Morning Papers - continued ...

Michael Moore Today

Here we go again. Bush and Rummy making their own reality. Bush thinks he can just dismiss information of People On The Ground for their own purposes. There are at least as many as 30,000 DEAD. AT LEAST. Don needs to do a manual count of all the graves on street corners, in backyards, on soccer fields and then inspect the dead bodies rotting in morgues without refrigeration. They kill people by the 100s and round them up to stick them in prison by the thousands then they have the God Almighty nerve to make claims that people who are trying to understand this invasion a full THREE YEARS are "W"rong. NO WAY. The Bush White House is "W"rong. End of Discussion !

Rumsfeld Says Media Exaggerating Iraqi Civilian Deaths
Defense Secretary Suggests Misreporting Swaying Public Opinion
By Bill Brubaker / Washington Post
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today presented an upbeat report of the conflict in Iraq and said he agrees with the commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., that the news media has exaggerated the number of civilian casualties in the conflict.
Rumsfeld said that while insurgents are "obviously trying to ignite a civil war," Iraqi security forces have "taken the lead in controlling the situation" and the Iraqi government has taken "a number of key steps that have had a calming effect in the situation."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6121


Baghdad official who exposed executions flees
By Jonathan Steele / Guardian
Faik Bakir, the director of the Baghdad morgue, has fled Iraq in fear of his life after reporting that more than 7,000 people have been killed by death squads in recent months, the outgoing head of the UN human rights office in Iraq has disclosed.
"The vast majority of bodies showed signs of summary execution - many with their hands tied behind their back. Some showed evidence of torture, with arms and leg joints broken by electric drills," said John Pace, the Maltese UN official. The killings had been happening long before the bloodshed after last week's bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6097


Here ya go. A strategy that works in the USA should work in Iraq as well.


Military Will Keep Planting Articles in Iraq
The ranking U.S. general there says a Pentagon review found the program does not violate policy. It could be replicated elsewhere.
By Mark Mazzetti / Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military plans to continue paying Iraqi newspapers to publish articles favorable to the United States after an inquiry found no fault with the controversial practice, the top U.S. general in Iraq said Friday.
Army Gen. George W. Casey said the internal review had concluded that the U.S. military was not violating U.S. law or Pentagon guidelines with the information operations campaign, in which U.S. troops and a private contractor write pro-American articles and pay to have them planted without attribution in Iraqi media.
"By and large, it found that we were operating within our authorities and responsibilities," Casey said, adding that he had no intention of shutting the program down.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6096


Union leaders call for Rumsfeld to resign
By Drew Brown / Knight Ridder
WASHINGTON - Union officials representing more than 200,000 civilian defense workers across the country issued a vote of no-confidence Tuesday in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and called on him to step down.
The resolution, the first time that federal workers have called for a defense secretary to resign, came in response to the Pentagon's decision to appeal a federal judge's ruling last week that blocks controversial new workplace rules for civilian Defense Department workers.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled Feb. 27 that the National Security Personnel System, which Congress approved in 2003, fails to protect collective-bargaining rights, doesn't allow for independent review of labor relations decisions and fails to provide a fair appeals process in disciplinary cases. The American Federation of Government Employees sued last year.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6127



Four Vermont Towns Back Bush Impeachment
At Least Four Vermont Towns Approve Move to Impeach Bush During Annual Meetings
By David Gram / Associated Press
NEWFANE, Vt. - In a white-clapboard town hall, built circa 1832, voters gathered Tuesday to conduct their community's business and to call for the impeachment of President Bush.
"In the U.S. presently there are only a few places where citizens can act in this fashion and have a say in our nation," said select board member Dan DeWalt, who drafted the impeachment article that was placed on the warning or official agenda for the annual town meeting, a proud Yankee tradition in New England.
"It absolutely affects us locally," Dewalt said. "It's our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, who are dying" in the war in Iraq.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6123



