The Rooster
"Cock-A-Doodle-Do"
"Okeydoke"
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
In contrast to south of Latitude 36 N; the Pacific Northwest is drenched and concerned about landslides.
January 11, 2006.
The average percipitation over the past several weeks has been at least 0.4 inches per day.
Morning Papers - It's Origins
The Times Picayune
Corps lists roster of East Jeff levee jobs
Hard-hit sections of Orleans get priority in the rush to do repairs
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
By Sheila Grissett
East Jefferson bureau
Most of the more than $120 million recently allocated to beef up undamaged sections of the Lake Pontchartrain-Lake Borgne hurricane protection system will be spent in Orleans Parish, but some of the money also will raise sinking levees, replace a rickety-looking section of floodwall, and improve protection around two big pumping stations in East Jefferson, the Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday.
There is no timeline yet for awarding the new contracts, but because the improvements are being made to parts of the system that weren't damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the work won't be done as quickly as those emergency repairs that the corps' Task Force Guardian is rushing to complete by June 1, the first day of the hurricane season.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1136962906109650.xml
4 MONTHS TO DECIDE
Nagin panel says hardest hit areas must prove viability city's footprint may shrink; full buyouts proposed for those forced to move. New housing to be developed in vast swaths of New Orleans' higher ground
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
By Frank Donze and Gordon Russell
Staff writers
Residents of New Orleans areas hardest-hit by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters would have four months to prove they can bring their neighborhoods back to life or face the prospect of having to sell out to a new and powerful redevelopment authority under a plan to be released today by a key panel of Mayor Ray Nagin's rebuilding commission.
In perhaps its boldest recommendation, the panel says Nagin should impose a moratorium on building permits in shattered areas covering most of the city, while residents there meet to craft plans to revive their neighborhoods. The proposals are spelled out in the final report of the land-use committee of Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back commission, which was obtained by The Times-Picayune.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1136962572109650.xml
Coastal proposal is a two-for-one idea
Hurricane defense, restoration combined
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Mark Schleifstein
Staff writer
An independent group of scientists and engineers is working on a coastline strategy that could help planners in combining coastal restoration efforts with improved hurricane protection in a "multiple lines of defense" approach for New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana.
John Lopez, director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation's coastal sustainability program, said the idea is to give federal and state planners a conceptual map that can be used as a template in coordinating restoration and levee projects.
The map would be drawn to identify areas where natural resources need to be protected, as well as noting geological structures that could be used to anchor the restoration and hurricane-protection projects. It also could help in determining what the future uses of the coast -- freshwater or saltwater fisheries, oil and gas production, residential development -- should be, Lopez said.
It may also become a starting point for the controversial decisions about which areas will be ringed with levees and open for development and which areas will be targeted for wetland restoration outside the levee system.
"It's not just a question of identifying what we're defending against, but determining how to get the most out of the restoration program," Lopez said. "If you don't understand the architecture of the coast in geologic or hydrologic terms, you're planning for marsh acreage here or levee heights there without really knowing how one will influence the other."
An expanded effort
Lopez, formerly of the Army Corps of Engineers, began the mapping process as part of the foundation's development of a basin sustainability plan, and expanded it to include a larger area of the coastline after Hurricane Katrina hit in August.
For the natural resource parts of the map in the New Orleans area, he looked at studies and maps outlining how the land, wetlands, forests and open water were used between 1900 and the 1930s, before the construction of major projects such as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet dramatically changed the local environment.
The independent mapping effort surfaces as the state's new Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority staff is negotiating an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers that will outline the state's role in the newly combined levee and coastal restoration planning effort recently approved by Congress, said Sidney Coffee, the authority's executive director.
Meanwhile, a separate committee of nationally recognized scientists and engineers led by University of Maryland Center For Environmental Science President Don Boesch is putting together its own advisory report for the corps' Washington headquarters staff. It seeks to integrate planning for coastal restoration, flood protection and navigation along Louisiana's coast.
"The corps at the national level was a little frustrated by the critical thinking they were not able to get from the district or division, and they wanted to move the process forward quickly," Boesch said.
His report, to be published within the next few weeks under the auspices of the corps' Institute for Water Resources, will identify problems the corps could face in designing projects, such as the potential for damming off wetlands necessary to maintain productive fisheries, Boesch said.
"We're not doing a map, but making suggestions on how to do a map," he said.
The lines of defense
The focus on using maps to help plan the future of Louisiana's coastline was a key recommendation of a 12-member panel of scientists and engineers sponsored by the National Research Council. That committee, whose November report critiqued the federal-state Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration plan, said the lack of the map represented a failure of state and federal officials to make key decisions about how the state's coastal resources would be used in the future.
Without those decisions, the report said, officials would continually run the risk of political defeats of individual projects by special interests in coastal communities.
Lopez's map identifies 11 separate lines of defense that stretch from the Gulf of Mexico to the interior of cities such as New Orleans:
-- The Gulf of Mexico's Outer Continental Shelf. Understanding how the geography of the shelf affects storm surge is important in hurricane protection planning, Lopez said.
-- Barrier islands. The slivers of sand, such as Grand Isle and the Chandeleur islands, are the first speed bumps with potential for reducing the effects of storm surge and waves, especially on nearby interior marshes. The last remnants of old river deltas, many of the islands along Louisiana's coast have disappeared or are disappearing through erosion and subsidence. Repairing eroded islands and building new ones are among projects being considered in federal and state restoration plans.
-- Sounds and bays. Their shallow water helps reduce currents found in deeper waters, although they allow waves to regenerate as a hurricane crosses them. They also provide sheltered areas for fisheries and other wildlife.
-- Marsh and land bridges. Located in strategic areas along Louisiana's southeastern coast, such as the area in eastern New Orleans bordering Lake Catherine, they can brake storm surge. Many are threatened by erosion, and some have been proposed as routes for new or raised levees.
-- Natural ridges. Often the remains of ancient courses of the Mississippi River or its distributaries, the ridges have acted as another speed bump to storm surge and a separation between different water bodies. Some, such as the shoreline of Bayou Lafourche, are where linear communities have located. Others have been cut by navigation channels and have exacerbated erosion. Bayou la Loutre in St. Bernard Parish, for example, was cut by the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet.
-- Man-made soil foundations. As roads and railroads were built across south Louisiana, compacted materials were used as foundations for roads and railroad beds. Those structures, such as the roadbed of U.S. 90 along the West Bank leading to Houma, continue to provide some protection from surge or floodwaters, or at least a usable escape route.
-- Flood gates. Some gates, such as on Bayou Bienvenue and Bayou Dupre in the New Orleans area or on Bayou Lafourche at Golden Meadow, already are used to reduce the effects of storm surge. Others have been proposed at the Chef Menteur and Rigolets passes into Lake Pontchartrain as ways to reduce the effects of larger hurricanes.
-- Levees. Designed as the barrier of last resort, they also have the consequence of increasing the water levels on their interior side during wetter storms and if they are topped by surge.
-- Pumps. Often used to reduce flood risk within leveed areas during nonhurricane events, the stations' effectiveness is reduced because of lack of power or staff during hurricanes.
-- Elevated homes and businesses. Often used along the coast in areas unprotected by levees, elevating homes above the level of storm surge is a last line of defense for individual property owners.
-- Evacuation routes. Lopez said the area's evacuation routes and plans need to be part of the planning process to assure that the lowest spots subject to flooding well in advance of a storm are raised and that other projects don't impede evacuees.
Limited mandate
Gregory Miller, a coastal restoration project manager for the Corps of Engineers, said such outside assistance will be considered, but that the congressional authorization the corps is working under only calls for integrating storm protection, coastal restoration and flood control, and not the development of a map.
Robert Twilley, a Louisiana State University scientist whose computer modeling has been used to help determine what projects to include in the proposed federal-state coastal restoration plan, said the difficulty with drawing the map will be determining what areas to protect.
"These walls of levees are great for urban areas like New Orleans, but what do you do about Houma and smaller communities, or the chenier plain on the western side of the state," he said. "Do you wall off the entire state?"
Twilley, who is a member of Boesch's group, said ongoing studies of storm surge and waves emanating from observations made during Hurricane Katrina also could change some of the assumptions used in drawing the Lopez map or future maps.
"We're now getting some validation and verification of certain models, and it may be that the actual reduction in storm surge by wetlands and the conveyance of storm surge by canals may differ from past assumptions," he said. "There's some overestimates of what wetlands can do to reduce the magnitude of storm surge."
That could mean more wetlands will be needed, not just to buffer levees, but to protect evacuation routes such as U.S. 90.
"We have to have a natural landscape, not just an apron around the bottom of levees," he said.
Forward to the past
And in areas like the highly eroded marshes adjacent to the MR-GO, it could also require the re-establishment of the large cypress-forest wetland of the past, he said.
Lopez's use of a 1900-1930 period as a target for restoration also could be a matter of debate, said Denise Reed, a University of New Orleans biologist.
"We're dealing with today's natural resources and what they mean to people's livelihoods now, and then what people want their livelihoods to be in the future," Reed said. Going back to a landscape 75 years in the past is "like pickling the coast and putting it in a jar and expecting it to stay the same all the time."
Instead, she said, the Lopez map could be one of a number of maps that sketch out "different strategies for restoration, different strategies for lines of defense and different natural resource productivity, and the different costs associated with them."
"That would inform a discussion about the future of the coast," she said.
Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3327.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1136875706296350.xml
Coastal proposal is a two-for-one idea
Hurricane defense, restoration combined
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Mark Schleifstein
Staff writer
An independent group of scientists and engineers is working on a coastline strategy that could help planners in combining coastal restoration efforts with improved hurricane protection in a "multiple lines of defense" approach for New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana.
John Lopez, director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation's coastal sustainability program, said the idea is to give federal and state planners a conceptual map that can be used as a template in coordinating restoration and levee projects.
The map would be drawn to identify areas where natural resources need to be protected, as well as noting geological structures that could be used to anchor the restoration and hurricane-protection projects. It also could help in determining what the future uses of the coast -- freshwater or saltwater fisheries, oil and gas production, residential development -- should be, Lopez said.
It may also become a starting point for the controversial decisions about which areas will be ringed with levees and open for development and which areas will be targeted for wetland restoration outside the levee system.
"It's not just a question of identifying what we're defending against, but determining how to get the most out of the restoration program," Lopez said. "If you don't understand the architecture of the coast in geologic or hydrologic terms, you're planning for marsh acreage here or levee heights there without really knowing how one will influence the other."
An expanded effort
Lopez, formerly of the Army Corps of Engineers, began the mapping process as part of the foundation's development of a basin sustainability plan, and expanded it to include a larger area of the coastline after Hurricane Katrina hit in August.
For the natural resource parts of the map in the New Orleans area, he looked at studies and maps outlining how the land, wetlands, forests and open water were used between 1900 and the 1930s, before the construction of major projects such as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet dramatically changed the local environment.
The independent mapping effort surfaces as the state's new Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority staff is negotiating an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers that will outline the state's role in the newly combined levee and coastal restoration planning effort recently approved by Congress, said Sidney Coffee, the authority's executive director.
Meanwhile, a separate committee of nationally recognized scientists and engineers led by University of Maryland Center For Environmental Science President Don Boesch is putting together its own advisory report for the corps' Washington headquarters staff. It seeks to integrate planning for coastal restoration, flood protection and navigation along Louisiana's coast.
"The corps at the national level was a little frustrated by the critical thinking they were not able to get from the district or division, and they wanted to move the process forward quickly," Boesch said.
His report, to be published within the next few weeks under the auspices of the corps' Institute for Water Resources, will identify problems the corps could face in designing projects, such as the potential for damming off wetlands necessary to maintain productive fisheries, Boesch said.
"We're not doing a map, but making suggestions on how to do a map," he said.
The lines of defense
The focus on using maps to help plan the future of Louisiana's coastline was a key recommendation of a 12-member panel of scientists and engineers sponsored by the National Research Council. That committee, whose November report critiqued the federal-state Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration plan, said the lack of the map represented a failure of state and federal officials to make key decisions about how the state's coastal resources would be used in the future.
Without those decisions, the report said, officials would continually run the risk of political defeats of individual projects by special interests in coastal communities.
Lopez's map identifies 11 separate lines of defense that stretch from the Gulf of Mexico to the interior of cities such as New Orleans:
-- The Gulf of Mexico's Outer Continental Shelf. Understanding how the geography of the shelf affects storm surge is important in hurricane protection planning, Lopez said.
-- Barrier islands. The slivers of sand, such as Grand Isle and the Chandeleur islands, are the first speed bumps with potential for reducing the effects of storm surge and waves, especially on nearby interior marshes. The last remnants of old river deltas, many of the islands along Louisiana's coast have disappeared or are disappearing through erosion and subsidence. Repairing eroded islands and building new ones are among projects being considered in federal and state restoration plans.
-- Sounds and bays. Their shallow water helps reduce currents found in deeper waters, although they allow waves to regenerate as a hurricane crosses them. They also provide sheltered areas for fisheries and other wildlife.
-- Marsh and land bridges. Located in strategic areas along Louisiana's southeastern coast, such as the area in eastern New Orleans bordering Lake Catherine, they can brake storm surge. Many are threatened by erosion, and some have been proposed as routes for new or raised levees.
-- Natural ridges. Often the remains of ancient courses of the Mississippi River or its distributaries, the ridges have acted as another speed bump to storm surge and a separation between different water bodies. Some, such as the shoreline of Bayou Lafourche, are where linear communities have located. Others have been cut by navigation channels and have exacerbated erosion. Bayou la Loutre in St. Bernard Parish, for example, was cut by the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet.
-- Man-made soil foundations. As roads and railroads were built across south Louisiana, compacted materials were used as foundations for roads and railroad beds. Those structures, such as the roadbed of U.S. 90 along the West Bank leading to Houma, continue to provide some protection from surge or floodwaters, or at least a usable escape route.
-- Flood gates. Some gates, such as on Bayou Bienvenue and Bayou Dupre in the New Orleans area or on Bayou Lafourche at Golden Meadow, already are used to reduce the effects of storm surge. Others have been proposed at the Chef Menteur and Rigolets passes into Lake Pontchartrain as ways to reduce the effects of larger hurricanes.
-- Levees. Designed as the barrier of last resort, they also have the consequence of increasing the water levels on their interior side during wetter storms and if they are topped by surge.
-- Pumps. Often used to reduce flood risk within leveed areas during nonhurricane events, the stations' effectiveness is reduced because of lack of power or staff during hurricanes.
-- Elevated homes and businesses. Often used along the coast in areas unprotected by levees, elevating homes above the level of storm surge is a last line of defense for individual property owners.
-- Evacuation routes. Lopez said the area's evacuation routes and plans need to be part of the planning process to assure that the lowest spots subject to flooding well in advance of a storm are raised and that other projects don't impede evacuees.
Limited mandate
Gregory Miller, a coastal restoration project manager for the Corps of Engineers, said such outside assistance will be considered, but that the congressional authorization the corps is working under only calls for integrating storm protection, coastal restoration and flood control, and not the development of a map.
Robert Twilley, a Louisiana State University scientist whose computer modeling has been used to help determine what projects to include in the proposed federal-state coastal restoration plan, said the difficulty with drawing the map will be determining what areas to protect.
"These walls of levees are great for urban areas like New Orleans, but what do you do about Houma and smaller communities, or the chenier plain on the western side of the state," he said. "Do you wall off the entire state?"
Twilley, who is a member of Boesch's group, said ongoing studies of storm surge and waves emanating from observations made during Hurricane Katrina also could change some of the assumptions used in drawing the Lopez map or future maps.
"We're now getting some validation and verification of certain models, and it may be that the actual reduction in storm surge by wetlands and the conveyance of storm surge by canals may differ from past assumptions," he said. "There's some overestimates of what wetlands can do to reduce the magnitude of storm surge."
That could mean more wetlands will be needed, not just to buffer levees, but to protect evacuation routes such as U.S. 90.
"We have to have a natural landscape, not just an apron around the bottom of levees," he said.
Forward to the past
And in areas like the highly eroded marshes adjacent to the MR-GO, it could also require the re-establishment of the large cypress-forest wetland of the past, he said.
Lopez's use of a 1900-1930 period as a target for restoration also could be a matter of debate, said Denise Reed, a University of New Orleans biologist.
"We're dealing with today's natural resources and what they mean to people's livelihoods now, and then what people want their livelihoods to be in the future," Reed said. Going back to a landscape 75 years in the past is "like pickling the coast and putting it in a jar and expecting it to stay the same all the time."
Instead, she said, the Lopez map could be one of a number of maps that sketch out "different strategies for restoration, different strategies for lines of defense and different natural resource productivity, and the different costs associated with them."
"That would inform a discussion about the future of the coast," she said.
Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3327.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1136875706296350.xml
N.O. Guard force might be reduced
It's up to governor, commander says
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Ed Anderson
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- The approximately 2,000 Louisiana National Guard troops on Hurricane Katrina relief duty in New Orleans should be reduced to 1,000 by Feb. 1 unless Gov. Kathleen Blanco says otherwise, the commander in charge of the forces said Monday.
Brig. Gen. John Basilica, commander of the 256th "Tiger Brigade" based in Lafayette, said that the Guard's mission is "to work our way out of a job. . . . We are coming to the point where our aid is coming to an end in February" in New Orleans.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1136874967296350.xml
Ater wants to ease mail-voting rules
La. special session may take up issue
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Ed Anderson
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- Secretary of State Al Ater has asked Gov. Kathleen Blanco to include in a possible special session legislation that would allow hurricane-displaced New Orleans voters who registered by mail a one-time exemption from a law that requires them to cast their first vote in person.
In a letter written Friday to Blanco; Senate President Donald Hines, D-Bunkie; and House Speaker Joe Salter, D-Florien, Ater asks the governor to consider including the item on her agenda for a two-week special session she has said she will call in late January or early February.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-3/113687665025370.xml
FEMA worker charged with looting
He was at home to install trailer
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Paul Rioux
St. Tammany bureau
Having waited more than three months for two FEMA trailers to arrive for his extended family, Darin LeBlanc was elated when he heard the first one had been delivered to the driveway outside his ruined Slidell home.
"I couldn't believe that after all those phone calls it was finally here," said LeBlanc, who has been living in the office at his Kenner glass shop. "I had to stop by to see it for myself."
But LeBlanc could scarcely believe his eyes Friday afternoon when he arrived at his home in the Bayou Bonfouca Estates subdivision.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-12/113687643025370.xml
U.S. politicians visit Netherlands to study flood defenses
1/10/2006, 5:40 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A delegation of 50 U.S. government officials, academics and business representatives began a three-day tour of the Netherlands Tuesday to study flood prevention techniques in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
A similar flood in the Netherlands in 1953 left around 1,800 people dead and spurred a 50-year project that constructed dikes, giant sea walls and flood gates that keep the low-lying country dry. Katrina, overwhelmed levies and flooded large parts of New Orleans. The storm killed 1,326 people in five U.S. states, including 1,077 in Louisiana.
U.S. lawmakers Mary Landrieu, David Vitter and Bill Jefferson, and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco are leading officials on the visit.
Adam Sharp, the spokesman for the U.S. delegation, said the Netherlands and Louisiana share a love-hate relationship with water. "We are both threatened by water, but both rely on it for our livelihoods," he said. "That balance is one that the Dutch have achieved over 50 years in a remarkable way."
Among the Dutch hosts are Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, construction industry executives and a team from the Ministry of Traffic and Water Management.
The American visitors are focusing their attention on the so-called Delta Project, which was built to protect the south of the country from any storm, save one so severe that statistically it is predicted to happen only once in 10,000 years.
The levees in New Orleans had lower standards than those mandated by Dutch law and were built to withstand the kind of storm that could be expected once every 100 years, officials have said.
U.S. officials will be researching how to build a system that could withstand a storm as large or larger than Hurricane Katrina.
Possible Dutch involvement in rebuilding Louisiana's coastal protection and estimates of how much it would cost to build a system on the Dutch model were expected to be key issues.
Hendrik Dek, a spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Water Management, said the Dutch — who allocate more than a billion euros (dollars) a year to water management — were shocked by the extent of the damage caused by Katrina.
"When Rita and Katrina hit our thoughts went out to the people, but they also went to our history. ... We have so much experience, so much to offer. We can show them what they can learn from our experiences and our mistakes."
Dek said the Dutch hoped to show Louisiana that building an effective defense against the sea was not an impossible task. "We will make it clear that it can be done. We did it, so they can do it."
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1136893744249830.xml&storylist=louisiana
15 Cubans who got to Fla. bridge sent home
1/10/2006, 5:28 a.m. CT
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
The Associated Press
MIAMI (AP) — Cuban-American community activists and politicians lambasted the U.S. government's decision to repatriate 15 Cubans picked up from the base of an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys.
An attorney for the families of the migrants said he planned to file a suit Tuesday asking a federal judge to allow the group to return.
The migrants were sent back to Cuba Monday after U.S. officials concluded that the section of the partially collapsed bridge where they landed did not count as dry land under the government's policy because it was no longer connected to any of the Keys.
Under the U.S. government's "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach dry land in the United States are usually allowed to remain in this country, while those caught at sea are sent back.
"Through a legal review, the migrants were determined to be feet-wet and processed in accordance with standard procedure," Coast Guard spokesman, Petty Officer Dana Warr, said in a statement.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/national-57/1136855372123640.xml&storylist=topstories
The Detroit Free Press
Detroit Catholic bishop says he was molested by priest
Gumbleton says incidents occurred when he was a naive teen at Sacred Heart Seminary high school
Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton revealed
Wednesday that he had been sexually molested by a priest when he was a teenager
attending Detroit Sacred Heart Seminary's onetime high school for boys.
