-pound polar bear at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium.
A 40-foot-long tunnel will run underneath the home of a 2,600-pound walrus in the water's edge exhibit.
The exhibits will also include polar bear, walrus and underwater sea otter windows.
http://www.wpxi.com/news/8962831/detail.html
Lahore Zoo’s latest victim
By Shoaib Ahmed
LAHORE: Another white tiger at the Lahore Zoo has fallen victim to the deadly blood parasite that killed three tigers last week, and while the Wildlife Director General and the zoo management claimed they were about to hire blood parasite expert Dr Tusi to deal with the problem, Dr Tusi denied being updated on the issue.
Lahore Zoo Sources told Daily Times that the tiger was critically ill and could hardly stand. Out of the total six tigers in the zoo, three have already died because of.
Wildlife Director General Imtiaz Tajwar told reporters in a recent press conference that he had contacted Dr Tusi from UAE and planned to hire him to deal with the parasite.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C04%5C25%5Cstory_25-4-2006_pg13_6
Case Of The Missing Zoo Birds
Colorado Springs
Lauri Martin
Two birds are still missing from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and zookeepers are losing hope they are still alive.
The pair of green Aracari Toucans has been missing since Friday night or early Saturday morning. They are native to South America and can't withstand the cold temperatures we’ve been having. "We're concerned since the last few nights were below freezing and there was no food source. The birds eat fruit and there is no budding fruit on the trees," Sean Anglum, zoo spokesperson said.
The birds are able to fly freely inside the exhibit, but in the 5 years that “Salsa” and “Verde’ have been at the zoo, they never tried to get out. Zookeepers are baffled about what happened. There are three sets of doors to get inside and outside the exhibit. They believe the birds were either birdnapped or set free on purpose.
"We think they're valued at $1,000 to $2,000. If you saw them in pet store, they would stick out like sore thumb because they aren't available through pet shops," Anglum said.
Since their disappearance, the Aracari Toucan information plaque has been removed from the exhibit.
http://www.kktv.com/news/headlines/2687041.html
Zoo adds tunnels for polar bear exhibit
Philip G. Pavely/Tribune-Review
By Bill Zlatos
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Tunnels were installed Monday at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium to enable visitors to view a new exhibit of polar bears and walruses.
A crawler crane 190 feet tall and weighing 10 tons positioned the 30-foot-long tunnel for the bears' exhibit into place with an inch clearance on both sides. The polar bears will swim in a pool that holds 148,000 gallons of water.
The tunnel for the walrus exhibit is 40 feet long.
"The walrus tunnel is the only one of its kind in the world," said Barbara Baker, president and CEO of the zoo in Highland Park.
Both tunnels are seamless, 12 feet wide and made of clear acrylic to enhance visitors' view of the animals' underwater activities. The tunnels were built by Reynolds Polymer Technology, of Grand Junction, Colo.
Two male polar bears, Koda and Nuka, will arrive in June from the Denver Zoo and be ready for viewing in July. They will be given new names.
The females will arrive after the males have had a chance to test the new environment.
"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife (Service) is considering designating them threatened or endangered because of global warming," Baker said.
The exhibit, called Water's Edge, also will feature sea otters. They will arrive this fall and the walruses in fall 2007.
The walruses will have a 265,000-gallon pool, and the sea otters a 57,000- gallon pool.
The zoo has raised $14.4 million for the project, which will cost at least $19 million. The campaign also includes construction of a new animal hospital.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_447061.html
Letter: How to improve Taipei Zoo
By Charles Shuttleworth
Tuesday, Apr 25, 2006,Page 8
I am writing in response to recent adverse comment on Taipei Zoo.
From my own knowledge this criticism is justified. And, although there are some mitigating factors, the situation is an appalling indictment of the zoo's management.
For a modern, well-funded zoo to keep an animal, namely a chimpanzee (`Siao Chiang'), in cramped, solitary confinement for nine years simply because he was intelligent enough to manage to escape on two occasions and also misbehaved, is inexcusable.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2006/04/25/2003304507
Islamabad zoo to be relocated to Zone V
Tuesday April 25, 2006 (1118 PST)
ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to relocate Marghazar Zoo to the Zone V of Islamabad Capital Territory.
Capital Development Authority Chairman Kamran Lashari told 'The News' Monday that the current site of the zoo is not suitable for extension. He said that he has given one-week time to the concerned officials of the CDA to identify the new site in Zone V.
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=141724
Tigress dies at zoo
Tuesday April 25 2006 13:42 IST
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sonia, a tigress at the zoo here, died on Monday reducing the number of the striped cats here to six.
The big cat, aged 23 died due to old age, zoo director P.N. Unnikrishnan said.
The carcass of the tigress was burnt as per the existing rules.