President Bush casts his vote in Crawford
An error in getting an absentee ballot forced the President to make a trip to his local district to cast his ballot in the primary election.
He arrived in Crawford just before 4:30pm to vote at the local fire station.
It was a mistake in absentee balloting, but for residents in Crawford it was a chance to see their most famous neighbor.
President Bush rolled in along with his motorcade. He gave a quick wave to the crowd, was ushered inside and placed his vote. The President made it in and out in a couple of minutes, and the motorcade pulled out of town.
A couple of dozen people gathered to watch from across the street. There were only a few protesters; the rest came to show support.
It was a mistake that forced the President to come here and an expensive one for tax payers.
It is estimated Air Force One takes 30 to 50 thousand dollars an hour to operate.
For a six hour roundtrip, that comes close to a quarter of a million dollars. So it was a costly treat for the crowd.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6125



Mexico rape victims often denied right to abortion
By Lorraine Orlandi / Reuters
MEXICO CITY, March 7 - When Sandra Rodriguez, a mentally handicapped live-in maid, was raped by her boss and left pregnant in 2002, Mexican courts stopped her from having an abortion although it was her legal right.
Rodriguez, 30, had the mental capacity of a 10-year-old, court-ordered evaluations showed, but Guanajuato state prosecutors questioned whether she had been raped or consented to sex. She gave birth to a girl who was put up for adoption.
Prosecutors later agreed she was raped and admitted local officials had acted irresponsibly in blocking her abortion.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6118



Some Say India Deal Ignores Another Energy Need: Food
By Paul Watson / LA Times
NEW DELHI — A nuclear cooperation deal reached last week between the U.S. and India has added fuel to the debate over whether the South Asian nation can afford a multibillion-dollar push to become a regional military power.
As President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shook hands on the landmark pact Thursday, the World Bank released a study showing that almost 40% of the world's malnourished children live in India.
Bush administration officials say the nuclear accord, which must be approved by Congress, is partly aimed at strengthening India so it can serve as a counterbalance to neighboring China. However, development experts here said the strategy ignores the plight of several hundred million Indians mired in poverty.
"I think the Western world, and perhaps more so the United States of America, has a feeling that India is a highly developed country," said Babu Mathew, India director of the development agency ActionAid. "So they are reluctant to face the reality of the other side of India, which is millions of people living in poverty."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6119



Energy, Iran Spur Turkey's Revival of Nuclear Plans
By Karl Vick / Washington Post
ISTANBUL -- Turkey is reviving its long-deferred quest for nuclear power, pressed both by serious energy shortfalls within its own borders and by strident nuclear ambitions in neighboring Iran that threaten to upset a regional balance of power.
"The rise in oil prices and the need for multiple sources of energy make our need for nuclear energy an utmost priority," Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said last month in announcing plans to build as many as five atomic energy plants. The first, to be located on the Black Sea at Sinop, would come on line in 2012 and ease Turkey's costly dependence on natural gas, 90 percent of which arrives by pipeline from Russia and Iran.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6117


Envoy to Iraq Sees Threat of Wider War
He supports the White House view that an early pullout would backfire, but he is bleak about the Sunni-Shiite conflict and says it could spread.
By Borzou Daragahi / LA Times
BAGHDAD — The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said Monday that the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime had opened a "Pandora's box" of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war if America pulled out of the country too soon.
In remarks that were among the frankest and bleakest public assessments of the Iraq situation by a high-level American official, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the "potential is there" for sectarian violence to become full-blown civil war.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6120


Gonzales May Be Recalled on Eavesdropping
By Katherine Shrader / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' written answers to questions about the Bush administration's eavesdropping program may require him to testify a second time before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel's Republican chairman said Monday.
"There is a suggestion in his letter there are other classified intelligence programs that are currently under way," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told reporters.
The comments from the moderate Republican come as the Bush administration is trying to quell criticism of its surveillance operations and work with the Senate on legislation that would write the program into law.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6109


Leave Cindy ALONE. She is getting used to being abused. It won't be long before someone hands her a jail sentence and then we'll have a grieving mother and a divorced spouse as a Global Example of how the USA treats women who seek peace and not war. This is not a game. Cindy Sheehan feels strongly about this issue. Treat her with respect. Bush needs to realize all his coalition members are leaving. They aren't a part of the internal strife of Iraqi politics.