With his revelation, Gumbleton, 75, became the first Catholic
bishop in the United States to acknowledge such abuse. He also broke
ranks with the nation's Catholic leadership by calling for new laws
that would allow victims' lawyers and investigators to dig into past
cases, now largely left off limits because too many years have passed.
Gumbleton said he was a high school freshman or sophomore at
Detroit's Sacred Heart Seminary High School in the mid-1940s when a priest
took him and another teenager away to a cottage.
"I would start wrestling with him, and he would put his hand in my
pants," Gumbleton told the Free Press Wednesday morning, as he prepared
to leave a Grand Rapids hotel to travel to Columbus, Ohio. "It was
very minor, but it was also something that was very inappropriate."
This afternoon, Gumbleton
is scheduled to speak at a demonstration planned by victims of sexual
abuse in Columbus in favor of an Ohio legislative proposal to
remove the statute of limitations on such abuse cases.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060111/NEWS11/60111001
GM told: Cut every salary
Kerkorian's message: Fix must start at top, aide says
With GM burning through $24 million of cash a day, the company will run out of money in 1,000 days or sooner unless executives make tough decisions now, Kerkorian aide Jerome York said in a speech delivered on GM territory at the Renaissance Center.
"This situation calls for the company's going into crisis mode, adopting a degree of urgency that recognizes if things don't break right, the unthinkable could happen, that time is of the essence," York told the Society of Automotive Analysts. The society represents those who advise stockholders on automotive investments.
GM Chief Financial Officer Fritz Henderson, the fast-rising executive who took over his current role Jan. 1, exchanged friendly remarks with York before the speech and applauded his remarks afterward.
"I am in crisis mode," Henderson said. "Frankly, there was a lot he had to say today that I agree with."
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005601110463
FUEL ECONOMY: Revised testing unveiled by EPA
The fuel economy estimates of many U.S. cars and trucks could fall by as much as 20% under new testing procedures unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday.
Gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, some of which have been criticized for failing to meet their estimates, will suffer the largest reductions, with up to a 30% cut in their city driving average, according to EPA officials.
The changes, first reported by the Free Press on Monday, are designed to make the miles per gallon estimates on window stickers more accurately reflect what drivers on high-speed freeways and clogged city streets can actually expect from their vehicles.
Automakers and consumer advocates have been calling on the EPA to revamp its lab tests for city and highway estimated mileage, first developed in the 1970s. Last year, Congress required the EPA to revisit its methods.
While buyers may be surprised by the declines, "accurate fuel ratings will cause people to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, particularly in light of high gasoline prices," said Susan Pikrallidas, AAA's vice president of public affairs.
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson told reporters Tuesday that when the EPA's tests were last updated in 1985, he was driving a Pontiac Catalina to work.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005601110330
SPECULATION: Toyota boss says U.S. may assist GM
Toyota Motor Corp. Chairman Hiroshi Okuda said Tuesday that he believes General Motors Corp. will likely receive support from the U.S. government if it faces further trouble.
"I have the feeling that GM is in a difficult situation," Okuda was quoted as saying by Hisako Komai, a spokeswoman for the Nippon Keidanren, Japan's most influential business lobby. Okuda heads the lobby. "But the auto industry is a symbol of the United States, and if GM faces further difficulty, I don't think the U.S. government will leave it."
GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner dismissed the suggestion in an interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. "I haven't seen any evidence whatsoever of that," Wagoner said Tuesday. "If somebody wants to help, great. I haven't seen the check come in yet."
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060111/BUSINESS03/601110446
New Zealand Herald
2005 a year of extreme weather, says NIWA report
10.01.06 4.00pm
A destructive tornado in Greymouth, catastrophic floods in the North Island, an unseasonably late snowstorm in Canterbury and warmer than average temperatures nationwide provided a year of extreme weather around the country in 2005.
NIWA's National Climate Centre today released details of the country's climate in 2005, revealing a mixed bag of weather.
The year was marked by too little rain in some places, and too much in others, NIWA's principal scientist Dr Jim Salinger said.
"Rainfall during the year was less than 75 per cent of normal over much of the South Island whereas severe flooding in the Bay of Plenty in May caused widespread damage," he said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10363091
Mozambique rains kill 22, cyclone alert declared
11.01.06 11.20am
JOHANNESBURG - At least 22 people have been swept to their death in Mozambique and thousands more have fled heavy rains there and in neighbouring South Africa and Malawi, emergency officials said today.
Government officials in Mozambique said the death toll had risen sharply from the initial eight reported a week ago, and heavy rains were expected to continue, forcing the government to put the country on a cyclone alert.
Rains had fuelled the spread of disease, with 114 cases of cholera reported in the central Sofala region. But Mozambique had contained the crisis well and there were no deaths from cholera, state administration minister Lucas Chomera said.
"The death toll stands at 22. Heavy rains continue but there is no cause for alarm yet," said a senior emergency official.
Officials said Mozambique's major rivers remained near the 7-metre flood alarm level but were not a concern at the moment.
In 2000, devastating floods in Mozambique killed an estimated 700 people and made up to 500,000 homeless.
Drought in southern Africa left several million people in need of urgent food handouts last year. Now governments and relief agencies fear that heavy rains will prevent supplies reaching the needy or will damage crops that have been planted.
Mozambique weather services predicted rain would continue to fall over the entire week. Meteorologists have forecast normal to above-normal levels of rainfall in central and northern Mozambique to the end of the rainy season in March.
Rains damaged roads and other infrastructure, officials said, making it difficult for relief workers to distribute food to some 800,000 people cut off in the Sofala and Gaza regions where stocks were declining fast.
The Limpopo railway, linking neighbouring Zimbabwe to Maputo port, had also been closed after rain-induced damage and weather prevented planned repairs.
In South Africa, police reported floods killed at least two people in a settlement in Johannesburg and said several shacks in one squatter village had been swept away.
One of the main border posts between South Africa and Botswana was closed due to flooding, a Home Affairs spokesman said. Traffic was being diverted to alternative crossings.
Near the town of Standerton in rural Mpumalanga province, police planned to evacuate thousands of people marooned there by rain. Standerton's two dams were between 114 per cent and 150 per cent full, weather officials said.
Near the Malawi town of Chikwakwa, south of the commercial capital Blantyre, rains have killed one person and displaced at least 1,000 people in the past week, Malawi officials said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363229
Greenpeace says that despite the damage, the Arctic Sunrise is seaworthy and its navigational ability has not been affected. Picture / Greenpeace
Whaler could be sued over ramming
10.01.06
Greenpeace is considering legal action after a "terrifying" collision between a Japanese whaling boat and a protest vessel in the Southern Ocean, which was caught on film.
The Greenpeace protesters - including two New Zealanders - have been tailing the Japanese "scientific whaling" fleet across the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary since December 21.
Each side blames the other for the potentially life-threatening incident around 8am on Sunday (2pm NZT), which left the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise with a huge dent in its hull and a bent mast.
Greenpeace said it was looking at taking legal action.
Greenpeace expedition leader Shane Rattenbury said protesters in inflatable dinghies had been using rollers on poles to paint the words "whale meat" on the side of a supply vessel that was tied alongside the whaling fleet's mother ship, the Nisshin Maru.
Mr Rattenbury, who was on the bridge of the Arctic Sunrise at the time, said the Nisshin Maru suddenly detached itself from the supply vessel and started heading straight for the Greenpeace vessel.
"There was absolutely no need for it to make that move ... It did that full circle and came for the Sunrise."
At 129m long, the Nisshin Maru is more than twice as long as the Arctic Sunrise and about six times heavier, he said. "So to see it bearing down on us was a terrifying experience ...
"Everyone very shaken after the incident."
But Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) says the Greenpeace vessel deliberately rammed the Nisshin Maru as it was refuelling.
Director-general Hiroshi Hatanaka said the Arctic Sunrise's bow hit the side of the Nisshin Maru twice.
"The captain of the Nisshin Maru confirmed to ICR today that Greenpeace had rammed our vessel, which has sustained some damage. Luckily, no crew members were injured," he said yesterday.
Dr Hatanaka said another group, Sea Shepherd, also had a boat, the Farley Mowat, in the area during the incident.
He said the Nisshin Maru's crew did not know what the people in inflatables were doing and were concerned they might be attaching a bomb.
"Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd are working together, and this concerns us greatly. In the vastness of the Antarctic Ocean, it is just impossible to find a ship unless they are co-operating," Dr Hatanaka said.
However, Mr Rattenbury said video footage of the incident showed clearly that the Nisshin Maru was the aggressor.
The ramming was "a clear attempt to intimidate Greenpeace and have us cease our protests and our actions to stop the whaling".
He said it was not true that Greenpeace was co-operating with Sea Shepherd, which has been linked to attacks on whaling vessels in Norway and elsewhere.
"Frankly we don't know how they found us either; we've had very little radio contact with them ...
"We have made it very clear all along that we are working independently. The ICR can say what they like, but those are the facts."
Mr Rattenbury said it was "outlandish" for the whalers to claim they had feared the protesters were planting a bomb on their ship.
"We have communicated very clearly with the ICR in Tokyo since we've been here and we have sent them letters saying we have no intention of harming any of their crew or damaging any of their ships ...
"For them to suggest that we'd be planting a bomb flies in the face of 35 years [of] Greenpeace history and reputation."
He said Greenpeace had carried out similar "branding-type protests" on other ships, such as those carrying illegal timber, over the years.
"It's a way of bearing witness to the crime we believe is going on.
"In this case, we branded the supply vessel because it was clearly implicated in the whaling operation: supplying fuel four or five days ago and now acting as courier for the whale meat operation."
Immediately after the incident, the Nisshin Maru turned around and started "steaming north", Mr Rattenbury said.
"We've followed them all through the day and all through the night - no whales killed since Saturday lunchtime, which is a good thing."
He said he had no idea where the Japanese vessel could be headed.
The catcher vessels - the ships that actually harpoon the whales - have disappeared.
"But they always come back to the mothership, which is why we stick with that one."
The Arctic Sunrise was sporting "a significant dent", but luckily it was above the deckline and the hull had not been pierced, he said.
"Our foremast is bent but we've managed to secure it so it doesn't actually collapse.
"Our vessel is seaworthy and our navigational ability has not been affected so we're quite fine at the moment."
He said the team was undaunted by the violent clash.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=1501010&objectid=10363031
Whales and whaling
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/index.cfm?c_id=1501010
Anti-whaling skipper calls NZ Government 'contemptible'
11.01.06 3.20pm
By Colin Marshall
The captain of a conservation ship clashing with Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean has labelled the New Zealand Government "contemptible" for allowing Japan to continue killing whales.
Paul Watson, of the Sea Shepherd vessel Farley Mowat, was today criticised by Conservation Minister Chris Carter as irresponsible for using tactics such as running into whaling ships with a "can opener" device in a bid to stop them taking whales.
Capt Watson said such criticism was unfounded.
"If the Australian government and the New Zealand Government were acting responsibly then we wouldn't be down here," he said from aboard his vessel in the Southern Ocean.
"The fact is the Japanese whaling fleet is in blatant violation of international law and nobody is doing anything about it.
"We're not here to protest, we're down here to uphold international conservation law and to chase these guys out of here and it's working. They're afraid of us and we want them to be afraid of us. "
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10363255
Military may defend Japanese whalers
11.01.06
By Ainsley Thomson
Japan has warned it may send armed aircraft to defend its whaling ships in the Southern Ocean if clashes with protest boats escalate.
The whaling nation also says it may ask Australia to take action against protesters.
The increasingly tense conflict prompted a Green Party call last night for New Zealand to send a frigate to Antarctica in a monitoring role - an option the Government quickly ruled out.
The confrontation with the whalers intensified yesterday, with conservation group Sea Shepherd threatening to ram and disable the Japanese whaling fleet.
The group's ship, Farley Mowat, is equipped with a blade device - known as the "can opener" - mounted on its side and designed to rip open a ship's hull.
Sea Shepherd's threat came as Japan's Fisheries Agency said it was considering asking its Maritime Police Agency to send armed aircraft to defend the whaling ships.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10363188
New Orleans residents given 4 months to rebuild
12.01.06 1.00pm
By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans officials today unveiled a controversial recovery plan giving residents four months to prove they will rebuild in the devastated city before their neighbourhoods could be declared off-limits to redevelopment.
The plan calls for a much smaller city, estimating that just half of the 500,000 people who lived there before Hurricane Katrina will resettle in the next two years.
It proposes residents and experts form planning teams for each neighbourhood and decide by late May on the fate of those most heavily damaged by the August 29 storm and the flooding that followed. It was designed by the urban-planning committee of the Bring Back New Orleans Commission, appointed in October by Mayor Ray Nagin.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363400
Extra meningitis jab considered for babies
11.01.06 4.00pm
By Rebecca Quilliam
Ten people have become infected with the potentially deadly meningococcal B virus after they were fully vaccinated against it, prompting the Ministry of Health to consider a fourth vaccination jab for young children.
Medsafe is expected to announce in the next few days whether a fourth immunisation shot will be introduced for babies.
National meningococcal vaccine strategy director Dr Jane O'Hallahan said the extra vaccine was only being considered for infants because they were the most vulnerable to the disease.
"We know that infants generally respond to a lesser extent to immunisations in the first year of life than older children and therefore it was likely that a fourth dose may be required to boost their level of immunity and give them longer protection."
Of the nine other patients who contracted the virus, seven were over five-years-old and two were under five.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10363254
Sharp rise in hepatitis A cases in Canterbury
11.01.06 2.00pm
Canterbury health officials are becoming increasingly alarmed at the high number of hepatitis A infections in the region.
Twelve people have been infected with the highly contagious virus since Christmas, compared with a total of just two or three cases in an average year.
The source of the jaundice-causing illness in three of the patients recently diagnosed remains a mystery, The Press newspaper reported today.
Canterbury District Health Board medical officer of health Dr Mel Brieseman said the three new cases had some association with those already notified.
"Some are related. Some are boyfriend or girlfriend. All are part of family clusters," he said.
The youngest involved was a five-year-old and the oldest was aged 73, Dr Brieseman said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10363217
Organ donations plummet
11.01.06 9.25am
Patients may be dying on waiting lists because the number of people donating their organs after their death has dropped by over a quarter in the past year.
Organs from just 29 people went to others in New Zealand last year.
The figure is a marked drop from 40 in 2004 and the lowest in more than a decade of statistics collected by the Australia and New Zealand Organ Donation Registry - the previous lowest was 34 in 1993.
The decline is even more substantial than the experience in Australia, where just 204 dead people donated their organs last year - down from 218 in 2004.
Professor Graeme Russ of the donation registry, which is based in Adelaide's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, said the figures were worrying and meant New Zealand's rate of donation was now only about seven people per million.
That is down from about 10 per million last year and far behind world leaders Spain, where the figure was over 34 per million.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10363200
Turkish bird flu outbreak can be controlled, says WHO
11.01.06 1.00pm
GENEVA - The bird flu outbreak in Turkey, which local officials say has infected 15 people and killed two, can be "relatively easily" controlled, a senior World Health Organisation official said today.
And genetic tests of samples from birds and people infected in the Turkish outbreak, the first involving humans outside east Asia, show the virus is still not being passed from person to person, according to the United Nations' health agency.
Speaking by telephone from Ankara, the leader of a WHO investigation team, Dr. Guenael Rodier, told journalists the challenge facing health authorities was to remain vigilant for any further cases in either humans or poultry.
"I have a sense that what is going on in Turkey can be ... brought under control relatively easily," the official said.
But Rodier said it was not clear why so many people had been infected in Turkey so quickly.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363230
Worried Turks head to hospital for bird flu tests
10.01.06 1.00pm
DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey - Turkey reported a spike in suspected bird flu cases among people across the country today as fears grew that the deadly disease was sweeping westward towards mainland Europe.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said victims appear to have contracted the virus directly from infected birds, allaying fears it was now passing dangerously from person to person.
The Turkish authorities reported 14 people have tested positive for the deadly bird flu virus, including three children from the same family in an impoverished region of eastern Turkey who died last week.
Bird flu is known to have killed 76 people since the latest outbreak emerged in late 2003. Human cases had been confined to east Asia until the virus was identified in Turkey last week.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363075
US returns Cubans who reached bridge
11.01.06
MIAMI - The US Coast Guard repatriated 15 Cubans on Monday who had tried to reach the United States but managed to get only as far as a pylon of an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys.
The repatriation of the Cubans cast a renewed spotlight on the US policy of generally allowing Cuban who reach US soil to stay in the country, and sending back those intercepted by the Coast Guard at sea, a "wet foot, dry foot" policy that non-Cuban immigrant groups consider unfair.
The Coast Guard said Washington had decided that the old Seven Mile Bridge, reached by the 15 Cubans, was not connected to land, placing them in the "wet foot" category. As a result, they were sent back to Cuba in a group of 67 migrants.
The bridge, which runs parallel to a newer Seven Mile Bridge roadway connecting parts of the Keys, an island chain off mainland Florida's southern tip, is broken in places and mainly used by fishermen.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363168
Blair steps up pressure on Iran
12.01.06 1.00pm
By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN - UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for the UN Security Council to consider action against Iran after it resumed nuclear fuel research, but Iran's hardline president said his country would pursue its course regardless.
Iran removed UN seals at uranium enrichment research facilities on Tuesday and announced it would resume "research and development" on producing uranium fuel, prompting angry reactions from Washington, the European Union and Russia.
Blair told parliament he aimed to secure international agreement to haul Iran before the Security Council, which can impose punitive measures.
"Then … we have to decide what measures to take and we obviously don't rule out any measures at all," he added.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363393
Star Wars gets revenge at people's awards
12.01.06 1.00pm
By Bob Tourtellotte
LOS ANGELES - Epic space adventure "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" won best overall film and best drama honours yesterday at the People's Choice Awards, a widely watched measure of movie, television and star appeal.
In two other film categories, box office hit "Wedding Crashers" was named top comedy and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was chosen as the favourite family movie.
For Star Wars creator George Lucas, the People's Choice Awards held special significance because winners are voted on by fans who cast ballots online, unlike other Hollywood honours given by industry groups and the media.
Despite being a multibillion-dollar film franchise, the six "Star Wars" movies have had a mixed record with critics and Hollywood award groups.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/6/story.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10363371
Ukraine Govt in disarray as MPs vote to sack Cabinet
12.01.06
By Andrew Osborn
MOSCOW - Ukraine was plunged into a fresh political crisis after the Government fell for the second time in six months when MPs voted to sack the Cabinet in response to an allegedly "traitorous" deal with Russia over gas prices.
A febrile atmosphere reigned as President Viktor Yushchenko, the hero of the Orange revolution of 2004, questioned the Parliament's right to dismiss his Government while ministers spoke of a bizarre legal vacuum opening up.
Yushchenko hinted he might disband the Parliament in response, as his supporters called on him to adopt direct presidential rule until new parliamentary elections could be held at the end of March. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that Yushchenko was en route to the former Soviet state of Kazakhstan when his Government was dismissed and said he had no intention of changing his schedule.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363292
concluding …
Corps lists roster of East Jeff levee jobs
Hard-hit sections of Orleans get priority in the rush to do repairs
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
By Sheila Grissett
East Jefferson bureau
Most of the more than $120 million recently allocated to beef up undamaged sections of the Lake Pontchartrain-Lake Borgne hurricane protection system will be spent in Orleans Parish, but some of the money also will raise sinking levees, replace a rickety-looking section of floodwall, and improve protection around two big pumping stations in East Jefferson, the Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday.
There is no timeline yet for awarding the new contracts, but because the improvements are being made to parts of the system that weren't damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the work won't be done as quickly as those emergency repairs that the corps' Task Force Guardian is rushing to complete by June 1, the first day of the hurricane season.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1136962906109650.xml
4 MONTHS TO DECIDE
Nagin panel says hardest hit areas must prove viability city's footprint may shrink; full buyouts proposed for those forced to move. New housing to be developed in vast swaths of New Orleans' higher ground
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
By Frank Donze and Gordon Russell
Staff writers
Residents of New Orleans areas hardest-hit by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters would have four months to prove they can bring their neighborhoods back to life or face the prospect of having to sell out to a new and powerful redevelopment authority under a plan to be released today by a key panel of Mayor Ray Nagin's rebuilding commission.
In perhaps its boldest recommendation, the panel says Nagin should impose a moratorium on building permits in shattered areas covering most of the city, while residents there meet to craft plans to revive their neighborhoods. The proposals are spelled out in the final report of the land-use committee of Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back commission, which was obtained by The Times-Picayune.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1136962572109650.xml
Coastal proposal is a two-for-one idea
Hurricane defense, restoration combined
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Mark Schleifstein
Staff writer
An independent group of scientists and engineers is working on a coastline strategy that could help planners in combining coastal restoration efforts with improved hurricane protection in a "multiple lines of defense" approach for New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana.
John Lopez, director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation's coastal sustainability program, said the idea is to give federal and state planners a conceptual map that can be used as a template in coordinating restoration and levee projects.
The map would be drawn to identify areas where natural resources need to be protected, as well as noting geological structures that could be used to anchor the restoration and hurricane-protection projects. It also could help in determining what the future uses of the coast -- freshwater or saltwater fisheries, oil and gas production, residential development -- should be, Lopez said.
It may also become a starting point for the controversial decisions about which areas will be ringed with levees and open for development and which areas will be targeted for wetland restoration outside the levee system.
"It's not just a question of identifying what we're defending against, but determining how to get the most out of the restoration program," Lopez said. "If you don't understand the architecture of the coast in geologic or hydrologic terms, you're planning for marsh acreage here or levee heights there without really knowing how one will influence the other."
An expanded effort
Lopez, formerly of the Army Corps of Engineers, began the mapping process as part of the foundation's development of a basin sustainability plan, and expanded it to include a larger area of the coastline after Hurricane Katrina hit in August.