“This tigress had been at the zoo for many years. She was brought from Mysore in 1984,” he said.
With Sonia gone, there are three tigers and three tigresses, all a big draw with the visitors to the zoo.
There have been a number of deaths in the zoo recently. A tiger had died on March 26 and a black buck on March 19.
The death of the black buck had kicked up a row after part of its skull and an antler had gone missing.
Later, a supervisor and another employee of the zoo were found guilty of the theft along with an outsider.
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IER20060425032033&Page=R&Title=Kerala&Topic=0
Heat hits Chiang Mai zoo
Chiang Mai zookeepers sprayed down cages and handed out ice creams and frozen meat to their animals on Tuesday as the mercury topped 40 degree Celsius in the northern capital.
When the temperature hit 38C, five water trucks were quickly despatched and zookeepers rigged up temporary shade screens, drew extra water supplies and installed sprinklers in some cages housing animals particularly prone to heat stress.
And today is tipped to be even hotter.
Zoo public relations chief Rossukhon Juikhamwong said constant sprays were set up in the panda viewing zone and the roof of their enclosure periodically soaked with water.
Zoo veterinarian Kwanreun Duangsaard said the animals were being given special foods, such as frozen tuna for the penguins, frozen meat for tigers, ice cubes for elephants and icecream for the orangutans.
Everyone at the zoo was on the lookout for telltale signs of frustration among the animals, so they could be separated if need be, said Kwanreun.
Meteorological Department officials had previously tipped tomorrow to be the Kingdom's hottest this year, solely for the reason that the sun would be directly above Bangkok at noon .
But now, with changes on the way from China, officials are saying today might be the hottest day of the year.
An official at the Weather Forecast Division said 40C in the North was normal for this time of year, because of the orbital movement of the Earth around the sun.
Chiang Mai is particularly affected because it sits in a geographical bowl, surrounded by mountains, which tend to make the city extra hot during the day, but cool at night.
The Nation
http://nationmultimedia.com/2006/04/25/headlines/headlines_30002492.php
Support mixed for zoo's dual levy issues
Public looks divided over capital funding
By JENNI LAIDMAN
BLADE STAFF WRITER
The Toledo Zoo's 1-mill, 5-year operating levy should pass handily on May 2, but the fate of the zoo's 10-year capital levy is too close to call, according to a Blade-Zogby International poll.
In a survey of 804 likely voters, 60.2 percent said they would vote for the tax that helps pay for the zoo's day-to-day operations.
But the fate of a 0.85-mill capital levy was less clear. Polling showed 48.9 percent of respondents in favor of its passage and 43 percent opposed. Because of a plus-or-minus 3.5 percent margin of error, no prediction is possible, said pollster John Zogby.
"I wouldn't even call that a lean, with that margin of error,'' Mr. Zogby said.
The 10-year capital levy would pay for better elephant and rhino facilities, a new parking lot, and an all-weather children's zoo. It would cover repairs on the 66-year-old aquarium, and pay off some $13 million in debt.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060425/NEWS38/604250360
New Polar Bears, Walruses Coming To Pittsburgh Zoo
POSTED: 9:30 am EDT April 25, 2006
UPDATED: 10:38 am EDT April 25, 2006
PITTSBURGH -- Workers installed two transparent acrylic tunnels as part of new polar bear and walrus exhibits planned at Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium.
Zoo visitors will walk through the tunnels, which will run under pools that hold water in which the bears and walruses will swim.
The tunnel for the bear exhibit is 30 feet long and the walrus tunnel is 40 feet long.
Two male polar bears will arrive at the zoo in June and be on display by July. Sea otters will also be added to the exhibit later this year. The exhibit, called Water's Edge, will add the walruses in the fall of 2007, zoo officials said.
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/8982856/detail.html
Zoo says two endangered penguins hatched
April 25, 2006, 4:05 PM EDT
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) _The Rosamond Gifford Zoo announced Tuesday its first two hatchings of Humboldt penguin chicks, an endangered species in the wild.
The first chick was born Saturday and weighed 94 grams, or about 3.3 ounces, said zoo spokeswoman Sarah Fedele. The second chick was born Monday, weighing 74 grams.
The chicks have not yet been named and the genders have not yet been determined, she said. Frederico and Danta, which came to Syracuse from the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago, were incubating these eggs. This penguin couple paired while at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo's $3 million Penguin Coast Exhibit that opened in June 2005.
Danta had one previous clutch of two eggs with a different male while at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Zookeepers will closely monitor the health and progress of the newly hatched chicks, Fedele said.
Humboldt penguin chicks do not begin to explore their surroundings until about 45 days old. The chicks will remain in the nesting box with their parents until then. They don't acquire all their waterproofing plumage until approximately 90 days old.
The zoo's Humboldt penguin colony now comprises 21 birds, including the two newly hatched chicks.