Peace activist Sheehan arrested in NY protest
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist whose son was killed in the Iraq war, was arrested with three other protesters in New York on Monday after a rally with women from Iraq.
Sheehan became a central figure in the U.S. anti-war movement last summer after she camped outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch and has been arrested at least two other times at protests.
On Monday, she had joined a delegation of women from Iraq at the rally at the United Nations, urging the United Nations to help prevent civil war in Iraq.
About 20 protesters went to the U.S. mission to the United Nations to deliver a petition with 60,000 signatures seeking an end to the war. Nobody from the mission received them so Sheehan and three other American women sat down in front of the building, refused to leave, and were arrested.
A police spokesman said they were expected to be released later on Monday.
The Iraqi women plan to deliver a petition to the White House on Wednesday. Earlier they held a news conference at U.N. headquarters calling for the United States to withdraw its forces.
Entisar Mohammad Ariabi, a pharmacist at Baghdad's Yarmook Teaching Hospital, wept as she told reporters of the hardships experienced by Iraqi women.
"U.S. occupation has destroyed our country, made it into a prison," she said. "Schools are bombed, hospitals are bombed."
"We thank you, Mr. Bush, for liberating our country from Saddam. But now, go out! Please go out!" she said.
(Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff)

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6105


Daily Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
Associated Press
As of Monday, March 6, 2006, at least 2,301 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 1,805 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is three lower than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Monday at 10 a.m. EST.
The British military has reported 103 deaths; Italy, 27; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, one death each.
The latest deaths reported by the military:
A soldier died Sunday in western Anbar province.
The latest identifications reported by the military:
Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, Finksburg, Md.; died Friday in a vehicle accident in Anbar province, Iraq; assigned to Combat Service Support Group-1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6108



The Times-Picayune

2006 rebuilding effort based on 1959 study
Corps says legal restrictions most likely hindered updated approach