For the natural resource parts of the map in the New Orleans area, he looked at studies and maps outlining how the land, wetlands, forests and open water were used between 1900 and the 1930s, before the construction of major projects such as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet dramatically changed the local environment.
The independent mapping effort surfaces as the state's new Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority staff is negotiating an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers that will outline the state's role in the newly combined levee and coastal restoration planning effort recently approved by Congress, said Sidney Coffee, the authority's executive director.
Meanwhile, a separate committee of nationally recognized scientists and engineers led by University of Maryland Center For Environmental Science President Don Boesch is putting together its own advisory report for the corps' Washington headquarters staff. It seeks to integrate planning for coastal restoration, flood protection and navigation along Louisiana's coast.
"The corps at the national level was a little frustrated by the critical thinking they were not able to get from the district or division, and they wanted to move the process forward quickly," Boesch said.
His report, to be published within the next few weeks under the auspices of the corps' Institute for Water Resources, will identify problems the corps could face in designing projects, such as the potential for damming off wetlands necessary to maintain productive fisheries, Boesch said.
"We're not doing a map, but making suggestions on how to do a map," he said.
The lines of defense
The focus on using maps to help plan the future of Louisiana's coastline was a key recommendation of a 12-member panel of scientists and engineers sponsored by the National Research Council. That committee, whose November report critiqued the federal-state Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration plan, said the lack of the map represented a failure of state and federal officials to make key decisions about how the state's coastal resources would be used in the future.
Without those decisions, the report said, officials would continually run the risk of political defeats of individual projects by special interests in coastal communities.
Lopez's map identifies 11 separate lines of defense that stretch from the Gulf of Mexico to the interior of cities such as New Orleans:
-- The Gulf of Mexico's Outer Continental Shelf. Understanding how the geography of the shelf affects storm surge is important in hurricane protection planning, Lopez said.
-- Barrier islands. The slivers of sand, such as Grand Isle and the Chandeleur islands, are the first speed bumps with potential for reducing the effects of storm surge and waves, especially on nearby interior marshes. The last remnants of old river deltas, many of the islands along Louisiana's coast have disappeared or are disappearing through erosion and subsidence. Repairing eroded islands and building new ones are among projects being considered in federal and state restoration plans.
-- Sounds and bays. Their shallow water helps reduce currents found in deeper waters, although they allow waves to regenerate as a hurricane crosses them. They also provide sheltered areas for fisheries and other wildlife.
-- Marsh and land bridges. Located in strategic areas along Louisiana's southeastern coast, such as the area in eastern New Orleans bordering Lake Catherine, they can brake storm surge. Many are threatened by erosion, and some have been proposed as routes for new or raised levees.
-- Natural ridges. Often the remains of ancient courses of the Mississippi River or its distributaries, the ridges have acted as another speed bump to storm surge and a separation between different water bodies. Some, such as the shoreline of Bayou Lafourche, are where linear communities have located. Others have been cut by navigation channels and have exacerbated erosion. Bayou la Loutre in St. Bernard Parish, for example, was cut by the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet.
-- Man-made soil foundations. As roads and railroads were built across south Louisiana, compacted materials were used as foundations for roads and railroad beds. Those structures, such as the roadbed of U.S. 90 along the West Bank leading to Houma, continue to provide some protection from surge or floodwaters, or at least a usable escape route.
-- Flood gates. Some gates, such as on Bayou Bienvenue and Bayou Dupre in the New Orleans area or on Bayou Lafourche at Golden Meadow, already are used to reduce the effects of storm surge. Others have been proposed at the Chef Menteur and Rigolets passes into Lake Pontchartrain as ways to reduce the effects of larger hurricanes.
-- Levees. Designed as the barrier of last resort, they also have the consequence of increasing the water levels on their interior side during wetter storms and if they are topped by surge.
-- Pumps. Often used to reduce flood risk within leveed areas during nonhurricane events, the stations' effectiveness is reduced because of lack of power or staff during hurricanes.
-- Elevated homes and businesses. Often used along the coast in areas unprotected by levees, elevating homes above the level of storm surge is a last line of defense for individual property owners.
-- Evacuation routes. Lopez said the area's evacuation routes and plans need to be part of the planning process to assure that the lowest spots subject to flooding well in advance of a storm are raised and that other projects don't impede evacuees.
Limited mandate
Gregory Miller, a coastal restoration project manager for the Corps of Engineers, said such outside assistance will be considered, but that the congressional authorization the corps is working under only calls for integrating storm protection, coastal restoration and flood control, and not the development of a map.
Robert Twilley, a Louisiana State University scientist whose computer modeling has been used to help determine what projects to include in the proposed federal-state coastal restoration plan, said the difficulty with drawing the map will be determining what areas to protect.
"These walls of levees are great for urban areas like New Orleans, but what do you do about Houma and smaller communities, or the chenier plain on the western side of the state," he said. "Do you wall off the entire state?"
Twilley, who is a member of Boesch's group, said ongoing studies of storm surge and waves emanating from observations made during Hurricane Katrina also could change some of the assumptions used in drawing the Lopez map or future maps.
"We're now getting some validation and verification of certain models, and it may be that the actual reduction in storm surge by wetlands and the conveyance of storm surge by canals may differ from past assumptions," he said. "There's some overestimates of what wetlands can do to reduce the magnitude of storm surge."
That could mean more wetlands will be needed, not just to buffer levees, but to protect evacuation routes such as U.S. 90.
"We have to have a natural landscape, not just an apron around the bottom of levees," he said.
Forward to the past
And in areas like the highly eroded marshes adjacent to the MR-GO, it could also require the re-establishment of the large cypress-forest wetland of the past, he said.
Lopez's use of a 1900-1930 period as a target for restoration also could be a matter of debate, said Denise Reed, a University of New Orleans biologist.
"We're dealing with today's natural resources and what they mean to people's livelihoods now, and then what people want their livelihoods to be in the future," Reed said. Going back to a landscape 75 years in the past is "like pickling the coast and putting it in a jar and expecting it to stay the same all the time."
Instead, she said, the Lopez map could be one of a number of maps that sketch out "different strategies for restoration, different strategies for lines of defense and different natural resource productivity, and the different costs associated with them."
"That would inform a discussion about the future of the coast," she said.
Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3327.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1136875706296350.xml
Coastal proposal is a two-for-one idea
Hurricane defense, restoration combined
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Mark Schleifstein
Staff writer
An independent group of scientists and engineers is working on a coastline strategy that could help planners in combining coastal restoration efforts with improved hurricane protection in a "multiple lines of defense" approach for New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana.
John Lopez, director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation's coastal sustainability program, said the idea is to give federal and state planners a conceptual map that can be used as a template in coordinating restoration and levee projects.
The map would be drawn to identify areas where natural resources need to be protected, as well as noting geological structures that could be used to anchor the restoration and hurricane-protection projects. It also could help in determining what the future uses of the coast -- freshwater or saltwater fisheries, oil and gas production, residential development -- should be, Lopez said.
It may also become a starting point for the controversial decisions about which areas will be ringed with levees and open for development and which areas will be targeted for wetland restoration outside the levee system.
"It's not just a question of identifying what we're defending against, but determining how to get the most out of the restoration program," Lopez said. "If you don't understand the architecture of the coast in geologic or hydrologic terms, you're planning for marsh acreage here or levee heights there without really knowing how one will influence the other."
An expanded effort
Lopez, formerly of the Army Corps of Engineers, began the mapping process as part of the foundation's development of a basin sustainability plan, and expanded it to include a larger area of the coastline after Hurricane Katrina hit in August.
For the natural resource parts of the map in the New Orleans area, he looked at studies and maps outlining how the land, wetlands, forests and open water were used between 1900 and the 1930s, before the construction of major projects such as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet dramatically changed the local environment.
The independent mapping effort surfaces as the state's new Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority staff is negotiating an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers that will outline the state's role in the newly combined levee and coastal restoration planning effort recently approved by Congress, said Sidney Coffee, the authority's executive director.
Meanwhile, a separate committee of nationally recognized scientists and engineers led by University of Maryland Center For Environmental Science President Don Boesch is putting together its own advisory report for the corps' Washington headquarters staff. It seeks to integrate planning for coastal restoration, flood protection and navigation along Louisiana's coast.
"The corps at the national level was a little frustrated by the critical thinking they were not able to get from the district or division, and they wanted to move the process forward quickly," Boesch said.
His report, to be published within the next few weeks under the auspices of the corps' Institute for Water Resources, will identify problems the corps could face in designing projects, such as the potential for damming off wetlands necessary to maintain productive fisheries, Boesch said.
"We're not doing a map, but making suggestions on how to do a map," he said.
The lines of defense
The focus on using maps to help plan the future of Louisiana's coastline was a key recommendation of a 12-member panel of scientists and engineers sponsored by the National Research Council. That committee, whose November report critiqued the federal-state Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration plan, said the lack of the map represented a failure of state and federal officials to make key decisions about how the state's coastal resources would be used in the future.
Without those decisions, the report said, officials would continually run the risk of political defeats of individual projects by special interests in coastal communities.
Lopez's map identifies 11 separate lines of defense that stretch from the Gulf of Mexico to the interior of cities such as New Orleans:
-- The Gulf of Mexico's Outer Continental Shelf. Understanding how the geography of the shelf affects storm surge is important in hurricane protection planning, Lopez said.
-- Barrier islands. The slivers of sand, such as Grand Isle and the Chandeleur islands, are the first speed bumps with potential for reducing the effects of storm surge and waves, especially on nearby interior marshes. The last remnants of old river deltas, many of the islands along Louisiana's coast have disappeared or are disappearing through erosion and subsidence. Repairing eroded islands and building new ones are among projects being considered in federal and state restoration plans.
-- Sounds and bays. Their shallow water helps reduce currents found in deeper waters, although they allow waves to regenerate as a hurricane crosses them. They also provide sheltered areas for fisheries and other wildlife.
-- Marsh and land bridges. Located in strategic areas along Louisiana's southeastern coast, such as the area in eastern New Orleans bordering Lake Catherine, they can brake storm surge. Many are threatened by erosion, and some have been proposed as routes for new or raised levees.
-- Natural ridges. Often the remains of ancient courses of the Mississippi River or its distributaries, the ridges have acted as another speed bump to storm surge and a separation between different water bodies. Some, such as the shoreline of Bayou Lafourche, are where linear communities have located. Others have been cut by navigation channels and have exacerbated erosion. Bayou la Loutre in St. Bernard Parish, for example, was cut by the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet.
-- Man-made soil foundations. As roads and railroads were built across south Louisiana, compacted materials were used as foundations for roads and railroad beds. Those structures, such as the roadbed of U.S. 90 along the West Bank leading to Houma, continue to provide some protection from surge or floodwaters, or at least a usable escape route.
-- Flood gates. Some gates, such as on Bayou Bienvenue and Bayou Dupre in the New Orleans area or on Bayou Lafourche at Golden Meadow, already are used to reduce the effects of storm surge. Others have been proposed at the Chef Menteur and Rigolets passes into Lake Pontchartrain as ways to reduce the effects of larger hurricanes.
-- Levees. Designed as the barrier of last resort, they also have the consequence of increasing the water levels on their interior side during wetter storms and if they are topped by surge.
-- Pumps. Often used to reduce flood risk within leveed areas during nonhurricane events, the stations' effectiveness is reduced because of lack of power or staff during hurricanes.
-- Elevated homes and businesses. Often used along the coast in areas unprotected by levees, elevating homes above the level of storm surge is a last line of defense for individual property owners.
-- Evacuation routes. Lopez said the area's evacuation routes and plans need to be part of the planning process to assure that the lowest spots subject to flooding well in advance of a storm are raised and that other projects don't impede evacuees.
Limited mandate
Gregory Miller, a coastal restoration project manager for the Corps of Engineers, said such outside assistance will be considered, but that the congressional authorization the corps is working under only calls for integrating storm protection, coastal restoration and flood control, and not the development of a map.
Robert Twilley, a Louisiana State University scientist whose computer modeling has been used to help determine what projects to include in the proposed federal-state coastal restoration plan, said the difficulty with drawing the map will be determining what areas to protect.
"These walls of levees are great for urban areas like New Orleans, but what do you do about Houma and smaller communities, or the chenier plain on the western side of the state," he said. "Do you wall off the entire state?"
Twilley, who is a member of Boesch's group, said ongoing studies of storm surge and waves emanating from observations made during Hurricane Katrina also could change some of the assumptions used in drawing the Lopez map or future maps.
"We're now getting some validation and verification of certain models, and it may be that the actual reduction in storm surge by wetlands and the conveyance of storm surge by canals may differ from past assumptions," he said. "There's some overestimates of what wetlands can do to reduce the magnitude of storm surge."
That could mean more wetlands will be needed, not just to buffer levees, but to protect evacuation routes such as U.S. 90.
"We have to have a natural landscape, not just an apron around the bottom of levees," he said.
Forward to the past
And in areas like the highly eroded marshes adjacent to the MR-GO, it could also require the re-establishment of the large cypress-forest wetland of the past, he said.
Lopez's use of a 1900-1930 period as a target for restoration also could be a matter of debate, said Denise Reed, a University of New Orleans biologist.
"We're dealing with today's natural resources and what they mean to people's livelihoods now, and then what people want their livelihoods to be in the future," Reed said. Going back to a landscape 75 years in the past is "like pickling the coast and putting it in a jar and expecting it to stay the same all the time."
Instead, she said, the Lopez map could be one of a number of maps that sketch out "different strategies for restoration, different strategies for lines of defense and different natural resource productivity, and the different costs associated with them."
"That would inform a discussion about the future of the coast," she said.
Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3327.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1136875706296350.xml
N.O. Guard force might be reduced
It's up to governor, commander says
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Ed Anderson
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- The approximately 2,000 Louisiana National Guard troops on Hurricane Katrina relief duty in New Orleans should be reduced to 1,000 by Feb. 1 unless Gov. Kathleen Blanco says otherwise, the commander in charge of the forces said Monday.
Brig. Gen. John Basilica, commander of the 256th "Tiger Brigade" based in Lafayette, said that the Guard's mission is "to work our way out of a job. . . . We are coming to the point where our aid is coming to an end in February" in New Orleans.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1136874967296350.xml
Ater wants to ease mail-voting rules
La. special session may take up issue
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Ed Anderson
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- Secretary of State Al Ater has asked Gov. Kathleen Blanco to include in a possible special session legislation that would allow hurricane-displaced New Orleans voters who registered by mail a one-time exemption from a law that requires them to cast their first vote in person.
In a letter written Friday to Blanco; Senate President Donald Hines, D-Bunkie; and House Speaker Joe Salter, D-Florien, Ater asks the governor to consider including the item on her agenda for a two-week special session she has said she will call in late January or early February.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-3/113687665025370.xml
FEMA worker charged with looting
He was at home to install trailer
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Paul Rioux
St. Tammany bureau
Having waited more than three months for two FEMA trailers to arrive for his extended family, Darin LeBlanc was elated when he heard the first one had been delivered to the driveway outside his ruined Slidell home.
"I couldn't believe that after all those phone calls it was finally here," said LeBlanc, who has been living in the office at his Kenner glass shop. "I had to stop by to see it for myself."
But LeBlanc could scarcely believe his eyes Friday afternoon when he arrived at his home in the Bayou Bonfouca Estates subdivision.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-12/113687643025370.xml
U.S. politicians visit Netherlands to study flood defenses
1/10/2006, 5:40 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A delegation of 50 U.S. government officials, academics and business representatives began a three-day tour of the Netherlands Tuesday to study flood prevention techniques in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
A similar flood in the Netherlands in 1953 left around 1,800 people dead and spurred a 50-year project that constructed dikes, giant sea walls and flood gates that keep the low-lying country dry. Katrina, overwhelmed levies and flooded large parts of New Orleans. The storm killed 1,326 people in five U.S. states, including 1,077 in Louisiana.
U.S. lawmakers Mary Landrieu, David Vitter and Bill Jefferson, and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco are leading officials on the visit.
Adam Sharp, the spokesman for the U.S. delegation, said the Netherlands and Louisiana share a love-hate relationship with water. "We are both threatened by water, but both rely on it for our livelihoods," he said. "That balance is one that the Dutch have achieved over 50 years in a remarkable way."
Among the Dutch hosts are Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, construction industry executives and a team from the Ministry of Traffic and Water Management.
The American visitors are focusing their attention on the so-called Delta Project, which was built to protect the south of the country from any storm, save one so severe that statistically it is predicted to happen only once in 10,000 years.
The levees in New Orleans had lower standards than those mandated by Dutch law and were built to withstand the kind of storm that could be expected once every 100 years, officials have said.
U.S. officials will be researching how to build a system that could withstand a storm as large or larger than Hurricane Katrina.
Possible Dutch involvement in rebuilding Louisiana's coastal protection and estimates of how much it would cost to build a system on the Dutch model were expected to be key issues.
Hendrik Dek, a spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Water Management, said the Dutch — who allocate more than a billion euros (dollars) a year to water management — were shocked by the extent of the damage caused by Katrina.
"When Rita and Katrina hit our thoughts went out to the people, but they also went to our history. ... We have so much experience, so much to offer. We can show them what they can learn from our experiences and our mistakes."
Dek said the Dutch hoped to show Louisiana that building an effective defense against the sea was not an impossible task. "We will make it clear that it can be done. We did it, so they can do it."
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1136893744249830.xml&storylist=louisiana
15 Cubans who got to Fla. bridge sent home
1/10/2006, 5:28 a.m. CT
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
The Associated Press
MIAMI (AP) — Cuban-American community activists and politicians lambasted the U.S. government's decision to repatriate 15 Cubans picked up from the base of an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys.
An attorney for the families of the migrants said he planned to file a suit Tuesday asking a federal judge to allow the group to return.
The migrants were sent back to Cuba Monday after U.S. officials concluded that the section of the partially collapsed bridge where they landed did not count as dry land under the government's policy because it was no longer connected to any of the Keys.
Under the U.S. government's "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach dry land in the United States are usually allowed to remain in this country, while those caught at sea are sent back.
"Through a legal review, the migrants were determined to be feet-wet and processed in accordance with standard procedure," Coast Guard spokesman, Petty Officer Dana Warr, said in a statement.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/national-57/1136855372123640.xml&storylist=topstories
The Detroit Free Press
Detroit Catholic bishop says he was molested by priest
Gumbleton says incidents occurred when he was a naive teen at Sacred Heart Seminary high school
Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton revealed
Wednesday that he had been sexually molested by a priest when he was a teenager
attending Detroit Sacred Heart Seminary's onetime high school for boys.
With his revelation, Gumbleton, 75, became the first Catholic
bishop in the United States to acknowledge such abuse. He also broke
ranks with the nation's Catholic leadership by calling for new laws
that would allow victims' lawyers and investigators to dig into past
cases, now largely left off limits because too many years have passed.
Gumbleton said he was a high school freshman or sophomore at
Detroit's Sacred Heart Seminary High School in the mid-1940s when a priest
took him and another teenager away to a cottage.
"I would start wrestling with him, and he would put his hand in my
pants," Gumbleton told the Free Press Wednesday morning, as he prepared
to leave a Grand Rapids hotel to travel to Columbus, Ohio. "It was
very minor, but it was also something that was very inappropriate."
This afternoon, Gumbleton
is scheduled to speak at a demonstration planned by victims of sexual
abuse in Columbus in favor of an Ohio legislative proposal to
remove the statute of limitations on such abuse cases.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060111/NEWS11/60111001
GM told: Cut every salary
Kerkorian's message: Fix must start at top, aide says
With GM burning through $24 million of cash a day, the company will run out of money in 1,000 days or sooner unless executives make tough decisions now, Kerkorian aide Jerome York said in a speech delivered on GM territory at the Renaissance Center.
"This situation calls for the company's going into crisis mode, adopting a degree of urgency that recognizes if things don't break right, the unthinkable could happen, that time is of the essence," York told the Society of Automotive Analysts. The society represents those who advise stockholders on automotive investments.
GM Chief Financial Officer Fritz Henderson, the fast-rising executive who took over his current role Jan. 1, exchanged friendly remarks with York before the speech and applauded his remarks afterward.
"I am in crisis mode," Henderson said. "Frankly, there was a lot he had to say today that I agree with."
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005601110463
FUEL ECONOMY: Revised testing unveiled by EPA
The fuel economy estimates of many U.S. cars and trucks could fall by as much as 20% under new testing procedures unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday.
Gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, some of which have been criticized for failing to meet their estimates, will suffer the largest reductions, with up to a 30% cut in their city driving average, according to EPA officials.
The changes, first reported by the Free Press on Monday, are designed to make the miles per gallon estimates on window stickers more accurately reflect what drivers on high-speed freeways and clogged city streets can actually expect from their vehicles.
Automakers and consumer advocates have been calling on the EPA to revamp its lab tests for city and highway estimated mileage, first developed in the 1970s. Last year, Congress required the EPA to revisit its methods.
While buyers may be surprised by the declines, "accurate fuel ratings will cause people to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, particularly in light of high gasoline prices," said Susan Pikrallidas, AAA's vice president of public affairs.
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson told reporters Tuesday that when the EPA's tests were last updated in 1985, he was driving a Pontiac Catalina to work.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005601110330
SPECULATION: Toyota boss says U.S. may assist GM
Toyota Motor Corp. Chairman Hiroshi Okuda said Tuesday that he believes General Motors Corp. will likely receive support from the U.S. government if it faces further trouble.
"I have the feeling that GM is in a difficult situation," Okuda was quoted as saying by Hisako Komai, a spokeswoman for the Nippon Keidanren, Japan's most influential business lobby. Okuda heads the lobby. "But the auto industry is a symbol of the United States, and if GM faces further difficulty, I don't think the U.S. government will leave it."
GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner dismissed the suggestion in an interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. "I haven't seen any evidence whatsoever of that," Wagoner said Tuesday. "If somebody wants to help, great. I haven't seen the check come in yet."
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060111/BUSINESS03/601110446
New Zealand Herald
2005 a year of extreme weather, says NIWA report
10.01.06 4.00pm
A destructive tornado in Greymouth, catastrophic floods in the North Island, an unseasonably late snowstorm in Canterbury and warmer than average temperatures nationwide provided a year of extreme weather around the country in 2005.
NIWA's National Climate Centre today released details of the country's climate in 2005, revealing a mixed bag of weather.
The year was marked by too little rain in some places, and too much in others, NIWA's principal scientist Dr Jim Salinger said.
"Rainfall during the year was less than 75 per cent of normal over much of the South Island whereas severe flooding in the Bay of Plenty in May caused widespread damage," he said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10363091
Mozambique rains kill 22, cyclone alert declared
11.01.06 11.20am
JOHANNESBURG - At least 22 people have been swept to their death in Mozambique and thousands more have fled heavy rains there and in neighbouring South Africa and Malawi, emergency officials said today.
Government officials in Mozambique said the death toll had risen sharply from the initial eight reported a week ago, and heavy rains were expected to continue, forcing the government to put the country on a cyclone alert.
Rains had fuelled the spread of disease, with 114 cases of cholera reported in the central Sofala region. But Mozambique had contained the crisis well and there were no deaths from cholera, state administration minister Lucas Chomera said.
"The death toll stands at 22. Heavy rains continue but there is no cause for alarm yet," said a senior emergency official.
Officials said Mozambique's major rivers remained near the 7-metre flood alarm level but were not a concern at the moment.
In 2000, devastating floods in Mozambique killed an estimated 700 people and made up to 500,000 homeless.
Drought in southern Africa left several million people in need of urgent food handouts last year. Now governments and relief agencies fear that heavy rains will prevent supplies reaching the needy or will damage crops that have been planted.
Mozambique weather services predicted rain would continue to fall over the entire week. Meteorologists have forecast normal to above-normal levels of rainfall in central and northern Mozambique to the end of the rainy season in March.
Rains damaged roads and other infrastructure, officials said, making it difficult for relief workers to distribute food to some 800,000 people cut off in the Sofala and Gaza regions where stocks were declining fast.
The Limpopo railway, linking neighbouring Zimbabwe to Maputo port, had also been closed after rain-induced damage and weather prevented planned repairs.
In South Africa, police reported floods killed at least two people in a settlement in Johannesburg and said several shacks in one squatter village had been swept away.
One of the main border posts between South Africa and Botswana was closed due to flooding, a Home Affairs spokesman said. Traffic was being diverted to alternative crossings.
Near the town of Standerton in rural Mpumalanga province, police planned to evacuate thousands of people marooned there by rain. Standerton's two dams were between 114 per cent and 150 per cent full, weather officials said.
Near the Malawi town of Chikwakwa, south of the commercial capital Blantyre, rains have killed one person and displaced at least 1,000 people in the past week, Malawi officials said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363229
Greenpeace says that despite the damage, the Arctic Sunrise is seaworthy and its navigational ability has not been affected. Picture / Greenpeace
Whaler could be sued over ramming
10.01.06
Greenpeace is considering legal action after a "terrifying" collision between a Japanese whaling boat and a protest vessel in the Southern Ocean, which was caught on film.
The Greenpeace protesters - including two New Zealanders - have been tailing the Japanese "scientific whaling" fleet across the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary since December 21.
Each side blames the other for the potentially life-threatening incident around 8am on Sunday (2pm NZT), which left the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise with a huge dent in its hull and a bent mast.
Greenpeace said it was looking at taking legal action.
Greenpeace expedition leader Shane Rattenbury said protesters in inflatable dinghies had been using rollers on poles to paint the words "whale meat" on the side of a supply vessel that was tied alongside the whaling fleet's mother ship, the Nisshin Maru.
Mr Rattenbury, who was on the bridge of the Arctic Sunrise at the time, said the Nisshin Maru suddenly detached itself from the supply vessel and started heading straight for the Greenpeace vessel.
"There was absolutely no need for it to make that move ... It did that full circle and came for the Sunrise."
At 129m long, the Nisshin Maru is more than twice as long as the Arctic Sunrise and about six times heavier, he said. "So to see it bearing down on us was a terrifying experience ...
"Everyone very shaken after the incident."
But Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) says the Greenpeace vessel deliberately rammed the Nisshin Maru as it was refuelling.
Director-general Hiroshi Hatanaka said the Arctic Sunrise's bow hit the side of the Nisshin Maru twice.
"The captain of the Nisshin Maru confirmed to ICR today that Greenpeace had rammed our vessel, which has sustained some damage. Luckily, no crew members were injured," he said yesterday.
Dr Hatanaka said another group, Sea Shepherd, also had a boat, the Farley Mowat, in the area during the incident.
He said the Nisshin Maru's crew did not know what the people in inflatables were doing and were concerned they might be attaching a bomb.
"Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd are working together, and this concerns us greatly. In the vastness of the Antarctic Ocean, it is just impossible to find a ship unless they are co-operating," Dr Hatanaka said.
However, Mr Rattenbury said video footage of the incident showed clearly that the Nisshin Maru was the aggressor.
The ramming was "a clear attempt to intimidate Greenpeace and have us cease our protests and our actions to stop the whaling".
He said it was not true that Greenpeace was co-operating with Sea Shepherd, which has been linked to attacks on whaling vessels in Norway and elsewhere.
"Frankly we don't know how they found us either; we've had very little radio contact with them ...
"We have made it very clear all along that we are working independently. The ICR can say what they like, but those are the facts."
Mr Rattenbury said it was "outlandish" for the whalers to claim they had feared the protesters were planting a bomb on their ship.
"We have communicated very clearly with the ICR in Tokyo since we've been here and we have sent them letters saying we have no intention of harming any of their crew or damaging any of their ships ...
"For them to suggest that we'd be planting a bomb flies in the face of 35 years [of] Greenpeace history and reputation."
He said Greenpeace had carried out similar "branding-type protests" on other ships, such as those carrying illegal timber, over the years.
"It's a way of bearing witness to the crime we believe is going on.
"In this case, we branded the supply vessel because it was clearly implicated in the whaling operation: supplying fuel four or five days ago and now acting as courier for the whale meat operation."
Immediately after the incident, the Nisshin Maru turned around and started "steaming north", Mr Rattenbury said.
"We've followed them all through the day and all through the night - no whales killed since Saturday lunchtime, which is a good thing."
He said he had no idea where the Japanese vessel could be headed.
The catcher vessels - the ships that actually harpoon the whales - have disappeared.
"But they always come back to the mothership, which is why we stick with that one."
The Arctic Sunrise was sporting "a significant dent", but luckily it was above the deckline and the hull had not been pierced, he said.
"Our foremast is bent but we've managed to secure it so it doesn't actually collapse.
"Our vessel is seaworthy and our navigational ability has not been affected so we're quite fine at the moment."
He said the team was undaunted by the violent clash.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=1501010&objectid=10363031
Whales and whaling
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/index.cfm?c_id=1501010
Anti-whaling skipper calls NZ Government 'contemptible'
11.01.06 3.20pm
By Colin Marshall
The captain of a conservation ship clashing with Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean has labelled the New Zealand Government "contemptible" for allowing Japan to continue killing whales.
Paul Watson, of the Sea Shepherd vessel Farley Mowat, was today criticised by Conservation Minister Chris Carter as irresponsible for using tactics such as running into whaling ships with a "can opener" device in a bid to stop them taking whales.
Capt Watson said such criticism was unfounded.
"If the Australian government and the New Zealand Government were acting responsibly then we wouldn't be down here," he said from aboard his vessel in the Southern Ocean.
"The fact is the Japanese whaling fleet is in blatant violation of international law and nobody is doing anything about it.
"We're not here to protest, we're down here to uphold international conservation law and to chase these guys out of here and it's working. They're afraid of us and we want them to be afraid of us. "
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10363255
Military may defend Japanese whalers
11.01.06
By Ainsley Thomson
Japan has warned it may send armed aircraft to defend its whaling ships in the Southern Ocean if clashes with protest boats escalate.
The whaling nation also says it may ask Australia to take action against protesters.
The increasingly tense conflict prompted a Green Party call last night for New Zealand to send a frigate to Antarctica in a monitoring role - an option the Government quickly ruled out.
The confrontation with the whalers intensified yesterday, with conservation group Sea Shepherd threatening to ram and disable the Japanese whaling fleet.
The group's ship, Farley Mowat, is equipped with a blade device - known as the "can opener" - mounted on its side and designed to rip open a ship's hull.
Sea Shepherd's threat came as Japan's Fisheries Agency said it was considering asking its Maritime Police Agency to send armed aircraft to defend the whaling ships.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10363188
New Orleans residents given 4 months to rebuild
12.01.06 1.00pm
By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans officials today unveiled a controversial recovery plan giving residents four months to prove they will rebuild in the devastated city before their neighbourhoods could be declared off-limits to redevelopment.
The plan calls for a much smaller city, estimating that just half of the 500,000 people who lived there before Hurricane Katrina will resettle in the next two years.
It proposes residents and experts form planning teams for each neighbourhood and decide by late May on the fate of those most heavily damaged by the August 29 storm and the flooding that followed. It was designed by the urban-planning committee of the Bring Back New Orleans Commission, appointed in October by Mayor Ray Nagin.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363400
Extra meningitis jab considered for babies
11.01.06 4.00pm
By Rebecca Quilliam
Ten people have become infected with the potentially deadly meningococcal B virus after they were fully vaccinated against it, prompting the Ministry of Health to consider a fourth vaccination jab for young children.
Medsafe is expected to announce in the next few days whether a fourth immunisation shot will be introduced for babies.
National meningococcal vaccine strategy director Dr Jane O'Hallahan said the extra vaccine was only being considered for infants because they were the most vulnerable to the disease.
"We know that infants generally respond to a lesser extent to immunisations in the first year of life than older children and therefore it was likely that a fourth dose may be required to boost their level of immunity and give them longer protection."
Of the nine other patients who contracted the virus, seven were over five-years-old and two were under five.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10363254
Sharp rise in hepatitis A cases in Canterbury
11.01.06 2.00pm
Canterbury health officials are becoming increasingly alarmed at the high number of hepatitis A infections in the region.
Twelve people have been infected with the highly contagious virus since Christmas, compared with a total of just two or three cases in an average year.
The source of the jaundice-causing illness in three of the patients recently diagnosed remains a mystery, The Press newspaper reported today.
Canterbury District Health Board medical officer of health Dr Mel Brieseman said the three new cases had some association with those already notified.
"Some are related. Some are boyfriend or girlfriend. All are part of family clusters," he said.
The youngest involved was a five-year-old and the oldest was aged 73, Dr Brieseman said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10363217
Organ donations plummet
11.01.06 9.25am
Patients may be dying on waiting lists because the number of people donating their organs after their death has dropped by over a quarter in the past year.
Organs from just 29 people went to others in New Zealand last year.
The figure is a marked drop from 40 in 2004 and the lowest in more than a decade of statistics collected by the Australia and New Zealand Organ Donation Registry - the previous lowest was 34 in 1993.
The decline is even more substantial than the experience in Australia, where just 204 dead people donated their organs last year - down from 218 in 2004.
Professor Graeme Russ of the donation registry, which is based in Adelaide's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, said the figures were worrying and meant New Zealand's rate of donation was now only about seven people per million.
That is down from about 10 per million last year and far behind world leaders Spain, where the figure was over 34 per million.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10363200
Turkish bird flu outbreak can be controlled, says WHO
11.01.06 1.00pm
GENEVA - The bird flu outbreak in Turkey, which local officials say has infected 15 people and killed two, can be "relatively easily" controlled, a senior World Health Organisation official said today.
And genetic tests of samples from birds and people infected in the Turkish outbreak, the first involving humans outside east Asia, show the virus is still not being passed from person to person, according to the United Nations' health agency.
Speaking by telephone from Ankara, the leader of a WHO investigation team, Dr. Guenael Rodier, told journalists the challenge facing health authorities was to remain vigilant for any further cases in either humans or poultry.
"I have a sense that what is going on in Turkey can be ... brought under control relatively easily," the official said.
But Rodier said it was not clear why so many people had been infected in Turkey so quickly.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363230
Worried Turks head to hospital for bird flu tests
10.01.06 1.00pm
DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey - Turkey reported a spike in suspected bird flu cases among people across the country today as fears grew that the deadly disease was sweeping westward towards mainland Europe.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said victims appear to have contracted the virus directly from infected birds, allaying fears it was now passing dangerously from person to person.
The Turkish authorities reported 14 people have tested positive for the deadly bird flu virus, including three children from the same family in an impoverished region of eastern Turkey who died last week.
Bird flu is known to have killed 76 people since the latest outbreak emerged in late 2003. Human cases had been confined to east Asia until the virus was identified in Turkey last week.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363075
US returns Cubans who reached bridge
11.01.06
MIAMI - The US Coast Guard repatriated 15 Cubans on Monday who had tried to reach the United States but managed to get only as far as a pylon of an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys.
The repatriation of the Cubans cast a renewed spotlight on the US policy of generally allowing Cuban who reach US soil to stay in the country, and sending back those intercepted by the Coast Guard at sea, a "wet foot, dry foot" policy that non-Cuban immigrant groups consider unfair.
The Coast Guard said Washington had decided that the old Seven Mile Bridge, reached by the 15 Cubans, was not connected to land, placing them in the "wet foot" category. As a result, they were sent back to Cuba in a group of 67 migrants.
The bridge, which runs parallel to a newer Seven Mile Bridge roadway connecting parts of the Keys, an island chain off mainland Florida's southern tip, is broken in places and mainly used by fishermen.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363168
Blair steps up pressure on Iran
12.01.06 1.00pm
By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN - UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for the UN Security Council to consider action against Iran after it resumed nuclear fuel research, but Iran's hardline president said his country would pursue its course regardless.
Iran removed UN seals at uranium enrichment research facilities on Tuesday and announced it would resume "research and development" on producing uranium fuel, prompting angry reactions from Washington, the European Union and Russia.
Blair told parliament he aimed to secure international agreement to haul Iran before the Security Council, which can impose punitive measures.
"Then … we have to decide what measures to take and we obviously don't rule out any measures at all," he added.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363393
Star Wars gets revenge at people's awards
12.01.06 1.00pm
By Bob Tourtellotte
LOS ANGELES - Epic space adventure "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" won best overall film and best drama honours yesterday at the People's Choice Awards, a widely watched measure of movie, television and star appeal.
In two other film categories, box office hit "Wedding Crashers" was named top comedy and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was chosen as the favourite family movie.
For Star Wars creator George Lucas, the People's Choice Awards held special significance because winners are voted on by fans who cast ballots online, unlike other Hollywood honours given by industry groups and the media.
Despite being a multibillion-dollar film franchise, the six "Star Wars" movies have had a mixed record with critics and Hollywood award groups.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/6/story.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10363371
Ukraine Govt in disarray as MPs vote to sack Cabinet
12.01.06
By Andrew Osborn
MOSCOW - Ukraine was plunged into a fresh political crisis after the Government fell for the second time in six months when MPs voted to sack the Cabinet in response to an allegedly "traitorous" deal with Russia over gas prices.
A febrile atmosphere reigned as President Viktor Yushchenko, the hero of the Orange revolution of 2004, questioned the Parliament's right to dismiss his Government while ministers spoke of a bizarre legal vacuum opening up.
Yushchenko hinted he might disband the Parliament in response, as his supporters called on him to adopt direct presidential rule until new parliamentary elections could be held at the end of March. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that Yushchenko was en route to the former Soviet state of Kazakhstan when his Government was dismissed and said he had no intention of changing his schedule.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10363292
concluding …
There is a serious issue regarding Canine Health that has come up. Dangerous Dog Food. "Please Click On"
January 2, 2006.
Oakley, California. The pet owner called this photo "Dog On the Moon." Hm? Why not?
DIAMOND PET FOODS have a recall of their dog food. The dog food has caused pet deaths. Don't hesitate to call your veterinarian.
Elephant Deaths on Railway Tracks Throws Conservation off Gear
Zoos take on many identities when viewed globally. The Guwahati Zoo is a very large zoo. More of a refuge. The animals live as if in the wild. As a result a railroad that runs through it sometimes causes injuries and deaths of free roaming animals. It is not anyone's place to 'judge' India's focus of it's wildlife preserves. The point is without active veterinary interests with these large and wild zoos the animals would meet with serious injury and death without any chance of recovery.
These are leopards in Guwahati Zoo of India. They are being transported to veterinary care. Veterinarians cannot be understated in the care of the animals we charish.
Applause and Accolades to the Newspapers for including and endearing the Zoos. There has been a marked increase and expertise. Very nice.
IT is only best if those that promote the well being of our zoos also have subscribers that care. To realize the 'Power of the Press' is to realize as subscribers we are respected. By subscribing to newspapers of this quality, we support our best interests and assure their continued support of us as well. Subscribe to NewsPapers. They are guaranteed to us under the USA Constitution. It's a patriotic thing to do.
Zoos
Zoo To Add Five New Positions
The Great Plains Zoo is making some major changes in 2006. As we told you last night, Zoo President Elizabeth Whealy released her budget for the upcoming year, which included pay raises for employees and money for repairs.
The City Council doesn't have to vote on the zoo's budget because $1.6 million was already set aside for Zoo operations last summer, when it was unclear who would manage the facility.
Tuesday, the City Council extended the partnership between the City and Zoological Society to manage the Zoo as a team. And since it's asking the City for less than what was originally set aside, changes at the zoo are ready to move forward.
In 2006, the Great Plains Zoo's total operating budget will be about $2.7 million dollars. That's close to $700,000 more than last year. Zoo President Elizabeth Whealy says the increase is necessary to get the Zoo back in shape.
$1.2 million dollars of that budget will be used to pay employee salaries. The Zoo is adding five new positions this year, including a veterinary technician, two animal keepers, a development director and an educational outreach person. Part of that money will also be used to increase current salaries up to industry standards, and fill four open staff positions.
http://www.keloland.com/News/NewsDetail5440.cfm?Id=0,44995
U.S. zoos to act as sentinels for bird flu
CHICAGO, Jan 6 (Reuters) - American zoos will act as sentinels to track the spread of avian flu if the lethal virus arrives on U.S. shores, zoo officials said on Friday.
Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo will bring together about 30 public health and zoo officials on Monday to organize the effort, zoo spokeswoman Kelly McGrath said.
"The reason zoos make good sentinels is because zoos are in every (U.S.) state," she said. "The idea is to be able to project its (avian flu's) path, to track the way the disease is moving."
Zoos played a similar role at the outset of the West Nile virus outbreak a few years ago, she said.
In 2002, West Nile virus killed three Lincoln Park Zoo birds -- two red-breasted geese and a turkey vulture -- and infected two bald eagles that survived.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06383967.htm
Lincoln Park Zoo to host bird flu planning session
By William Mullen
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 6, 2006
Virus hunters, zoologists and epidemiologists from around the country will gather at Lincoln Park Zoo for four days next week to hammer together a plan to look for a deadly avian flu strain medical experts fear could reach the U.S.
About 30 public health scientists, federal officials and zoo administrators will meet to put finishing touches on a plan to use the nation's 210 zoos as early warning sentinels watching for a highly virulent flu strain that experts have labeled H5N1.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northshore/chi-0601060225jan06,1,448428.story?coll=chi-newslocalnorthshore-hed
Mississippi dolphins flown to Bahamas
1/6/2006, 7:56 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — The Marine Life Oceanarium has moved 17 dolphins to a resort in the Bahamas.
The dolphins were packed up Thursday and loaded onto flatbed trailers at their four temporary locations, then transported to Mobile, Ala. In Alabama, 16 of the dolphins were loaded onto an airplane for the final stage of their trip, officials said.
One of the 17 dolphins set to be moved was left behind because she is extremely ill with the Morbillivirus, said Stacey Coltraine, a former trainer of the dolphins. She will be flown to the Bahamas when she is healthy, Coltraine said.
The move comes after Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29 destroyed the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport, but it is not without controversy.
The dolphins' fate is at the center of a lawsuit between Marine Animal Productions President Donald P. Jacobs and Dr. Moby Solangi, former president of Marine Life. Marine Animal Productions is the company that owns the dolphins. The lawsuit involves a dispute over the percentage of Solangi's stock ownership in the company and the animals' future.
Solangi and his legal counsel did not succeed in their last-ditch attempt Thursday morning to keep the dolphins in America, said Solangi's lawyer, Beau Stewart.
A teleconference with Judge James H.C. Thomas Jr. of Hattiesburg, Solangi's team, current MAP President David Lion and representatives from the owners of the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, Kerzner International, resulted in legal clearance to move the dolphins.
Whether any of the dolphins will return to Gulfport is unclear. Lion said MAP was still evaluating whether to rebuild in Gulfport.
Stewart said Solangi's legal dispute with Jacobs involves the dolphins because they represent a major portion of the company's assets.
"We're concerned about them going to a foreign country," Stewart said. "We question whether they can be returned even if the court orders it. That will ultimately be in the hands of the Bahamaian government."
Solangi said he also questioned the suitability of the Atlantis Resort's dolphin habitat, which has never before had dolphins.
Atlantis, a resort on Paradise Island, Bahamas, includes hotel towers surrounding a 34-acre waterscape with 11 million gallons of fresh and saltwater lagoons and pools.