Humboldt penguins are native to Chile and Peru. There are an estimated 12,000 to 30,000 left in the wild.
Rosamond Gifford also has successfully bred other endangered species, including Asian elephants, Amur tigers, red pandas and golden lion tamarins.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--penguinchicks0425apr25,0,2674530.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork
Finally, some good news for animals at Byculla zoo
Panel’s ideas adopted. Animals get bigger enclosures, more guards
Mumbai, April 25: MORE than two months after the death of 10 black bucks and a chausingha due to the entry of a stray dog in the antelopes’ enclosure, the steps taken by the Byculla zoo authorities indicate that the animals’ deaths have served as a wake-up call.
‘‘After the February incident, we wanted to avoid a mishap at all cost,’’ said Superintendent of Gardens P A Naringrekar.
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=179621
Zoo Boise Home to Endangered Squirrels
By Teri Nelson
BOISE -
Tuesday Zoo Boise opened a new exhibit to teach Idahoans about a little critter that seems to be disappearing in the Treasure Valley.
Boise Zoo Director Steve Burns says ground squirrels are an integral part of Idaho's high desert ecosystem--and they're increasingly threatened. According to the zoo the Southern Idaho Ground Squirrel population has dropped from about 40,000 in 1985 to fewer than 5,000 today.
"This is an animal that lives right here in the Treasure Valley that we can take an active role in helping to protect." Burns told KBCI CBS 2 News.
Burns says ground squirrels are a main food source for birds of prey.
http://www2.kbcitv.com/x71272.xml
Fund crunch hits zoo, animals need help
HT Correspondent
Kanpur, April 25
KANPUR ZOOLOGICAL Garden (Zoo) is in need of assistance from philanthropists once again. It not only requires financial assistance but also adoption of big animals by interested persons and organisations.
According to zoo authorities, they were unable to carry out most ambitious programme of developing the zoo into one of the best in the country just for fund crunch. The only hope of promoting welfare schemes for zoo inmates lay on the shoulders of philanthropists, who could adopt animals for their better upkeep, said a senior official of the zoo.
Animal lovers also feel that government assistance alone will not be sufficient for welfare of zoo inmates and people from affluent classes have to take lead in extending direct fiscal support to the zoo or by adopting some of the big animals.
However, it is strange that despite appeal for adoption of animals, no philanthropist offered to adopt animals. But all appeals fell on deaf ears of citizens. On the other hand, one philanthropist alleged the strict government laws relating to animals and tax complications discouraged them to come forward to contribute to welfare of animals.
According to them, unless existing laws pertaining to animals were changed and tax relaxation were introduced by the government, philanthropists would remain helpless in extending their support to zoo animals.
With the death of a lioness and other big animals during the past years, the zoo also needed their replacement. But, this too was not possible amidst tough wild life laws. Existing laws prohibit exchange or import and export of animals except under certain exceptional conditions with prior permission of wild life authorities.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1683448,0015002500030000.htm
Zoo loans popular albino gator to Pennsylvania animal park
Beth Cochran beth.cochran@arizonarepublic.com
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 26, 2006 12:00 AM
White alligators are rare creatures from the bayous of Louisiana. Legend has it that those who get a glimpse of the reptile will receive good fortune.
The Southwest Valley has until Friday to get one last look at the white alligator, at least until October, at the Wildlife World Zoo.
The 4-year-old albino alligator, named Marie Laveau after a New Orleans voodoo queen, was leased to the zoo in October. The white gator was so popular that the zoo purchased her.
advertisement
http://www.azcentral.com/community/westvalley/articles/0426swv-gator26Z2.html
Deadly fungus devastating populations of amphibians
By John Biemer
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 25, 2006, 8:23 PM CDT
A devastating fungus is sweeping the world, wiping out entire populations of amphibians at such a rate that Brookfield Zoo biologists are helping pull together a massive "Noah's Ark" project to capture frogs, toads and salamanders and put them in safe places.
A variety of factors already have combined to cause more than 120 amphibian species to vanish since 1980, in what one biologist has called "one of the largest extinction spasms for vertebrates in history."
A third of the world's nearly 6,000 amphibian species are threatened—their populations weak and susceptible to disease. If they go, ecosystems will tilt out of balance and potential medical breakthroughs—such as potent painkillers or HIV inhibitors—could be lost.
It is hard to determine how many species have been affected by the fungus because they cannot be assessed fast enough, but it has factored into most of the recent extinctions and declines, said Bob Lacy, the zoo's population geneticist and chairman of the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-060425fungalfrogs,1,2016792.story?coll=chi-news-hed
concluding...
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
The vortex center is unique. It is appearing now among cumulus cloud structure.
April 24, 2006.
Wichita, Kansas
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