Corps ignored crucial levee data
Reports showed need for higher defenses
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bob Marshall and Mark Schleifstein
Staff writers
Weather data showing the need to raise the height of levees to defend New Orleans against stronger hurricanes was not incorporated in Army Corps of Engineers designs, even though the agency was informed of the new calculations as early as 1972, government records show.
The heights of floodwalls and levees now being rebuilt by the corps are based on research for a likely worst-case storm done in 1959. When new weather service research in the 1970s increased the size and intensity of that storm and its projected surges, the corps stuck to its original design specifications when work began in the 1980s, including for structures that failed during Hurricane Katrina.
Corps headquarters officials in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. New Orleans District engineers now involved in reassessing the area's hurricane protection system said the lack of changes in the past probably can be traced the corps' legal restriction to building only what Congress authorizes.
"I can only guess, but what I think you'll find is that since the authorization (in the legislation) never changed, then the people involved felt they couldn't change" design specifications, said Janis Hote, a corps engineer who, like most of the local staff, was not involved in those earlier projects.
Had the changes been incorporated in corps planning starting in 1972, they almost certainly would have resulted in higher or stronger structures in some areas, hurricane researchers said. Though the project was authorized in 1965, financing problems and court battles delayed much of the construction until 1982, and the designs for many structures that failed during Katrina were not completed until the late 1980s and early '90s.
It is unclear how much levees and floodwalls would have been raised had the changes been acted upon, researchers said, because interpretations of the changes depend largely on the type of computer models being used to predict storm surge height. However, they agreed the new data would have certainly included predictions of higher water, which would have required higher levees and walls.
"If you increase the intensity of a storm, and you run it on the same track through the same area at the same speed, you'll increase the (storm) surge," said Will Shaffer, a storm modeler who designs the storm surge model used by the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center for forecasting and emergency planning.
LSU revisits reports
Staffers at the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, who reviewed the 1972 and 1979 reports produced by the weather service for use by the corps in designing levees along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, estimated the stronger storm outlined in the reports would have raised the so-called "standard project hurricane" to the equivalent of a Category 4, rather than the fast-moving Category 3 generally associated with the 1959 parameters. The standard project hurricane was designed to be "the most severe combination of meteorological conditions that are considered characteristic" of the area.
Hassan Mashriqui, a storm surge modeler at LSU, said the increased intensity outlined in the 1979 report would have raised the predicted storm surge along the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet from 22 feet to 30 feet. During Katrina much of St. Bernard Parish suffered catastrophic flooding when long sections of the 17.5-foot-high MR-GO levee were topped and collapsed by storm surges that the corps has measured at 18.5 feet.
The Industrial Canal, meanwhile, was topped and collapsed by a peak storm surge that the corps measured at 15.9 feet. That breach destroyed much of the Lower 9th Ward and contributed to flooding in parts of St. Bernard Parish.
It is unclear whether higher floodwalls would have prevented the breaches at the 17th Street and London Avenue canals that put much of the rest of New Orleans underwater. Forensic engineers working with the National Science Foundation have said weak soil layers beneath the floodwalls failed when the canals began filling with water, causing the breaches.
Ivor van Heerden, assistant director of the LSU Hurricane Center and a frequent critic of the corps, said the authorization issue should not have prevented the corps from changing design specifications based on updated information.
"The legislation never mentions a standard project hurricane. That was something the engineers came up with to define the most severe threat," he said. "There is no reason they could not have changed."
In 1965, Congress authorized the corps to develop a system to protect the New Orleans area from "the most severe meteorological conditions that are considered reasonably characteristic of the region," giving birth to the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project.
Limited range of storms
To determine what those conditions were, the corps relied on a study of worst-case hurricanes developed by the Weather Bureau -- today the National Weather Service -- for the East Coast and the Gulf Coast. The Weather Bureau looked only at storms that occurred between 1900 and 1957 for the New Orleans area.
That search produced the hypothetical standard project hurricane for New Orleans, which was adopted by the corps, with some revisions, as the basis of its levee and floodwall designs. It had a central pressure of at least 27.6 inches of mercury, maximum sustained winds of 100 mph in a radius of at least 30 miles, and a forward speed of between 4 and 28 mph. And it had a 1 in 200 chance of occurring in any year.
The corps then determined that such a hurricane could create a maximum storm surge of 11.2 feet at locations in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, based on the shape of the lake bottom and ability of water to enter the lake from Lake Borgne and the Gulf of Mexico. Surge heights for other sections, using the same storm data, were 12.5 feet for Mandeville, 11.9 feet for Chalmette, 12.5 feet for the Citrus and eastern New Orleans back levees, and 13 feet in the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes.
The target date to complete the Lake Pontchartrain levee project was 1978.
As meteorological science improved, the Weather Bureau felt compelled to revisit its definition of the standard project hurricane. Improved data collection led to the discovery of 50 more tropical storms than had been counted in the 1959 report.
In June 1972 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a preliminary report making its first update of the standard project hurricane, dropping the pressure to 27.3 inches, which increased the storm's strength, and increasing the wind speed to 114 mph and the frequency of return from 1 in 200 years to 1 in 100 years.
In September 1979 the National Weather Service issued a final report establishing new criteria for the standard project hurricane. By then hurricane specialists had expanded the list of variables considered critical to measuring storm impacts, including the radius of the maximum sustained winds and the forward speed of the storm. It also changed the way maximum sustained winds were measured.
Those changes resulted in a new standard project hurricane with sustained winds as high as 140 mph, according to van Heerden.
Outdated standard used
Had those new parameters been plugged into the Saffir-Simpson scale for measuring storm intensity that made its debut in 1969, the 1972 changes would have equaled a Category 4 storm with surges between 13 and 18 feet, van Heerden said. The 1978 changes would have pushed the standard project hurricane to a Category 5 level, with surges above 18 feet, he said.
"The corps has consistently been saying the standard project hurricane (in its design documents) related roughly to a fast-moving Category 3 storm, but we can see that is plainly not the case," van Heerden said. "The Saffir-Simpson scale was in wide use by 1979, but there's no indication (in the design documents for the projects) that the corps took this into consideration."
As evolving storm science raised the severity of the threat, the corps continued to use the now-outdated standard project hurricane parameters set in 1959, even as its timeline for construction had been delayed into the late '90s.
For example, the corps' 1984 design memorandum for improving New Orleans' lakefront levees says the engineering criteria are based on the frequency of return of 1 in 300 years, pressure at 27.6 inches, wind speed at 100 mph and a surge of 11.5 feet.
The same references to the standard project hurricane established by the 1965 legislation are repeated for floodwall projects on the London Avenue Canal project in 1989 and the 17th Street Canal in 1990.
The first changes found in the parameters for the standard project hurricane in local corps hurricane projects come with a 2000 plan for the West Bank. The agency's planning includes the 1979 standard project hurricane parameters, as well as science on the impact of sea level rise to levee heights.
Although the corps' design documents between 1972 and 2000 don't reflect awareness of the changes, other government reports related to those projects did.
In a 1982 report to the secretary of the Army titled "Improved Planning Needed By The Corps of Engineers to Resolve Environmental, Technical And Financial Issues On The Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project," the General Accounting Office -- now the Government Accountability Office -- says: "Subsequent to project authorization and based on the Weather Bureau's new data pertaining to hurricane severity, the Corps determined that the levees along the three drainage canals which drain major portions of New Orleans and empty into Lake Pontchartrain are not high enough since they are subject to overflow by hurricane surges."
Other GAO reports indicate the corps actually was lowering its levee heights even as the new science was raising the heights of expected storm surges.
In a 1976 report on the project, the GAO said the corps expected levees to range between 16 feet and 18.5 feet. But by the time the 1982 report was issued, those averages had been dropped to between 13.5 feet and 16.5 feet -- even though by then, based on weather service reports, the possible storm surge for the standard project hurricane had been increased to more than 18 feet.
Neither the National Weather Service nor corps officials could shed light on why the changed parameters were not reflected in the corps project specifications. A weather service spokesman said current staffers either were not at the agency then or were uninvolved in writing the reports.
. . . . . . .
Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3539. 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-5/1141802754126640.xml