It is home to the largest open-air marine habitat in the world with 70,000 marine animals in lagoons and displays including The Dig, a maze of underwater corridors and passageways providing a journey through the ancient Atlantis.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1136556249321180.xml&storylist=louisiana
Keeper mauled by lion cubs at Wellington Zoo
Posted at 6:15pm on 10 Jan 2006
A 54 year lion keeper at Wellington Zoo is in hospital after being mauled on Tuesday afternoon.
Emergency Services were called to the Zoo shortly before the 2pm feeding time. Zoo patrons say they heard yells for help from the lions' enclosure and people were then ushered away from the scene by staff.
A Zoo spokesperson said the man is the senior keeper for the lions, Bob Bennett.
He was taken to Wellington Hospital and is in a stable condition with puncture wounds to his neck, shoulders and throat.
A statement quoted him as saying: "I feel absolutely brilliant. A bit sore, but as well as can be expected under the circumstances."
Zoo chief executive, Alison Lash, said the lions - two 2-year old cubs - have not been destroyed. She said an investigation was being carried by zoo management.
Two years ago a pyschiatric patient was critically injured by a tiger, after climbing into its enclosure at the zoo. The tiger was put down.
Farm student killed by bull
A farming student died after being attacked by a Charolais bull at Clayton Station near Fairlie shortly before 11am today.
Police say the 19 year old man was loading bulls onto a stock truck with another farm worker when the incident took place.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/bulletins/radionz/200601101815/3cc34279
Wellington Zoo investigates lion mauling
Zoo investigates keeper mauling (00:36)
Wgtn Zoo investigates lion mauling (1.46)
Jan 11, 2006
Wellington Zoo has begun an investigation after its senior keeper was mauled by two lions.
Fifty-four year old Bob Bennett was attacked shortly before feeding time yesterday, receiving injuries to his neck and side.
The zoo's chief executive, Alison Lash, says it appears the two young male lions made their way into the enclosure where Bennett was putting their food. She says management is looking into how that occurred.
Staff members at the zoo are shocked by Tuesday's attack.
Lash says workers do not go into the dangerous animals' cages alone. She says since Bennett was doing the servicing alone, the zoo needs to get his version of events.
She says the zoo is back to normal and the lion enclosure is open.
Lash says there is a set of protocols, to eliminate both staff and animals being in the same enclosure. Something has obviously gone amiss she says, and the zoo will find out what happened to ensure it doesn't happen again.
The injured lion keeper, Bob Bennett, said from Wellington hospital after the attack that he feels a bit sore, but as well as can be expected under the circumstances.
A man who has worked with wild animals for years says being a senior keeper at a zoo is always a risky job. The General Manager of Operations for Wellington Zoo, Mauritz Basson, says caring for lions and wild animals is not an easy job and keepers are only human, which means mistakes do happen.
Basson, who is a former senior keeper, says the lions will be kept alive as they were only playing with what they thought was a toy.
Basson says no one is sure how Bennett ended up in the enclosure alone with the lions and an investigation is underway to find out what happened. He says they will reinforce to staff how important safety is.
Basson says it's a very sad incident and he is glad Bennett is recovering well from the attack.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411365/647859
Lions were 'only playing' with mauled zookeeper
11.01.06 1.00pm
By Colin Marshall
Zoo staff say two lions who mauled a Wellington zookeeper were probably only "playing" because they had him for up to 20 minutes but did not kill him.
Bob Bennett, 54, was cleaning the animals' enclosure just before 2pm, when the two-year-old African lions -- Malik and Zulu -- passed through an open gate and attacked him.
Zoo staff responded to his cries for help and were able to drive the lions off. Mr Bennett, a 19-year veteran at the zoo, is now recovering in Wellington Hospital with superficial lacerations and a neck injury.
But Wellington Zoo general manager operations Mauritz Basson today said Mr Bennett's 15-20 minute ordeal with the lions should not be characterised as an attack.
"The lions did not attack Bob," Mr Basson said.
"They were more interested in the buckets he had in his hand and unfortunately he tripped over a bush and fell and that's when the lions decided 'oh, this is a handy toy'."
There was nothing that indicated the lions, which each weigh about 130kg, were attacking.
"'If they really wanted to attack, they would have killed Bob in a matter of seconds. They don't waste time and we are very, very flimsy creatures compared to a lion.
"They were purely playing with him."
Mr Basson said the lions were used to instructions from their trainer who had "saved the day" by firing water from a garden hose at the lions while other staff aided Mr Bennett.
The lions appeared unaffected by the incident.
"They don't know what all the fuss is about. They had a few extra toys in the enclosure."
Mr Basson said the water and shouting would have resulted in a loss of "goodwill" with the lions, which would have to be built up again.
There was never any question of the lions being destroyed, other than if they had to be shot if they could not have been driven away from Mr Bennett.
Mr Basson said the zoo would be talking to Mr Bennett to find out exactly what had happened as the lions should never have been able to reach him.
Zoo marketing and communications manager Beth Houston this morning said staff had been in to see Mr Bennett at the hospital.
"He's actually fine. He may need to have a small operation this morning because he has some skin grafts that need to be taken care of," Ms Houston said.
"We're all delighted -- he's the luckiest man alive we think."
She said although it was early days, Mr Bennett was expected to return to his work with the zoo's African animal team.
"I don't see any reason why not."
Mr Bennett yesterday said he was lucky not to have been more badly hurt.
"I feel absolutely brilliant, a bit sore but as well as can be expected under the circumstances," Mr Bennett told National Radio.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10363219
Chemical linked to gender-bender polar bears
11.01.06
By David Usborne
One in 50 female polar bears on an Arctic island have male and female sex organs, researchers have found, in a study linking pollution and flame retardant chemicals used in the Western world with dangers to wildlife.
Scientists from Canada, Alaska, Denmark and Norway say significant deposits of flame retardant PBDEs have been found in polar bears, especially in eastern Greenland and Norway's Svalbard islands.
Studies are still being carried out on what impact the chemicals might be having on bears. Tests on lab animals such as mice indicate they attack the sex and thyroid glands, motor skills and brain function.
There is also evidence that compounds similar to PBDEs have contributed to a surprisingly high rate of hermaphroditism in polar bears. About one in 50 female bears on Svalbard has both male and female sex organs, a phenomenon scientists link directly to the effects of pollution.
"The Arctic is now a chemical sink," said Colin Butfield, a campaign leader for the Worldwide Fund for Nature, which last month indicated that killer whales in the Arctic were also suffering from elevated levels of contamination with fire retardants as well as other man-made compounds.
"Chemicals from products that we use in our homes every day are contaminating Arctic wildlife."
The pollutants are carried northwards from industrialised regions of the United States and western Europe on currents and particularly on northbound winds.
Contaminated moisture often condenses on arriving in the cold Arctic climes and is then deposited, ready to enter the food chain.
For several years, scientists have observed how the concentrations of the pollutants are magnified as they ascend the food chain, from plankton to fish and then to marine mammals such as seals, whales and polar bears.
The new study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, shows, for instance, that one compound was 71 times more concentrated in polar bears than in the seals they normally feed upon.
Conservationists are especially alarmed by these new findings because of the already fragile condition of the Arctic polar bear populations, some of which could be devastated before the end of the century.
As warming temperatures erode their hunting grounds, polar bears in Canada's western Hudson Bay region, for instance, saw their numbers slide from 1100 in 1995 to only 950 in 2004.
The dangers now posed by the PBDEs are reminiscent of the crisis 30 years ago over PCBs - polychlorinated biphenyls - a highly toxic byproduct of many industries that was also found to be migrating in large quantities to the Arctic.
The dumping of PCBs was swiftly banned. Since 2004, manufacturing has stopped in the US of two of the most toxic retardants, called penta and octa. Stockpiles of both still exist, however.
According to Derek Muir, of Canada's Environmental Department and a leader of the new research, there are signs of a slightly different retardant, typically used in construction materials and furnishings, also showing up in the Arctic and in the bears, called HBCD.
"It's a chemical that needs to be watched, because it does biomagnify in the aquatic food webs and appears to be a widespread pollutant."
The research team tested 139 bears captured in 10 locations across the Arctic region. They found that the bears in Norway's Svalbard, a wildlife refuge where all hunting is banned, had 10 times the levels of the chemicals than bears in Alaska and four times those in Canada.
Chain reaction
Scientists believe PBDEs - polybrominated diphenyls - are contributing to hermaphroditism in polar bears.
One in 50 female bears have male and female sex organs on Svalbard island.
Researchers say the chemicals used as flame retardants move from the Western world and condense in the cold Arctic air.
The chemicals appear to become more concentrated as they pass up the food chain, from plankton to polar bears.
One compound was 71 times more concentrated in polar bears as in seals, the bears' main food source.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363127
SAN FRANCISCO
Protecting zoo birds from avian influenza
Urban captives are sitting ducks for disease
Inside the African Aviary at the San Francisco Zoo, a rare Waldrapp ibis issues a throaty croak and preens its feathers with a curved red beak, ignoring the baby strollers being wheeled through its home.
One of the most threatened of North African birds, this once-sacred symbol of ancient Egypt is safe from people and predators in its giant San Francisco birdcage, but would be a sitting duck for avian influenza.
If the dreaded H5N1 strain of bird flu now sweeping through Turkey ever turns up in the Bay Area, the valuable ibis will be whisked from public view, sealed away from the wild birds that may carry the virus and fly freely above the wire mesh ceiling of the aviary.
Gone too, would be one of the zoo's star attractions -- the Magellanic penguins -- all 54 of them hidden away, until it was safe to return.
The wild mallard ducks that glide into the Children's Zoo at feeding time would be banned. There would be no more demonstrations of Tuscany, the augur buzzard, eating a rat.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/10/BAGC5GKONC1.DTL
Pittsburgh Zoo to create conservation center focused on elephants
SEAN D. HAMILL
Associated Press
PITTSBURGH - At a time when zoos across the country are debating whether to keep elephants in captivity, the Pittsburgh zoo is buying a former hunting ranch to house a new 700-acre conservation center focused on breeding African elephants.
The center could later include cheetahs, black rhinoceros, and Grevy's zebras as well, but the biggest slice of the former Glen Savage Ranch would be dedicated to pachyderms.
If the zoo reaches its goal of housing up to 20 elephants, including five bulls, on about 150 of the site's wooded and open acres, it would be home to the largest herd of elephants managed by any U.S. zoo.
The project "is extremely important to the zoo and to the conservation efforts of elephants nationally and internationally," said Gary Claus, chairman of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium's board of directors. "We see this as part of the challenge we put before ourselves to become a top 10 zoo."
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/13594217.htm
Pittsburgh Zoo to create conservation center focused on elephants
SEAN D. HAMILL
Associated Press
PITTSBURGH - At a time when zoos across the country are debating whether to keep elephants in captivity, the Pittsburgh zoo is buying a former hunting ranch to house a new 700-acre conservation center focused on breeding African elephants.
The center could later include cheetahs, black rhinoceros, and Grevy's zebras as well, but the biggest slice of the former Glen Savage Ranch would be dedicated to pachyderms.
If the zoo reaches its goal of housing up to 20 elephants, including five bulls, on about 150 of the site's wooded and open acres, it would be home to the largest herd of elephants managed by any U.S. zoo.
The project "is extremely important to the zoo and to the conservation efforts of elephants nationally and internationally," said Gary Claus, chairman of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium's board of directors. "We see this as part of the challenge we put before ourselves to become a top 10 zoo."
The conservation center site is in Somerset County, about 57 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The zoo's 2-acre elephant exhibit site in Pittsburgh will remain.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/13594217.htm
Bowmanville Zoo's Angus dies
Elephant was just weeks away from going to South Africa to live
Jan 10, 2006
By Jennifer Stone
More from this author
BOWMANVILLE -- One of Bowmanville's best-known residents, Angus the elephant, has died, just weeks before he was to be sent to Africa to live out his retirement on a large reserve where he could run free.
The elephant, who was 26, was fine through most of last weekend. In fact, Bowmanville Zoo owner Michael Hackenberger said he and Angus had gone for a walk through the woods Saturday, returning down Lamb's Road and Hwy. 2, to the honks of passing cars, and people calling, "Hello, Angus."
http://www.durhamregion.com/dr/regions/clarington/story/3254807p-3769046c.html
Rare Siberian tiger dies at Michigan zoo
1/10/2006, 4:24 p.m. ET
The Associated Press
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A 17-year-old Siberian tiger has become the third of the John Ball Zoo's high-profile animals to die in less than a year.
The adult male tiger, named Urod, died suddenly and unexpectedly over the weekend, zoo officials said.
His body was taken to Michigan State University for a necropsy to determine the cause of death, but heart failure was suspected.
Siberian tigers are the world's largest cats. An adult male can weigh 650 pounds or more and measure 12 feet long from his nose to the tip of his tail.
They are also among the rarest felines. Only about 430-540 Siberian tigers remain in the wild, nearly all in eastern Russia, according to a census conducted last year by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups. About the same number are alive in captivity.
Their life expectancy is 12 to 15 years in the wild and about 17 years in captivity, zoo spokeswoman Krys Bylund told The Grand Rapids Press for a Tuesday story.
With Urod's death, the zoo has only one Siberian tiger left, a 6-year old female.
"At this point, there are no immediate plans to acquire another tiger," said Bert Vescolani, John Ball's director.
Urod collapsed and died while on exhibit just before feeding time on Sunday afternoon, Bylund said.
The death was unexpected, zookeeper Tim Sampson said.
"He was fine five minutes before that," he said. "He was watching for me for food."
Urod came to John Ball in 1994 from Indianapolis and sired two cubs in 1998. Both offspring are now in Portland, Ore.
In November, a 26-year-old male chimpanzee at the Grand Rapids zoo died after having a tooth pulled. In March, a female lion there was euthanized at age 16 after suffering from numerous ailments related to her age.
http://www.mlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-31/1136928852129090.xml&storylist=newsmichigan
Zoos part of U.S. effort to detect avian flu
CHICAGO, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Breeding grounds in Alaska where migratory birds from Asia and North America mingle are a focus of a broadening U.S. bird flu detection effort that is enlisting American zoos as sentinels, experts said on Tuesday.
U.S. government and zoo officials meeting at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo this week to discuss the zoos' participation briefed reporters on the broadening strategy to track the potentially devastating virus.
Some 200 American zoos are expected to participate in the screening effort to keep a lookout for the virus, which will be quickly spotted by keepers and veterinarians while tending the animals. Zoo officials said there is a fair amount of contact between wild birds and zoo birds, especially those kept outside.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10309118.htm
Pittsburgh Zoo to create conservation center focused on elephants
SEAN D. HAMILL
Associated Press
PITTSBURGH - At a time when zoos across the country are debating whether to keep elephants in captivity, the Pittsburgh zoo is buying a former hunting ranch to house a new 700-acre conservation center focused on breeding African elephants.
The center could later include cheetahs, black rhinoceros, and Grevy's zebras as well, but the biggest slice of the former Glen Savage Ranch would be dedicated to pachyderms.
If the zoo reaches its goal of housing up to 20 elephants, including five bulls, on about 150 of the site's wooded and open acres, it would be home to the largest herd of elephants managed by any U.S. zoo.
The project "is extremely important to the zoo and to the conservation efforts of elephants nationally and internationally," said Gary Claus, chairman of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium's board of directors. "We see this as part of the challenge we put before ourselves to become a top 10 zoo."
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/13594217.htm
GROUP CRITICIZES VALLEJO SIX FLAGS FOR ELEPHANT ABUSE
01/10/06 3:45 PST
VALLEJO (BCN)
It stinks to be an elephant at Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo but not for the usual reasons, according to Mill Valley-based In Defense of Animals, a non-profit animal advocacy group.
The group included the local amusement park and zoo in its second annual "Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants" list, according to In Defense of Animals spokeswoman Suzanne Roy. The zoo was also included in the inaugural list last year.
"We created the list to highlight the list of problems that elephants (face at zoos)," said Roy. "I chose the different zoos to highlight the different problems. Marine World has had a pretty bad record (of elephant treatment).''
The group claims that Marine World uses bullhooks, which are similar to fireplace pokers, to prod the elephants in sensitive places and control them.
The group also says elephants at the park are kept in chains for prolonged periods of time and six have died in the last decade.
http://www.cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2006/01/10/n/HeadlineNews/BAD-ELEPHANT-ZOOS/resources_bcn_html
Zoo: Neighbors rebuffed
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
It's impressive to see Seattle residents decide at the last minute to take time on a Saturday morning in January to show up for a meeting about the future of Woodland Park Zoo. It's too bad zoo officials didn't welcome them.
At best, the zoo missed an opportunity last weekend to involve and educate more people about plans for a four-story parking garage on the west side of the zoo. Rather than make accommodations, zoo officials hurried away people who had not registered in advance. With better planning from the Woodland Park Zoological Society, the walk-up visitors at least could have heard from officials about the garage plans.
The lack of extra effort by the zoo probably further poisoned the atmosphere around the already controversial plans for the garage and a series of other planned structures. Some of the Phinney Ridge neighbors believe pressure from the city budget is transforming the zoo into a money-making operation rather than a park. And they have said they would prefer occasional crowded street parking conditions rather than an aboveground parking structure.
Against those neighbors' wishes, the cost of underground construction has forced the parking plans to go above ground. A city design commission has made it clear that it would have preferred something else but will work on making the structure blend into the neighborhood.
Zoo officials insist that, with neighbors' help, they can do a good job with the garage. For instance, the project's architect hopes to use natural lighting. If the garage is going to work, though, the planning process needs all the light, openness and fresh air as possible.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/255012_zooed.html
National Zoo's panda cub turns 6 months
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- The most popular baby in the nation's capital turned 6 months old Monday, bathing still in the fawning, gawking, preening, peering and swooning admiration that visitors have exhibited since his coming out party.
That's because Tai Shan is already a huge draw at the National Zoo, where the panda cub was born July 9. He spent his usual three hours on public display Monday. Tai Shan is the hottest ticket in town. When he initially went on view last month, tickets were scooped up in barely two hours and later were hawked on eBay. All of January's tickets are gone, with no plans announced yet for February.
Zoo officials say the cub has come a long way in a short time. He's now up to 27 pounds, and his nose is turning black.
The longest surviving cub born at the National Zoo, Tai Shan is expected to be sent to China when he turns 2. His parents are on a 10-year loan from the Chinese government.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1155AP_BRF_Zoo_Panda.html
Zoo tips scales in favor of elephant
Facts about African elephants
The number of African elephants in the wild and in captivity has been declining rapidly. 1979: 1.3 million 2001: 301,000
Number of African elephants in the United States: 174
Average number of African elephants born in American zoos: 3 a year
Number of births needed to sustain the population: 9 a year Source: Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium plans to convert a controversial 724-acre ranch in Somerset County that was used for hunting fenced-in animals, including bison and wild boars, into a center for breeding African elephants and other rare animals.
Zoo officials announced Monday an agreement to buy and develop the Glen Savage Ranch in Fairhope into an International Conservation Center.
"This center will allow us to provide housing and breeding for protected and endangered species, with a first emphasis on the African elephant, said Barbara Baker, zoo president and CEO. "It's an opportunity for the zoo to be recognized as a world leader and further our goal to be a Top 10 zoo."
Zoo officials also plan to use the center to teach handlers around the world about elephants and boost local tourism through children's camps and safari rides.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_411962.html
Zoo's doves winging their way home
A BREED of dove which was made extinct in the wild more than 30 years ago is set to be reintroduced with the help of bird experts at Edinburgh Zoo.
The Socorro dove is native to an island off the west coast of Mexico but has not been sighted in the wild since 1972. It is thought that only a hundred or so of these birds are left living in captivity, mainly in America and Germany.
In an attempt to save the species, five of the doves were brought to Edinburgh from Paignton zoo in Devon and Frankfurt Zoo in Germany. One more bird will be coming from Frankfurt to complete three adult pairs.
After a successful breeding programme, one pair of adult doves hatched two chicks in December and they are now on display.
All of the birds are scheduled to be released back into their natural habitat in late June.
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=39182006
Greening At Zoos Is Done With Doo
TAMPA - Tim the white rhino tips the scales at 2 tons.
It takes 60 pounds of food daily to keep him fueled.
Naturally, what goes in one end has to come out the other.
If you multiply Tim's fertile deposits by the other 4,000 or so critters at Busch Gardens, you have to wonder:
What do you do with that much doo?
George Schwab Jr. makes compost out of it.
The park's pachyderms are the biggest contributors, eating about 150 pounds of food and vitamins a day and depositing about the same volume in droppings that workers harvest with everything from shovels to a tractor-size vacuum.
Once collected, that waste joins tree trimmings, soiled hay, discarded lumber and other compost ingredients on the back lot, where Schwab and his crew turn it into a compound that keeps the park's lawns and gardens happy.
In an average year, "we take in about 7 million pounds of waste," Schwab said.
Before the fermentation begins, limbs and other bulky things are ground into small pieces; then the compost is placed in rows and, like a fine wine, allowed to age to perfection.
http://news.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBCIC5L9IE.html
Top 10 AZA Elephant Success Stories: 2005 a Banner Year for Elephants in AZA Accredited
Zoos; Zoos Collaborate to Significantly Enhance Elephant Programs, Welcome Births and Build or Expand State-Of-The-Art Elephant Exhibits
To: National Desk
Contact: Jane Ballentine of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, 301-562-0777 ext. 252
SILVER SPRING, Md., Jan. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Exciting things have been happening for elephants in zoos since January 2005. That's when directors of the 78 American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) accredited zoos that exhibit elephants endorsed an aggressive new elephant conservation vision. Progress since that meeting includes new babies, new elephant habitats and more conservation programs. These and other advancements made the "AZA Top 10 Elephant Success Stories" list for 2005.
"We are proud of the success AZA zoos are having in their elephant programs. Members are making great progress building upon AZA's strategic vision that ensures elephants are in the world's future forever, both in zoos and in the wild," said Kristin L. Vehrs, AZA's interim executive director. More than 290 Asian and African elephants live in AZA accredited zoos, where programs are based upon advanced science and husbandry knowledge, plus an unparalleled commitment to providing the best care for the animals.
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=59016
Design options for zoo garage offered
If Woodland Park Zoo's controversial plan to build a four-story parking structure on its grounds is going to move forward, neighboring residents say, it should do a lot more than just hold vehicles, and it should look nothing like a typical garage.
Saturday, at the first of two public workshops on the project, about 40 people floated ideas in small discussion groups about how to make the $16.2 million garage fit suitably into its planned location along Phinney Avenue North near North 56th Street. The site is as large as a football field and the garage is slated to hold 700 parking stalls when it opens in 2008.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002727129_zoogarage08m.html
Polar bear cub to make debut at Tennoji Zoo
The Yomiuri Shimbun
A male Russian polar bear cub is to take up residence at Tennoji Zoo in Tennoji Ward, Osaka, courtesy of a food manufacturing and sales company in the city.
Due to the Osaka municipal government's financial difficulties, the zoo has been without a bear since Yukiko, its popular female polar bear, died at age 24 in May 2004. The cost of a new bear is about 7.5 million yen, leading the zoo to seek sponsors for the project.
The 1-year-old bear, to be donated by Horai Co., weighs 110 kilograms.
The firm, which uses an illustration of a white bear on its ice lollies as its trademark, offered to purchase the bear for the zoo.
The cub will be named Gogo after the firm's popular pork buns known as "551 Nikuman" It will arrive in Japan in February.
The zoo said it hoped to put the bear on public display by the spring vacation.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/culture/20060109TDY18002.htm
When it comes to cute, humans easy to please
All part of nature's way to make us want to care for helpless infants, scientists say
Washington -- If the mere sight of Tai Shan, the roly-poly, goofily gamboling masked bandit of a panda cub now on view at the National Zoo, is not enough to make you melt, maybe the crush of human onlookers, the furious flashing of cameras, and the heated gasps of their mass rapture will do the trick.
"Omigosh, look at him! He is too cute!"
"How adorable! I wish I could just reach in there and give him a big squeeze!"
"He's so fuzzy! I've never seen anything so cute in my life!"
A guard's sonorous voice rises above the burble. "OK, folks, five oohs and aahs per person, then it's time to let someone else step up front."
The 6-month-old, 25-pound Tai Shan -- whose name means "peaceful mountain" -- is the first surviving giant panda cub born at the Smithsonian's zoo. And though the zoo's adult pandas have long been among Washington's top tourist attractions, the public debut of the cub in December has unleashed an almost bestial frenzy. Some 13,000 timed tickets to see the cub were snapped up within two hours of being released -- and almost immediately began trading on eBay for as much as $200 a pair.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/08/MNGG6GHB9M1.DTL&type=science
Near-Record Attendance At Oregon Zoo
Second-Highest Yearly Attendance Since 1963
Portland, Ore. -- The Oregon Zoo had its second-best year
for attendance in more than a century to close out 2005.
Officials said the zoo had nearly one-point-34 (m) million visitors last year after posting a record of just over one-point-35(m) million visitors in 2004.
Zoo Director Tony Vecchio says camp programs, summer concerts and special events boosted attendance.
This spring and summer the zoo plans to open four new exhibits, including ocelots from South America, Egyptian spiny mice, warty pigs and cougars.
The first time the zoo's attendance topped one million was during its 1962-63 fiscal year, when one of its star attractions, Packy the elephant, was born.
http://www.koin.com/news.asp?ID=6286
Varied attractions at Zoo during holidays
Published: Saturday, 7 January, 2006, 10:19 AM Doha Time
Staff Reporter
Doha Zoo once again will be hosting a number of programmes during Eid al-Adha, starting on January 10.
The programmes at the facility start at 2pm and continue until 8pm for five days, an official at the zoo said.
The first day is reserved for everyone but the remaining four days will be restricted to families only.
The zoo officials appealed to the public to keep the facility clean and hygienic and respect the rules and regulations of the zoo. They include not to feed the animals and not to tease them.
The programmes are organised by Qatar Tourism Authority, jointly with the National Council for Culture Arts, and Heritage, and co-ordinated by Qatar Media Services.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=67831&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16
How 'kawaii'!
Cuteness is not the same as beauty, researchers say, emphasizing rounded over sculptured, soft over refined, clumsy over quick. Cuteness needs affection and a lap
By Natalie Angier
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , WASHINGTON
Sunday, Jan 08, 2006,Page 17
If the mere sight of Tai Shan, the roly-poly, goofily gamboling masked bandit of a panda cub now on view at the US National Zoo isn't enough to make you melt, then maybe the crush of his human onlookers, the furious flashing of their cameras and the heated gasps of their mass rapture will do the trick.
Scientists who study the evolution of visual signaling have identified a wide and still-expanding assortment of features and behaviors that make something look cute.
What features and behaviors do think make something look cute?
Cute cues are those that indicate extreme youth, vulnerability, harmlessness and need, scientists say.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2006/01/08/2003288095
What a Zoo!
January 7, 2006 - Mycid Shrimp
They might be hard to see, but they are a very important source for the Sea Dragons, nutritious Mycid shrimp.
Senior Keeper Aquarist, Laurie Dixon from the Toledo Zoo talks about Mycid shrimp. "They're a lot smaller than the shrimp people eat. I think the fish do find them very good to eat because they're like the whole package. It's not just the piece of the fish it's the whole body."
"We feed them special food that makes them more nutritional for our Sea Dragons." Breeding the Mycid shrimp is much more interesting than you might think.
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=local&id=3790809
'Cool' cat will join Phoenix Zoo lineup
John Faherty
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 6, 2006 12:00 AM
Maybe it's their size or their stripes or the fact that they look menacing even while just walking around.
Whatever the reason, tigers have animal magnetism.
And now the Phoenix Zoo has a new one, an 18-month-old male Sumatran tiger named Jai, which is pronounced "Jay."
advertisement
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0106newtiger06.html
Endangered Primate Dies At Sacramento Zoo
Zoo Grieves For Golden-Bellied Mangabey
(CBS 13) SACRAMENTO An endangered primate has died unexpectedly at the Sacramento Zoo. Officials at the zoo say Jimmy, a 13-year-old golden-bellied mangabey died on December 29th.
Keepers apparently found the primate collapsed in his cage in the late afternoon. The zoo's veterinarian tried to revive Jimmy, but was unable to. They say Jimmy had been behaving and eating normally earlier in the day.
"He was born here and has such a wonderful personality," zookeeper supervisor Leslie Field said in a press release from the zoo.
According to the zoo, golden-bellied mangabeys are considered endangered. There are only 19 golden-bellied mangabeys in North American zoos. Little is known from the wild about these primates. They believe the primates only live naturally in a small area in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Donations in Jimmy's memory may be sent to the Sacramento Zoo. The zoo says it will use the money toward the building of the Zoo's veterinary hospital.
http://cbs13.com/local/local_story_006093933.html
Three female elephants leaving Zoo Atlanta to breed in N.C.
The Associated Press -
ATLANTA (AP _ Starlet, Victoria and Zambezi _ female elephants at Zoo Atlanta _ will be leaving the zoo for good next winter to breed at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro.
The three, all in their early 20s, are not expected to return to Atlanta and will be replaced by two older female elephants from Disney's Animal Kingdom: Robin, 34, and Petunia, 32.
Because Zoo Atlanta has neither male elephants nor adequate space to breed the animals and raise the calves, the trio in prime breeding age must go elsewhere.
The American Zoo and Aquarium Association, which helps manage captive wildlife populations, determined that the move be made.
The two Disney elephants are expected to arrive at Zoo Atlanta in early 2007.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=69744
Zoo, garden lack diverse staff
Blacks, Hispanics make up tiny part of full-time workers
By Mickey Ciokajlo
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 6, 2006
Reacting to an annual employment diversity report, a pair of Cook County commissioners Thursday aimed sharp criticism at the Brookfield Zoo and the Chicago Botanic Garden for not hiring more minorities.
"I think that those numbers are pathetic," Commissioner Roberto Maldonado (D-Chicago) said. "A quarter of their budget is paid for by the taxpayers of the county, so therefore we have the right to demand from them ... [a] fair chance to Hispanics and African-Americans to work in those institutions."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northshore/chi-0601060226jan06,1,841645.story?coll=chi-newslocalnorthshore-hed
ZooMontana home to new tiger
Gazette Staff
ZooMontana's newest tiger, a 7-year-old female named Luna, arrived Thursday morning as part of a nationwide shuffle of tigers among zoos.
The Siberian tiger from the Minnesota Zoo spent more than 16 hours on the road before arriving in Billings early Thursday. She will be quarantined for 30 days before making her debut at the zoo.
In exchange, Nadia, ZooMontana's 12-year-old tiger, was shipped to the Minnesota Zoo later Thursday morning. Officials are hoping Nadia will mate with Serge, an 11-year-old tiger recently shipped from the Little Rock Zoo in Arkansas.
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?tl=1&display=rednews/2006/01/05/build/local/38-new-tiger.inc
DNA Offers New Insight Concerning Cat Evolution
By NICHOLAS WADE
Researchers have gained a major insight into the evolution of cats by showing how they migrated to new continents and developed new species as sea levels rose and fell.
About nine million years ago - two million years after the cat family first appeared in Asia - these successful predators invaded North America by crossing the Beringian land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska, a team of geneticists writes in the journal Science today.
Later, several American cat lineages returned to Asia. With each migration, evolutionary forces morphed the pantherlike patriarch of all cats into a rainbow of species, from ocelots and lynxes to leopards, lions and the lineage that led to the most successful cat of all, even though it has mostly forsaken its predatory heritage: the cat that has induced people to pay for its board and lodging in return for frugal displays of affection.
This new history of the family, known as Felidae, is based on DNA analyses of the 37 living species performed by Warren E. Johnson and Stephen J. O'Brien of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues elsewhere.
Before DNA, taxonomists had considerable difficulty in classifying the cat family. The fossil record was sparse and many of the skulls lacked distinctiveness. One scheme divided the family into Big Cats and Little Cats. Then, in 1997, Dr. Johnson and Dr. O'Brien said they thought most living cats fell into one of eight lineages, based on the genetic element known as mitochondrial DNA.
Having made further DNA analyses, the researchers have drawn a full family tree that assigns every cat species to one of the lineages. They have also integrated their tree, which is based solely on changes in DNA, with the fossil record. The fossils, which are securely dated, allow dates to be assigned to each fork in the genetic family tree.
Knowing when each species came into existence, the Johnson-O'Brien team has been able to reconstruct a series of at least 10 intercontinental migrations by which cats colonized the world. The cheetah, for instance, now found in Africa, belongs to a lineage that originated in North America and some three million years ago migrated back across the Bering land bridge to Asia and then Africa.
Dr. O'Brien said the cats were very successful predators, second only to humans, and quickly explored new territories as opportunity arose. Sea levels were low from 11 million to 6 million years ago, enabling the first modern cats, in paleontologists' perspective (saber-tooth tigers are ancient cats), to spread from Asia west into Africa, creating the caracal lineage, and east into North America, generating the ocelot, lynx and puma lineages.
The leopard lineage appeared around 6.5 million years ago in Asia. The youngest of the eight lineages, which led eventually to the domestic cat, emerged some 6.2 million years ago in Asia and Africa, either from ancestors that had never left Asia or more probably from North American cats that had trekked back across the Bering land bridge.
Sea levels then rose, confining each cat species to its own continent, but sank again some three million years ago, allowing a second round of cat migrations. It was at this time that the ancestors of the cheetah and the Eurasian lynxes colonized the Old World from the New.
Chris Wozencraft, an authority on the classification of carnivorous mammals, said the new cat family tree generally agreed with one that he had just published in Mammal Species of the World, a standard reference. Dr. Wozencraft, a taxonomist at Bethel College in Indiana, based his classification on fossil and zoological information, as well as on DNA data already published by Dr. O'Brien's laboratory.
Cat fossils are very hard to tell apart, because they differ mostly just in size, and the DNA data emerging over the last decade has helped bring the field from confusion to consensus, Dr. Wozencraft said.
Despite their evolutionary success, most of the large cats are in peril because their broad hunting ranges have brought them into collision with people. "With the exception of the house cat and a few other small cat species, nearly every one of the 37 species is considered endangered or threatened," Dr. Johnson and Dr. O'Brien write in the current Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics.
Fewer than 15,000 tigers, cheetahs and snow leopards remain in the wild, they estimate, and pumas and jaguar populations have been reduced to about 50,000 each.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/science/06cats.html?emc=eta1
Polar Bears Sent To Zoo Via FedEx
Animals Part Of Breeding Program
POSTED: 11:34 am EST January 5, 2006
UPDATED: 11:44 am EST January 5, 2006
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- A special delivery arrived via FedEx at the Memphis Zoo on Wednesday -- two polar bears.
Payton, 2, and Haley, 3, left their digs at the Brookfield Zoo outside of Chicago and headed for warmer climates.
The bears will spend about a week getting used to their new surroundings and will eventually be part of a special breeding program at the Memphis Zoo.
Zookeepers in Brookfield hope the extra room in Memphis will inspire Payton's parents to produce more polar bears.
http://www.nbc10.com/news/5863241/detail.html
New Binghamton zoo director says turnaround will take time
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. The new director of a struggling upstate zoo says it'll take some time to improve the facility and stabilize its financial situation.
Mike Janis started work this week at Binghamton's Ross Park Zoo, billed as the nation's fifth-oldest zoo.
Janis -- who had been director of a Duluth, Minnesota zoo for the past decade -- says he expects a few new exhibits will be added this year.
Restoring the Binghamton zoo's accreditation by a national association -- which it lost last year -- will be a priority for Janis.
But he says that likely will take two or three years. That's because a key factor in regaining the accreditation will be proving financial stability.
Janis says he doesn't want to apply for accreditation until he's sure the zoo is -- in his words -- "ready for it."
http://www.wstm.com/Global/story.asp?S=4323193&nav=2aKD
Dvur Kralove zoo hails another black rhino arrival
DVUR KRALOVE NAD LABEM, East Bohemia, Jan 4 (CTK) - Another calf of rare black rhinoceros, a male, was born in the local zoo on January 2, less than a fortnight after the female that came to world late last year, Jana Mysliveckova from the zoo's PR department told CTK today.
The new arrival is the 29th born in the zoo since 1971 when it started to specialise in the rare endangered pachyderm breeding.
"The young has been very agile since the beginning. It stood up less than two hours after the delivery and started sucking its mother's milk. It weighed about 36 kilograms," Mysliveckova said.
She said the breeders had monitored the rhino birth via a camera system in order not to disturb the mother, 21-year old Jessi.
The newborn male is Jessi's fifth offspring. Its father is Sauron, born in the local zoo in 1994.
About 100,000 heads of black rhinoceros lived in the wild in Africa in 1960, but only 3,100 survived the year 2000.
World zoos, including Dvur Kralove, mainly focus on breeding the rhino's east African subspecies of which the last 500 heads survive in the wild.
The Dvur Kralove zoo recently joined the international campaign Save the Rhinos and organises public events in support of the project.
http://www.praguemonitor.com/ctk/?id=20060104F00302;story=Dvur-Kralove-zoo-hails-another-black-rhino-arrival
Rare leopard at Oregon Zoo dying of cancer
By The Associated Press
PORTLAND — A rare Amur leopard at the Oregon Zoo has been diagnosed with cancer and eventually will have to be euthanized, officials said.
Dr. Mitch Finnegan, a zoo veterinarian, said zookeepers noticed in mid-November that the female leopard appeared lethargic and had lost some of her appetite.
Tests and exploratory surgery on the 14-year-old leopard, named Andrea, revealed a tumor in her uterus that had spread into her abdomen.
Finnegan said wild animals instinctively mask symptoms of illness to avoid appearing weak and vulnerable. By the time the illness is discovered, the disease may be advanced, he said.
Finnegan said there is no effective treatment, so zookeepers are trying to keep Andrea as comfortable and as pain-free as possible until they no longer can maintain her quality of life.
The life span of an Amur leopard in captivity is normally about 19 years. Native to eastern Russia, they are considered highly endangered, with only about 60 to 100 left in the wild.
Also known as the Manchurian or Korean leopard, the species has slowly drifted from its original Korean habitat to China and finally to eastern Russia, where zoologists say it is making a last stand. Its habitat is the mountainous area along the Amur River valley of Siberia where habitat destruction and loss of prey species has heavily reduced the leopard population.
"Big cats are so popular, not only with our visitors, but with our staff and volunteers as well, that everyone gets extremely attached," said Tony Vecchio, the zoo director. "Her loss will be felt not just here locally, but worldwide due to the critically endangered status of this species."
Andrea and her brother, named Frederick, arrived at the Oregon Zoo in April 2000 from the Colorado Springs Zoo.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002721232_leopard05m.html
New Binghamton zoo director says turnaround will take time
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. The new director of a struggling upstate zoo says it'll take some time to improve the facility and stabilize its financial situation.
Mike Janis started work this week at Binghamton's Ross Park Zoo, billed as the nation's fifth-oldest zoo.
Janis -- who had been director of a Duluth, Minnesota zoo for the past decade -- says he expects a few new exhibits will be added this year.
Restoring the Binghamton zoo's accreditation by a national association -- which it lost last year -- will be a priority for Janis.
But he says that likely will take two or three years. That's because a key factor in regaining the accreditation will be proving financial stability.
Janis says he doesn't want to apply for accreditation until he's sure the zoo is -- in his words -- "ready for it."
http://www.wstm.com/Global/story.asp?S=4323193&nav=2aKD
New zoo chief takes can-do approach
Janis: Ross Park needs new, expanded exhibits, master plan
BINGHAMTON — When Mike Janis looks at the Binghamton Zoo at Ross Park, he sees a facility that needs to improve and has gotten "a bad rap" over the past couple of years.
But the new executive director also sees a facility with a good staff, the potential to grow and a 130-year history in the community.
"It's a diamond in the rough that just needs some polishing," Janis, 58, said Tuesday. "It needs work, but with community support it's doable."
Tuesday was the second day on the job for Janis, who was hired by the Southern Zoological Society board in early December. A proven director with 26 years in the zoo field, Janis comes to the struggling Ross Park facility after 10 1/2 years as director of the Lake Superior Zoo in Duluth, Minn.
http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060104/NEWS01/601040312/1001
Dusit Zoo to become Bangkok's night safari
BANGKOK, Jan 4 (TNA) - Dusit Zoo will soon become Bangkok's night safari, thanks to an initiative of the Zoological Park Organization Under the Royal Patronage of His Majesty the King to extend the zoo's opening hours until evening.
Dusit Zoo's officials told journalists here Wednesday that facilities were being arranged, including modifying of areas and preparing for special tram services to serve the public for their animal tours at night.
The works were expected to be completed soon--in time for the zoo to welcome children, the general public and tourists during the forthcoming Chinese New Year in late January, said the officials.
"Once the new project is launched, members of the general public and tourists are welcome at Dusit Zoo from day to night time," they added.
The extended opening hours of the Dusit Zoo will be later announced to the public.
Thailand's first night safari is Chiang Mai Night Safari in the North, which has opened for the public for more than 30 days during its test run.
The country's first night safari will be officially opened by February, according to government officials. (TNA)--E002
http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=5647
Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species
By Los Locos (8 January 2006)
http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/mag.dyn/Reviews/2987.html
continued ...
Zoos
Zoo To Add Five New Positions
The Great Plains Zoo is making some major changes in 2006. As we told you last night, Zoo President Elizabeth Whealy released her budget for the upcoming year, which included pay raises for employees and money for repairs.
The City Council doesn't have to vote on the zoo's budget because $1.6 million was already set aside for Zoo operations last summer, when it was unclear who would manage the facility.
Tuesday, the City Council extended the partnership between the City and Zoological Society to manage the Zoo as a team. And since it's asking the City for less than what was originally set aside, changes at the zoo are ready to move forward.
In 2006, the Great Plains Zoo's total operating budget will be about $2.7 million dollars. That's close to $700,000 more than last year. Zoo President Elizabeth Whealy says the increase is necessary to get the Zoo back in shape.
$1.2 million dollars of that budget will be used to pay employee salaries. The Zoo is adding five new positions this year, including a veterinary technician, two animal keepers, a development director and an educational outreach person. Part of that money will also be used to increase current salaries up to industry standards, and fill four open staff positions.
http://www.keloland.com/News/NewsDetail5440.cfm?Id=0,44995
U.S. zoos to act as sentinels for bird flu
CHICAGO, Jan 6 (Reuters) - American zoos will act as sentinels to track the spread of avian flu if the lethal virus arrives on U.S. shores, zoo officials said on Friday.
Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo will bring together about 30 public health and zoo officials on Monday to organize the effort, zoo spokeswoman Kelly McGrath said.
"The reason zoos make good sentinels is because zoos are in every (U.S.) state," she said. "The idea is to be able to project its (avian flu's) path, to track the way the disease is moving."
Zoos played a similar role at the outset of the West Nile virus outbreak a few years ago, she said.
In 2002, West Nile virus killed three Lincoln Park Zoo birds -- two red-breasted geese and a turkey vulture -- and infected two bald eagles that survived.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06383967.htm
Lincoln Park Zoo to host bird flu planning session
By William Mullen
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 6, 2006
Virus hunters, zoologists and epidemiologists from around the country will gather at Lincoln Park Zoo for four days next week to hammer together a plan to look for a deadly avian flu strain medical experts fear could reach the U.S.