Panel defies Bush, loosens La.'s grip on storm grants
Other states swoop in for more money
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bill Walsh
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON -- Leaders of the House Appropriations Committee have stripped President Bush's request to earmark $4.2 billion for housing recovery in Louisiana, throwing the state's rebuilding plan into question and unleashing a scramble among hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast states for a cut of the money.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141803370126640.xml


Katrina remains from Carville are back in Orleans
DNA-matching work continues
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Michelle Krupa
Staff writer
Hundreds of sets of human remains found in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina have come home to the parish coroner's office after undergoing DNA testing at a temporary morgue in Carville.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141800945126640.xml


Population up 35% in December to January
But New Orleans remains far from its pre-Katrina number
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
New Orleans' population was just above 180,000 at the end of January, up 35 percent from the early December figure of about 134,000, according to the latest estimate from the city's Emergency Operations Center.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1141801130126640.xml


Iran threatens U.S. with 'harm and pain'
3/8/2006, 6:16 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" on Wednesday for its role in hauling Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its suspect nuclear program.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-29/1141820968298530.xml&storylist=topstories


U.N. urged to take action against Iran
3/8/2006, 5:37 a.m. CT
By GEORGE JAHN
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — The United States and its European allies said Wednesday that Iran's intransigence over its nuclear program has left the world no choice but to ask for the U.N. Security Council to take action against the Islamic regime.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-29/1141814355111000.xml&storylist=topstories


Afghan poppy eradication campaign launched
3/8/2006, 6:11 a.m. CT
By NOOR KHAN
The Associated Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Narcotic agents on tractors launched a massive campaign Wednesday to destroy fields of poppies in the main drug belt of Afghanistan — the world's largest producer of opium and heroin, officials said.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-15/1141821001298530.xml&storylist=topstories


Sudan warns of spreading Darfur violence
3/8/2006, 6:18 a.m. CT
By ANTHONY MITCHELL
The Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Violence in Sudan's troubled Darfur region will spread if a U.N. peacekeeping mission replaces a beleaguered African Union force, a senior Sudanese government official warned Wednesday.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/international-4/1141820965298530.xml&storylist=topstories