About 30 public health scientists, federal officials and zoo administrators will meet to put finishing touches on a plan to use the nation's 210 zoos as early warning sentinels watching for a highly virulent flu strain that experts have labeled H5N1.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northshore/chi-0601060225jan06,1,448428.story?coll=chi-newslocalnorthshore-hed
Mississippi dolphins flown to Bahamas
1/6/2006, 7:56 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — The Marine Life Oceanarium has moved 17 dolphins to a resort in the Bahamas.
The dolphins were packed up Thursday and loaded onto flatbed trailers at their four temporary locations, then transported to Mobile, Ala. In Alabama, 16 of the dolphins were loaded onto an airplane for the final stage of their trip, officials said.
One of the 17 dolphins set to be moved was left behind because she is extremely ill with the Morbillivirus, said Stacey Coltraine, a former trainer of the dolphins. She will be flown to the Bahamas when she is healthy, Coltraine said.
The move comes after Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29 destroyed the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport, but it is not without controversy.
The dolphins' fate is at the center of a lawsuit between Marine Animal Productions President Donald P. Jacobs and Dr. Moby Solangi, former president of Marine Life. Marine Animal Productions is the company that owns the dolphins. The lawsuit involves a dispute over the percentage of Solangi's stock ownership in the company and the animals' future.
Solangi and his legal counsel did not succeed in their last-ditch attempt Thursday morning to keep the dolphins in America, said Solangi's lawyer, Beau Stewart.
A teleconference with Judge James H.C. Thomas Jr. of Hattiesburg, Solangi's team, current MAP President David Lion and representatives from the owners of the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, Kerzner International, resulted in legal clearance to move the dolphins.
Whether any of the dolphins will return to Gulfport is unclear. Lion said MAP was still evaluating whether to rebuild in Gulfport.
Stewart said Solangi's legal dispute with Jacobs involves the dolphins because they represent a major portion of the company's assets.
"We're concerned about them going to a foreign country," Stewart said. "We question whether they can be returned even if the court orders it. That will ultimately be in the hands of the Bahamaian government."
Solangi said he also questioned the suitability of the Atlantis Resort's dolphin habitat, which has never before had dolphins.
Atlantis, a resort on Paradise Island, Bahamas, includes hotel towers surrounding a 34-acre waterscape with 11 million gallons of fresh and saltwater lagoons and pools.
It is home to the largest open-air marine habitat in the world with 70,000 marine animals in lagoons and displays including The Dig, a maze of underwater corridors and passageways providing a journey through the ancient Atlantis.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1136556249321180.xml&storylist=louisiana
Keeper mauled by lion cubs at Wellington Zoo
Posted at 6:15pm on 10 Jan 2006
A 54 year lion keeper at Wellington Zoo is in hospital after being mauled on Tuesday afternoon.
Emergency Services were called to the Zoo shortly before the 2pm feeding time. Zoo patrons say they heard yells for help from the lions' enclosure and people were then ushered away from the scene by staff.
A Zoo spokesperson said the man is the senior keeper for the lions, Bob Bennett.
He was taken to Wellington Hospital and is in a stable condition with puncture wounds to his neck, shoulders and throat.
A statement quoted him as saying: "I feel absolutely brilliant. A bit sore, but as well as can be expected under the circumstances."
Zoo chief executive, Alison Lash, said the lions - two 2-year old cubs - have not been destroyed. She said an investigation was being carried by zoo management.
Two years ago a pyschiatric patient was critically injured by a tiger, after climbing into its enclosure at the zoo. The tiger was put down.
Farm student killed by bull
A farming student died after being attacked by a Charolais bull at Clayton Station near Fairlie shortly before 11am today.
Police say the 19 year old man was loading bulls onto a stock truck with another farm worker when the incident took place.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/bulletins/radionz/200601101815/3cc34279
Wellington Zoo investigates lion mauling
Zoo investigates keeper mauling (00:36)
Wgtn Zoo investigates lion mauling (1.46)
Jan 11, 2006
Wellington Zoo has begun an investigation after its senior keeper was mauled by two lions.
Fifty-four year old Bob Bennett was attacked shortly before feeding time yesterday, receiving injuries to his neck and side.
The zoo's chief executive, Alison Lash, says it appears the two young male lions made their way into the enclosure where Bennett was putting their food. She says management is looking into how that occurred.
Staff members at the zoo are shocked by Tuesday's attack.
Lash says workers do not go into the dangerous animals' cages alone. She says since Bennett was doing the servicing alone, the zoo needs to get his version of events.
She says the zoo is back to normal and the lion enclosure is open.
Lash says there is a set of protocols, to eliminate both staff and animals being in the same enclosure. Something has obviously gone amiss she says, and the zoo will find out what happened to ensure it doesn't happen again.
The injured lion keeper, Bob Bennett, said from Wellington hospital after the attack that he feels a bit sore, but as well as can be expected under the circumstances.
A man who has worked with wild animals for years says being a senior keeper at a zoo is always a risky job. The General Manager of Operations for Wellington Zoo, Mauritz Basson, says caring for lions and wild animals is not an easy job and keepers are only human, which means mistakes do happen.
Basson, who is a former senior keeper, says the lions will be kept alive as they were only playing with what they thought was a toy.
Basson says no one is sure how Bennett ended up in the enclosure alone with the lions and an investigation is underway to find out what happened. He says they will reinforce to staff how important safety is.
Basson says it's a very sad incident and he is glad Bennett is recovering well from the attack.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411365/647859
Lions were 'only playing' with mauled zookeeper
11.01.06 1.00pm
By Colin Marshall
Zoo staff say two lions who mauled a Wellington zookeeper were probably only "playing" because they had him for up to 20 minutes but did not kill him.
Bob Bennett, 54, was cleaning the animals' enclosure just before 2pm, when the two-year-old African lions -- Malik and Zulu -- passed through an open gate and attacked him.
Zoo staff responded to his cries for help and were able to drive the lions off. Mr Bennett, a 19-year veteran at the zoo, is now recovering in Wellington Hospital with superficial lacerations and a neck injury.
But Wellington Zoo general manager operations Mauritz Basson today said Mr Bennett's 15-20 minute ordeal with the lions should not be characterised as an attack.
"The lions did not attack Bob," Mr Basson said.
"They were more interested in the buckets he had in his hand and unfortunately he tripped over a bush and fell and that's when the lions decided 'oh, this is a handy toy'."
There was nothing that indicated the lions, which each weigh about 130kg, were attacking.
"'If they really wanted to attack, they would have killed Bob in a matter of seconds. They don't waste time and we are very, very flimsy creatures compared to a lion.
"They were purely playing with him."
Mr Basson said the lions were used to instructions from their trainer who had "saved the day" by firing water from a garden hose at the lions while other staff aided Mr Bennett.
The lions appeared unaffected by the incident.
"They don't know what all the fuss is about. They had a few extra toys in the enclosure."
Mr Basson said the water and shouting would have resulted in a loss of "goodwill" with the lions, which would have to be built up again.
There was never any question of the lions being destroyed, other than if they had to be shot if they could not have been driven away from Mr Bennett.
Mr Basson said the zoo would be talking to Mr Bennett to find out exactly what had happened as the lions should never have been able to reach him.
Zoo marketing and communications manager Beth Houston this morning said staff had been in to see Mr Bennett at the hospital.
"He's actually fine. He may need to have a small operation this morning because he has some skin grafts that need to be taken care of," Ms Houston said.
"We're all delighted -- he's the luckiest man alive we think."
She said although it was early days, Mr Bennett was expected to return to his work with the zoo's African animal team.
"I don't see any reason why not."
Mr Bennett yesterday said he was lucky not to have been more badly hurt.
"I feel absolutely brilliant, a bit sore but as well as can be expected under the circumstances," Mr Bennett told National Radio.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10363219
Chemical linked to gender-bender polar bears
11.01.06
By David Usborne
One in 50 female polar bears on an Arctic island have male and female sex organs, researchers have found, in a study linking pollution and flame retardant chemicals used in the Western world with dangers to wildlife.
Scientists from Canada, Alaska, Denmark and Norway say significant deposits of flame retardant PBDEs have been found in polar bears, especially in eastern Greenland and Norway's Svalbard islands.
Studies are still being carried out on what impact the chemicals might be having on bears. Tests on lab animals such as mice indicate they attack the sex and thyroid glands, motor skills and brain function.
There is also evidence that compounds similar to PBDEs have contributed to a surprisingly high rate of hermaphroditism in polar bears. About one in 50 female bears on Svalbard has both male and female sex organs, a phenomenon scientists link directly to the effects of pollution.
"The Arctic is now a chemical sink," said Colin Butfield, a campaign leader for the Worldwide Fund for Nature, which last month indicated that killer whales in the Arctic were also suffering from elevated levels of contamination with fire retardants as well as other man-made compounds.
"Chemicals from products that we use in our homes every day are contaminating Arctic wildlife."
The pollutants are carried northwards from industrialised regions of the United States and western Europe on currents and particularly on northbound winds.
Contaminated moisture often condenses on arriving in the cold Arctic climes and is then deposited, ready to enter the food chain.
For several years, scientists have observed how the concentrations of the pollutants are magnified as they ascend the food chain, from plankton to fish and then to marine mammals such as seals, whales and polar bears.
The new study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, shows, for instance, that one compound was 71 times more concentrated in polar bears than in the seals they normally feed upon.
Conservationists are especially alarmed by these new findings because of the already fragile condition of the Arctic polar bear populations, some of which could be devastated before the end of the century.
As warming temperatures erode their hunting grounds, polar bears in Canada's western Hudson Bay region, for instance, saw their numbers slide from 1100 in 1995 to only 950 in 2004.
The dangers now posed by the PBDEs are reminiscent of the crisis 30 years ago over PCBs - polychlorinated biphenyls - a highly toxic byproduct of many industries that was also found to be migrating in large quantities to the Arctic.
The dumping of PCBs was swiftly banned. Since 2004, manufacturing has stopped in the US of two of the most toxic retardants, called penta and octa. Stockpiles of both still exist, however.
According to Derek Muir, of Canada's Environmental Department and a leader of the new research, there are signs of a slightly different retardant, typically used in construction materials and furnishings, also showing up in the Arctic and in the bears, called HBCD.
"It's a chemical that needs to be watched, because it does biomagnify in the aquatic food webs and appears to be a widespread pollutant."
The research team tested 139 bears captured in 10 locations across the Arctic region. They found that the bears in Norway's Svalbard, a wildlife refuge where all hunting is banned, had 10 times the levels of the chemicals than bears in Alaska and four times those in Canada.
Chain reaction
Scientists believe PBDEs - polybrominated diphenyls - are contributing to hermaphroditism in polar bears.
One in 50 female bears have male and female sex organs on Svalbard island.
Researchers say the chemicals used as flame retardants move from the Western world and condense in the cold Arctic air.
The chemicals appear to become more concentrated as they pass up the food chain, from plankton to polar bears.
One compound was 71 times more concentrated in polar bears as in seals, the bears' main food source.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10363127
SAN FRANCISCO
Protecting zoo birds from avian influenza
Urban captives are sitting ducks for disease
Inside the African Aviary at the San Francisco Zoo, a rare Waldrapp ibis issues a throaty croak and preens its feathers with a curved red beak, ignoring the baby strollers being wheeled through its home.
One of the most threatened of North African birds, this once-sacred symbol of ancient Egypt is safe from people and predators in its giant San Francisco birdcage, but would be a sitting duck for avian influenza.
If the dreaded H5N1 strain of bird flu now sweeping through Turkey ever turns up in the Bay Area, the valuable ibis will be whisked from public view, sealed away from the wild birds that may carry the virus and fly freely above the wire mesh ceiling of the aviary.
Gone too, would be one of the zoo's star attractions -- the Magellanic penguins -- all 54 of them hidden away, until it was safe to return.
The wild mallard ducks that glide into the Children's Zoo at feeding time would be banned. There would be no more demonstrations of Tuscany, the augur buzzard, eating a rat.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/10/BAGC5GKONC1.DTL
Pittsburgh Zoo to create conservation center focused on elephants
SEAN D. HAMILL
Associated Press
PITTSBURGH - At a time when zoos across the country are debating whether to keep elephants in captivity, the Pittsburgh zoo is buying a former hunting ranch to house a new 700-acre conservation center focused on breeding African elephants.
The center could later include cheetahs, black rhinoceros, and Grevy's zebras as well, but the biggest slice of the former Glen Savage Ranch would be dedicated to pachyderms.
If the zoo reaches its goal of housing up to 20 elephants, including five bulls, on about 150 of the site's wooded and open acres, it would be home to the largest herd of elephants managed by any U.S. zoo.
The project "is extremely important to the zoo and to the conservation efforts of elephants nationally and internationally," said Gary Claus, chairman of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium's board of directors. "We see this as part of the challenge we put before ourselves to become a top 10 zoo."
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/13594217.htm
Pittsburgh Zoo to create conservation center focused on elephants
SEAN D. HAMILL
Associated Press
PITTSBURGH - At a time when zoos across the country are debating whether to keep elephants in captivity, the Pittsburgh zoo is buying a former hunting ranch to house a new 700-acre conservation center focused on breeding African elephants.
The center could later include cheetahs, black rhinoceros, and Grevy's zebras as well, but the biggest slice of the former Glen Savage Ranch would be dedicated to pachyderms.
If the zoo reaches its goal of housing up to 20 elephants, including five bulls, on about 150 of the site's wooded and open acres, it would be home to the largest herd of elephants managed by any U.S. zoo.
The project "is extremely important to the zoo and to the conservation efforts of elephants nationally and internationally," said Gary Claus, chairman of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium's board of directors. "We see this as part of the challenge we put before ourselves to become a top 10 zoo."
The conservation center site is in Somerset County, about 57 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The zoo's 2-acre elephant exhibit site in Pittsburgh will remain.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/13594217.htm
Bowmanville Zoo's Angus dies
Elephant was just weeks away from going to South Africa to live
Jan 10, 2006
By Jennifer Stone
More from this author
BOWMANVILLE -- One of Bowmanville's best-known residents, Angus the elephant, has died, just weeks before he was to be sent to Africa to live out his retirement on a large reserve where he could run free.
The elephant, who was 26, was fine through most of last weekend. In fact, Bowmanville Zoo owner Michael Hackenberger said he and Angus had gone for a walk through the woods Saturday, returning down Lamb's Road and Hwy. 2, to the honks of passing cars, and people calling, "Hello, Angus."
http://www.durhamregion.com/dr/regions/clarington/story/3254807p-3769046c.html
Rare Siberian tiger dies at Michigan zoo
1/10/2006, 4:24 p.m. ET
The Associated Press
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A 17-year-old Siberian tiger has become the third of the John Ball Zoo's high-profile animals to die in less than a year.
The adult male tiger, named Urod, died suddenly and unexpectedly over the weekend, zoo officials said.
His body was taken to Michigan State University for a necropsy to determine the cause of death, but heart failure was suspected.
Siberian tigers are the world's largest cats. An adult male can weigh 650 pounds or more and measure 12 feet long from his nose to the tip of his tail.
They are also among the rarest felines. Only about 430-540 Siberian tigers remain in the wild, nearly all in eastern Russia, according to a census conducted last year by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups. About the same number are alive in captivity.
Their life expectancy is 12 to 15 years in the wild and about 17 years in captivity, zoo spokeswoman Krys Bylund told The Grand Rapids Press for a Tuesday story.
With Urod's death, the zoo has only one Siberian tiger left, a 6-year old female.
"At this point, there are no immediate plans to acquire another tiger," said Bert Vescolani, John Ball's director.
Urod collapsed and died while on exhibit just before feeding time on Sunday afternoon, Bylund said.
The death was unexpected, zookeeper Tim Sampson said.
"He was fine five minutes before that," he said. "He was watching for me for food."
Urod came to John Ball in 1994 from Indianapolis and sired two cubs in 1998. Both offspring are now in Portland, Ore.
In November, a 26-year-old male chimpanzee at the Grand Rapids zoo died after having a tooth pulled. In March, a female lion there was euthanized at age 16 after suffering from numerous ailments related to her age.
http://www.mlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-31/1136928852129090.xml&storylist=newsmichigan
Zoos part of U.S. effort to detect avian flu
CHICAGO, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Breeding grounds in Alaska where migratory birds from Asia and North America mingle are a focus of a broadening U.S. bird flu detection effort that is enlisting American zoos as sentinels, experts said on Tuesday.
U.S. government and zoo officials meeting at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo this week to discuss the zoos' participation briefed reporters on the broadening strategy to track the potentially devastating virus.
Some 200 American zoos are expected to participate in the screening effort to keep a lookout for the virus, which will be quickly spotted by keepers and veterinarians while tending the animals. Zoo officials said there is a fair amount of contact between wild birds and zoo birds, especially those kept outside.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10309118.htm
Pittsburgh Zoo to create conservation center focused on elephants
SEAN D. HAMILL
Associated Press
PITTSBURGH - At a time when zoos across the country are debating whether to keep elephants in captivity, the Pittsburgh zoo is buying a former hunting ranch to house a new 700-acre conservation center focused on breeding African elephants.
The center could later include cheetahs, black rhinoceros, and Grevy's zebras as well, but the biggest slice of the former Glen Savage Ranch would be dedicated to pachyderms.
If the zoo reaches its goal of housing up to 20 elephants, including five bulls, on about 150 of the site's wooded and open acres, it would be home to the largest herd of elephants managed by any U.S. zoo.
The project "is extremely important to the zoo and to the conservation efforts of elephants nationally and internationally," said Gary Claus, chairman of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium's board of directors. "We see this as part of the challenge we put before ourselves to become a top 10 zoo."
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/13594217.htm
GROUP CRITICIZES VALLEJO SIX FLAGS FOR ELEPHANT ABUSE
01/10/06 3:45 PST
VALLEJO (BCN)
It stinks to be an elephant at Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo but not for the usual reasons, according to Mill Valley-based In Defense of Animals, a non-profit animal advocacy group.
The group included the local amusement park and zoo in its second annual "Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants" list, according to In Defense of Animals spokeswoman Suzanne Roy. The zoo was also included in the inaugural list last year.
"We created the list to highlight the list of problems that elephants (face at zoos)," said Roy. "I chose the different zoos to highlight the different problems. Marine World has had a pretty bad record (of elephant treatment).''
The group claims that Marine World uses bullhooks, which are similar to fireplace pokers, to prod the elephants in sensitive places and control them.
The group also says elephants at the park are kept in chains for prolonged periods of time and six have died in the last decade.
http://www.cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2006/01/10/n/HeadlineNews/BAD-ELEPHANT-ZOOS/resources_bcn_html
Zoo: Neighbors rebuffed
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
It's impressive to see Seattle residents decide at the last minute to take time on a Saturday morning in January to show up for a meeting about the future of Woodland Park Zoo. It's too bad zoo officials didn't welcome them.
At best, the zoo missed an opportunity last weekend to involve and educate more people about plans for a four-story parking garage on the west side of the zoo. Rather than make accommodations, zoo officials hurried away people who had not registered in advance. With better planning from the Woodland Park Zoological Society, the walk-up visitors at least could have heard from officials about the garage plans.
The lack of extra effort by the zoo probably further poisoned the atmosphere around the already controversial plans for the garage and a series of other planned structures. Some of the Phinney Ridge neighbors believe pressure from the city budget is transforming the zoo into a money-making operation rather than a park. And they have said they would prefer occasional crowded street parking conditions rather than an aboveground parking structure.
Against those neighbors' wishes, the cost of underground construction has forced the parking plans to go above ground. A city design commission has made it clear that it would have preferred something else but will work on making the structure blend into the neighborhood.
Zoo officials insist that, with neighbors' help, they can do a good job with the garage. For instance, the project's architect hopes to use natural lighting. If the garage is going to work, though, the planning process needs all the light, openness and fresh air as possible.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/255012_zooed.html
National Zoo's panda cub turns 6 months
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- The most popular baby in the nation's capital turned 6 months old Monday, bathing still in the fawning, gawking, preening, peering and swooning admiration that visitors have exhibited since his coming out party.
That's because Tai Shan is already a huge draw at the National Zoo, where the panda cub was born July 9. He spent his usual three hours on public display Monday. Tai Shan is the hottest ticket in town. When he initially went on view last month, tickets were scooped up in barely two hours and later were hawked on eBay. All of January's tickets are gone, with no plans announced yet for February.
Zoo officials say the cub has come a long way in a short time. He's now up to 27 pounds, and his nose is turning black.
The longest surviving cub born at the National Zoo, Tai Shan is expected to be sent to China when he turns 2. His parents are on a 10-year loan from the Chinese government.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1155AP_BRF_Zoo_Panda.html
Zoo tips scales in favor of elephant
Facts about African elephants
The number of African elephants in the wild and in captivity has been declining rapidly. 1979: 1.3 million 2001: 301,000
Number of African elephants in the United States: 174
Average number of African elephants born in American zoos: 3 a year
Number of births needed to sustain the population: 9 a year Source: Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium plans to convert a controversial 724-acre ranch in Somerset County that was used for hunting fenced-in animals, including bison and wild boars, into a center for breeding African elephants and other rare animals.
Zoo officials announced Monday an agreement to buy and develop the Glen Savage Ranch in Fairhope into an International Conservation Center.
"This center will allow us to provide housing and breeding for protected and endangered species, with a first emphasis on the African elephant, said Barbara Baker, zoo president and CEO. "It's an opportunity for the zoo to be recognized as a world leader and further our goal to be a Top 10 zoo."
Zoo officials also plan to use the center to teach handlers around the world about elephants and boost local tourism through children's camps and safari rides.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_411962.html
Zoo's doves winging their way home
A BREED of dove which was made extinct in the wild more than 30 years ago is set to be reintroduced with the help of bird experts at Edinburgh Zoo.
The Socorro dove is native to an island off the west coast of Mexico but has not been sighted in the wild since 1972. It is thought that only a hundred or so of these birds are left living in captivity, mainly in America and Germany.
In an attempt to save the species, five of the doves were brought to Edinburgh from Paignton zoo in Devon and Frankfurt Zoo in Germany. One more bird will be coming from Frankfurt to complete three adult pairs.
After a successful breeding programme, one pair of adult doves hatched two chicks in December and they are now on display.
All of the birds are scheduled to be released back into their natural habitat in late June.
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=39182006
Greening At Zoos Is Done With Doo
TAMPA - Tim the white rhino tips the scales at 2 tons.
It takes 60 pounds of food daily to keep him fueled.
Naturally, what goes in one end has to come out the other.
If you multiply Tim's fertile deposits by the other 4,000 or so critters at Busch Gardens, you have to wonder:
What do you do with that much doo?
George Schwab Jr. makes compost out of it.
The park's pachyderms are the biggest contributors, eating about 150 pounds of food and vitamins a day and depositing about the same volume in droppings that workers harvest with everything from shovels to a tractor-size vacuum.
Once collected, that waste joins tree trimmings, soiled hay, discarded lumber and other compost ingredients on the back lot, where Schwab and his crew turn it into a compound that keeps the park's lawns and gardens happy.
In an average year, "we take in about 7 million pounds of waste," Schwab said.
Before the fermentation begins, limbs and other bulky things are ground into small pieces; then the compost is placed in rows and, like a fine wine, allowed to age to perfection.
http://news.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBCIC5L9IE.html
Top 10 AZA Elephant Success Stories: 2005 a Banner Year for Elephants in AZA Accredited
Zoos; Zoos Collaborate to Significantly Enhance Elephant Programs, Welcome Births and Build or Expand State-Of-The-Art Elephant Exhibits
To: National Desk
Contact: Jane Ballentine of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, 301-562-0777 ext. 252
SILVER SPRING, Md., Jan. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Exciting things have been happening for elephants in zoos since January 2005. That's when directors of the 78 American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) accredited zoos that exhibit elephants endorsed an aggressive new elephant conservation vision. Progress since that meeting includes new babies, new elephant habitats and more conservation programs. These and other advancements made the "AZA Top 10 Elephant Success Stories" list for 2005.
"We are proud of the success AZA zoos are having in their elephant programs. Members are making great progress building upon AZA's strategic vision that ensures elephants are in the world's future forever, both in zoos and in the wild," said Kristin L. Vehrs, AZA's interim executive director. More than 290 Asian and African elephants live in AZA accredited zoos, where programs are based upon advanced science and husbandry knowledge, plus an unparalleled commitment to providing the best care for the animals.
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=59016
Design options for zoo garage offered
If Woodland Park Zoo's controversial plan to build a four-story parking structure on its grounds is going to move forward, neighboring residents say, it should do a lot more than just hold vehicles, and it should look nothing like a typical garage.
Saturday, at the first of two public workshops on the project, about 40 people floated ideas in small discussion groups about how to make the $16.2 million garage fit suitably into its planned location along Phinney Avenue North near North 56th Street. The site is as large as a football field and the garage is slated to hold 700 parking stalls when it opens in 2008.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002727129_zoogarage08m.html
Polar bear cub to make debut at Tennoji Zoo
The Yomiuri Shimbun
A male Russian polar bear cub is to take up residence at Tennoji Zoo in Tennoji Ward, Osaka, courtesy of a food manufacturing and sales company in the city.
Due to the Osaka municipal government's financial difficulties, the zoo has been without a bear since Yukiko, its popular female polar bear, died at age 24 in May 2004. The cost of a new bear is about 7.5 million yen, leading the zoo to seek sponsors for the project.
The 1-year-old bear, to be donated by Horai Co., weighs 110 kilograms.
The firm, which uses an illustration of a white bear on its ice lollies as its trademark, offered to purchase the bear for the zoo.
The cub will be named Gogo after the firm's popular pork buns known as "551 Nikuman" It will arrive in Japan in February.
The zoo said it hoped to put the bear on public display by the spring vacation.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/culture/20060109TDY18002.htm
When it comes to cute, humans easy to please
All part of nature's way to make us want to care for helpless infants, scientists say
Washington -- If the mere sight of Tai Shan, the roly-poly, goofily gamboling masked bandit of a panda cub now on view at the National Zoo, is not enough to make you melt, maybe the crush of human onlookers, the furious flashing of cameras, and the heated gasps of their mass rapture will do the trick.
"Omigosh, look at him! He is too cute!"
"How adorable! I wish I could just reach in there and give him a big squeeze!"
"He's so fuzzy! I've never seen anything so cute in my life!"
A guard's sonorous voice rises above the burble. "OK, folks, five oohs and aahs per person, then it's time to let someone else step up front."
The 6-month-old, 25-pound Tai Shan -- whose name means "peaceful mountain" -- is the first surviving giant panda cub born at the Smithsonian's zoo. And though the zoo's adult pandas have long been among Washington's top tourist attractions, the public debut of the cub in December has unleashed an almost bestial frenzy. Some 13,000 timed tickets to see the cub were snapped up within two hours of being released -- and almost immediately began trading on eBay for as much as $200 a pair.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/08/MNGG6GHB9M1.DTL&type=science
Near-Record Attendance At Oregon Zoo
Second-Highest Yearly Attendance Since 1963
Portland, Ore. -- The Oregon Zoo had its second-best year
for attendance in more than a century to close out 2005.
Officials said the zoo had nearly one-point-34 (m) million visitors last year after posting a record of just over one-point-35(m) million visitors in 2004.
Zoo Director Tony Vecchio says camp programs, summer concerts and special events boosted attendance.
This spring and summer the zoo plans to open four new exhibits, including ocelots from South America, Egyptian spiny mice, warty pigs and cougars.
The first time the zoo's attendance topped one million was during its 1962-63 fiscal year, when one of its star attractions, Packy the elephant, was born.
http://www.koin.com/news.asp?ID=6286
Varied attractions at Zoo during holidays
Published: Saturday, 7 January, 2006, 10:19 AM Doha Time
Staff Reporter
Doha Zoo once again will be hosting a number of programmes during Eid al-Adha, starting on January 10.
The programmes at the facility start at 2pm and continue until 8pm for five days, an official at the zoo said.
The first day is reserved for everyone but the remaining four days will be restricted to families only.
The zoo officials appealed to the public to keep the facility clean and hygienic and respect the rules and regulations of the zoo. They include not to feed the animals and not to tease them.
The programmes are organised by Qatar Tourism Authority, jointly with the National Council for Culture Arts, and Heritage, and co-ordinated by Qatar Media Services.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=67831&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16
How 'kawaii'!
Cuteness is not the same as beauty, researchers say, emphasizing rounded over sculptured, soft over refined, clumsy over quick. Cuteness needs affection and a lap
By Natalie Angier
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , WASHINGTON
Sunday, Jan 08, 2006,Page 17
If the mere sight of Tai Shan, the roly-poly, goofily gamboling masked bandit of a panda cub now on view at the US National Zoo isn't enough to make you melt, then maybe the crush of his human onlookers, the furious flashing of their cameras and the heated gasps of their mass rapture will do the trick.
Scientists who study the evolution of visual signaling have identified a wide and still-expanding assortment of features and behaviors that make something look cute.
What features and behaviors do think make something look cute?
Cute cues are those that indicate extreme youth, vulnerability, harmlessness and need, scientists say.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2006/01/08/2003288095
What a Zoo!
January 7, 2006 - Mycid Shrimp
They might be hard to see, but they are a very important source for the Sea Dragons, nutritious Mycid shrimp.
Senior Keeper Aquarist, Laurie Dixon from the Toledo Zoo talks about Mycid shrimp. "They're a lot smaller than the shrimp people eat. I think the fish do find them very good to eat because they're like the whole package. It's not just the piece of the fish it's the whole body."
"We feed them special food that makes them more nutritional for our Sea Dragons." Breeding the Mycid shrimp is much more interesting than you might think.
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=local&id=3790809
'Cool' cat will join Phoenix Zoo lineup
John Faherty
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 6, 2006 12:00 AM
Maybe it's their size or their stripes or the fact that they look menacing even while just walking around.
Whatever the reason, tigers have animal magnetism.
And now the Phoenix Zoo has a new one, an 18-month-old male Sumatran tiger named Jai, which is pronounced "Jay."
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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0106newtiger06.html
Endangered Primate Dies At Sacramento Zoo
Zoo Grieves For Golden-Bellied Mangabey
(CBS 13) SACRAMENTO An endangered primate has died unexpectedly at the Sacramento Zoo. Officials at the zoo say Jimmy, a 13-year-old golden-bellied mangabey died on December 29th.
Keepers apparently found the primate collapsed in his cage in the late afternoon. The zoo's veterinarian tried to revive Jimmy, but was unable to. They say Jimmy had been behaving and eating normally earlier in the day.
"He was born here and has such a wonderful personality," zookeeper supervisor Leslie Field said in a press release from the zoo.
According to the zoo, golden-bellied mangabeys are considered endangered. There are only 19 golden-bellied mangabeys in North American zoos. Little is known from the wild about these primates. They believe the primates only live naturally in a small area in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Donations in Jimmy's memory may be sent to the Sacramento Zoo. The zoo says it will use the money toward the building of the Zoo's veterinary hospital.
http://cbs13.com/local/local_story_006093933.html
Three female elephants leaving Zoo Atlanta to breed in N.C.
The Associated Press -
ATLANTA (AP _ Starlet, Victoria and Zambezi _ female elephants at Zoo Atlanta _ will be leaving the zoo for good next winter to breed at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro.
The three, all in their early 20s, are not expected to return to Atlanta and will be replaced by two older female elephants from Disney's Animal Kingdom: Robin, 34, and Petunia, 32.
Because Zoo Atlanta has neither male elephants nor adequate space to breed the animals and raise the calves, the trio in prime breeding age must go elsewhere.
The American Zoo and Aquarium Association, which helps manage captive wildlife populations, determined that the move be made.
The two Disney elephants are expected to arrive at Zoo Atlanta in early 2007.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=69744
Zoo, garden lack diverse staff
Blacks, Hispanics make up tiny part of full-time workers
By Mickey Ciokajlo
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 6, 2006
Reacting to an annual employment diversity report, a pair of Cook County commissioners Thursday aimed sharp criticism at the Brookfield Zoo and the Chicago Botanic Garden for not hiring more minorities.
"I think that those numbers are pathetic," Commissioner Roberto Maldonado (D-Chicago) said. "A quarter of their budget is paid for by the taxpayers of the county, so therefore we have the right to demand from them ... [a] fair chance to Hispanics and African-Americans to work in those institutions."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northshore/chi-0601060226jan06,1,841645.story?coll=chi-newslocalnorthshore-hed
ZooMontana home to new tiger
Gazette Staff
ZooMontana's newest tiger, a 7-year-old female named Luna, arrived Thursday morning as part of a nationwide shuffle of tigers among zoos.
The Siberian tiger from the Minnesota Zoo spent more than 16 hours on the road before arriving in Billings early Thursday. She will be quarantined for 30 days before making her debut at the zoo.
In exchange, Nadia, ZooMontana's 12-year-old tiger, was shipped to the Minnesota Zoo later Thursday morning. Officials are hoping Nadia will mate with Serge, an 11-year-old tiger recently shipped from the Little Rock Zoo in Arkansas.
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?tl=1&display=rednews/2006/01/05/build/local/38-new-tiger.inc
DNA Offers New Insight Concerning Cat Evolution
By NICHOLAS WADE
Researchers have gained a major insight into the evolution of cats by showing how they migrated to new continents and developed new species as sea levels rose and fell.
About nine million years ago - two million years after the cat family first appeared in Asia - these successful predators invaded North America by crossing the Beringian land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska, a team of geneticists writes in the journal Science today.
Later, several American cat lineages returned to Asia. With each migration, evolutionary forces morphed the pantherlike patriarch of all cats into a rainbow of species, from ocelots and lynxes to leopards, lions and the lineage that led to the most successful cat of all, even though it has mostly forsaken its predatory heritage: the cat that has induced people to pay for its board and lodging in return for frugal displays of affection.
This new history of the family, known as Felidae, is based on DNA analyses of the 37 living species performed by Warren E. Johnson and Stephen J. O'Brien of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues elsewhere.
Before DNA, taxonomists had considerable difficulty in classifying the cat family. The fossil record was sparse and many of the skulls lacked distinctiveness. One scheme divided the family into Big Cats and Little Cats. Then, in 1997, Dr. Johnson and Dr. O'Brien said they thought most living cats fell into one of eight lineages, based on the genetic element known as mitochondrial DNA.
Having made further DNA analyses, the researchers have drawn a full family tree that assigns every cat species to one of the lineages. They have also integrated their tree, which is based solely on changes in DNA, with the fossil record. The fossils, which are securely dated, allow dates to be assigned to each fork in the genetic family tree.
Knowing when each species came into existence, the Johnson-O'Brien team has been able to reconstruct a series of at least 10 intercontinental migrations by which cats colonized the world. The cheetah, for instance, now found in Africa, belongs to a lineage that originated in North America and some three million years ago migrated back across the Bering land bridge to Asia and then Africa.
Dr. O'Brien said the cats were very successful predators, second only to humans, and quickly explored new territories as opportunity arose. Sea levels were low from 11 million to 6 million years ago, enabling the first modern cats, in paleontologists' perspective (saber-tooth tigers are ancient cats), to spread from Asia west into Africa, creating the caracal lineage, and east into North America, generating the ocelot, lynx and puma lineages.
The leopard lineage appeared around 6.5 million years ago in Asia. The youngest of the eight lineages, which led eventually to the domestic cat, emerged some 6.2 million years ago in Asia and Africa, either from ancestors that had never left Asia or more probably from North American cats that had trekked back across the Bering land bridge.
Sea levels then rose, confining each cat species to its own continent, but sank again some three million years ago, allowing a second round of cat migrations. It was at this time that the ancestors of the cheetah and the Eurasian lynxes colonized the Old World from the New.
Chris Wozencraft, an authority on the classification of carnivorous mammals, said the new cat family tree generally agreed with one that he had just published in Mammal Species of the World, a standard reference. Dr. Wozencraft, a taxonomist at Bethel College in Indiana, based his classification on fossil and zoological information, as well as on DNA data already published by Dr. O'Brien's laboratory.
Cat fossils are very hard to tell apart, because they differ mostly just in size, and the DNA data emerging over the last decade has helped bring the field from confusion to consensus, Dr. Wozencraft said.
Despite their evolutionary success, most of the large cats are in peril because their broad hunting ranges have brought them into collision with people. "With the exception of the house cat and a few other small cat species, nearly every one of the 37 species is considered endangered or threatened," Dr. Johnson and Dr. O'Brien write in the current Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics.
Fewer than 15,000 tigers, cheetahs and snow leopards remain in the wild, they estimate, and pumas and jaguar populations have been reduced to about 50,000 each.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/science/06cats.html?emc=eta1
Polar Bears Sent To Zoo Via FedEx
Animals Part Of Breeding Program
POSTED: 11:34 am EST January 5, 2006
UPDATED: 11:44 am EST January 5, 2006
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- A special delivery arrived via FedEx at the Memphis Zoo on Wednesday -- two polar bears.
Payton, 2, and Haley, 3, left their digs at the Brookfield Zoo outside of Chicago and headed for warmer climates.
The bears will spend about a week getting used to their new surroundings and will eventually be part of a special breeding program at the Memphis Zoo.
Zookeepers in Brookfield hope the extra room in Memphis will inspire Payton's parents to produce more polar bears.
http://www.nbc10.com/news/5863241/detail.html
New Binghamton zoo director says turnaround will take time
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. The new director of a struggling upstate zoo says it'll take some time to improve the facility and stabilize its financial situation.
Mike Janis started work this week at Binghamton's Ross Park Zoo, billed as the nation's fifth-oldest zoo.
Janis -- who had been director of a Duluth, Minnesota zoo for the past decade -- says he expects a few new exhibits will be added this year.
Restoring the Binghamton zoo's accreditation by a national association -- which it lost last year -- will be a priority for Janis.
But he says that likely will take two or three years. That's because a key factor in regaining the accreditation will be proving financial stability.
Janis says he doesn't want to apply for accreditation until he's sure the zoo is -- in his words -- "ready for it."
http://www.wstm.com/Global/story.asp?S=4323193&nav=2aKD
Dvur Kralove zoo hails another black rhino arrival
DVUR KRALOVE NAD LABEM, East Bohemia, Jan 4 (CTK) - Another calf of rare black rhinoceros, a male, was born in the local zoo on January 2, less than a fortnight after the female that came to world late last year, Jana Mysliveckova from the zoo's PR department told CTK today.
The new arrival is the 29th born in the zoo since 1971 when it started to specialise in the rare endangered pachyderm breeding.
"The young has been very agile since the beginning. It stood up less than two hours after the delivery and started sucking its mother's milk. It weighed about 36 kilograms," Mysliveckova said.
She said the breeders had monitored the rhino birth via a camera system in order not to disturb the mother, 21-year old Jessi.
The newborn male is Jessi's fifth offspring. Its father is Sauron, born in the local zoo in 1994.
About 100,000 heads of black rhinoceros lived in the wild in Africa in 1960, but only 3,100 survived the year 2000.
World zoos, including Dvur Kralove, mainly focus on breeding the rhino's east African subspecies of which the last 500 heads survive in the wild.
The Dvur Kralove zoo recently joined the international campaign Save the Rhinos and organises public events in support of the project.
http://www.praguemonitor.com/ctk/?id=20060104F00302;story=Dvur-Kralove-zoo-hails-another-black-rhino-arrival
Rare leopard at Oregon Zoo dying of cancer
By The Associated Press
PORTLAND — A rare Amur leopard at the Oregon Zoo has been diagnosed with cancer and eventually will have to be euthanized, officials said.
Dr. Mitch Finnegan, a zoo veterinarian, said zookeepers noticed in mid-November that the female leopard appeared lethargic and had lost some of her appetite.
Tests and exploratory surgery on the 14-year-old leopard, named Andrea, revealed a tumor in her uterus that had spread into her abdomen.
Finnegan said wild animals instinctively mask symptoms of illness to avoid appearing weak and vulnerable. By the time the illness is discovered, the disease may be advanced, he said.
Finnegan said there is no effective treatment, so zookeepers are trying to keep Andrea as comfortable and as pain-free as possible until they no longer can maintain her quality of life.
The life span of an Amur leopard in captivity is normally about 19 years. Native to eastern Russia, they are considered highly endangered, with only about 60 to 100 left in the wild.
Also known as the Manchurian or Korean leopard, the species has slowly drifted from its original Korean habitat to China and finally to eastern Russia, where zoologists say it is making a last stand. Its habitat is the mountainous area along the Amur River valley of Siberia where habitat destruction and loss of prey species has heavily reduced the leopard population.
"Big cats are so popular, not only with our visitors, but with our staff and volunteers as well, that everyone gets extremely attached," said Tony Vecchio, the zoo director. "Her loss will be felt not just here locally, but worldwide due to the critically endangered status of this species."
Andrea and her brother, named Frederick, arrived at the Oregon Zoo in April 2000 from the Colorado Springs Zoo.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002721232_leopard05m.html
New Binghamton zoo director says turnaround will take time
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. The new director of a struggling upstate zoo says it'll take some time to improve the facility and stabilize its financial situation.
Mike Janis started work this week at Binghamton's Ross Park Zoo, billed as the nation's fifth-oldest zoo.
Janis -- who had been director of a Duluth, Minnesota zoo for the past decade -- says he expects a few new exhibits will be added this year.
Restoring the Binghamton zoo's accreditation by a national association -- which it lost last year -- will be a priority for Janis.
But he says that likely will take two or three years. That's because a key factor in regaining the accreditation will be proving financial stability.
Janis says he doesn't want to apply for accreditation until he's sure the zoo is -- in his words -- "ready for it."
http://www.wstm.com/Global/story.asp?S=4323193&nav=2aKD
New zoo chief takes can-do approach
Janis: Ross Park needs new, expanded exhibits, master plan
BINGHAMTON — When Mike Janis looks at the Binghamton Zoo at Ross Park, he sees a facility that needs to improve and has gotten "a bad rap" over the past couple of years.
But the new executive director also sees a facility with a good staff, the potential to grow and a 130-year history in the community.
"It's a diamond in the rough that just needs some polishing," Janis, 58, said Tuesday. "It needs work, but with community support it's doable."
Tuesday was the second day on the job for Janis, who was hired by the Southern Zoological Society board in early December. A proven director with 26 years in the zoo field, Janis comes to the struggling Ross Park facility after 10 1/2 years as director of the Lake Superior Zoo in Duluth, Minn.
http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060104/NEWS01/601040312/1001
Dusit Zoo to become Bangkok's night safari
BANGKOK, Jan 4 (TNA) - Dusit Zoo will soon become Bangkok's night safari, thanks to an initiative of the Zoological Park Organization Under the Royal Patronage of His Majesty the King to extend the zoo's opening hours until evening.
Dusit Zoo's officials told journalists here Wednesday that facilities were being arranged, including modifying of areas and preparing for special tram services to serve the public for their animal tours at night.
The works were expected to be completed soon--in time for the zoo to welcome children, the general public and tourists during the forthcoming Chinese New Year in late January, said the officials.
"Once the new project is launched, members of the general public and tourists are welcome at Dusit Zoo from day to night time," they added.
The extended opening hours of the Dusit Zoo will be later announced to the public.
Thailand's first night safari is Chiang Mai Night Safari in the North, which has opened for the public for more than 30 days during its test run.
The country's first night safari will be officially opened by February, according to government officials. (TNA)--E002
http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=5647
Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species
By Los Locos (8 January 2006)
http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/mag.dyn/Reviews/2987.html
continued ...
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