New Zealand Herald

UK kindergartens bleat about nursery rhyme
08.03.06 3.20pm
Kindergartens in Britain have sparked controversy by changing the lyrics of a traditional nursery rhyme.
Instead of "Baa Baa Black Sheep", toddlers at the kindergartens in Oxfordshire chant "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep."
Supporters argue the original words alienate and offend young black children.
Parents of the children are understood to be unhappy about the move.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371621


NZ contributes to $65m aid for Palestinians
08.03.06 1.00pm
JERUSALEM - New Zealand has made a contribution towards an aid package to help the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority.
The World Bank approved a US$42 million ($65 million) aid package to help the Authority until Islamic militant group Hamas forms the next government.
An NZAID spokeswoman said the $500,000 from New Zealand was a standard humanitarian assistance allocation.
"The Palestinian Authority is facing a fiscal short-fall and NZAID has supported governance reform efforts and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people," the spokeswoman said. "It's basically for humanitarian efforts."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10371625


Shi'ites seek delay to break impasse over PM
08.03.06 4.20pm
By Waleed Ibrahim and Mariam Karouny
BAGHDAD - The United States conceded today that Iraq could yet descend into sectarian civil war as US diplomats strove to break a deadlock among Iraqi political leaders that threatens further delay in opening a parliament.
"We have opened the Pandora's box," US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said, referring to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
"The question is, what is the way forward?" he asked, speaking two weeks after the bombing of a major Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Samarra sparked days of bloodshed that killed hundreds.
"If another incident (occurs), Iraq is really vulnerable," the envoy, who is at the heart of talks to forge a coalition of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds, told the Los Angeles Times. "The way forward ... is an effort to build bridges across communities."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371640


UK troops plan Iraqi pullout by mid-2008
07.03.06 4.00pm
LONDON - Britain plans to pull out nearly all its soldiers from Iraq by the summer of 2008, with the first withdrawals within weeks, a top military commander said in an interview published today.
Lieutenant General Nick Houghton, Britain's most senior officer in Iraq, outlined a phased two-year withdrawal plan in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
"There is a fine line between staying too long and leaving too soon," he was quoted as saying. "A military transition over two years has a reasonable chance of avoiding the pitfalls of overstaying our welcome but gives us the best opportunity of consolidating the Iraqi security forces."
Britain has given no firm timetable for the withdrawal of its 8,000 troops in Iraq, based in and around the southern port of Basra.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371465


US soldier's rape sentence cut due to Iraq stress
08.03.06 11.20am
By Robin Pomeroy
ROME - A US soldier who raped a Nigerian woman in Italy was given a lighter sentence because the court deemed his tour of duty in Iraq had made him less sensitive to the suffering of others.
According to an Italian court document obtained by Reuters today, James Michael Brown, a 27-year-old paratrooper from Oregon stationed in northern Italy, was sentenced to five years and eight months for rape in February 2004.
Brown beat and handcuffed the woman, a Nigerian resident in the town of Vicenza. He raped her vaginally and anally and left her to wander the streets naked in search of help.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371606


Moussaoui's lies led to 9/11 deaths says prosecutor
08.03.06
By Deborah Charles
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA - Federal prosecutors argued yesterday that even though September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was in jail during the attacks he should be executed because his lies led to the deaths of 3,000 people.
But one of his court-appointed lawyers said executing Moussaoui would only make him a martyr because many al Qaeda members only "live so that they can die."
Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, pleaded guilty in April to six counts, three of which carry the death penalty. The charges included conspiracy to commit terrorism.
"Please don't make him a hero," defence attorney Edward MacMahon said at the start of the trial to determine Moussaoui's sentence. "He just doesn't deserve it."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371550


US knew about al Qaeda in 1990s, FBI agent says
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Deborah Charles
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia - The US government knew by the 1990s how al Qaeda trained suicide operatives but missed capturing the man who masterminded the September 11 attacks about four years before they occurred, an FBI agent said today.
FBI agent Michael Anticev said in testimony at a sentencing trial for September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that the US government knew by the mid 1990s that there were several al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and other countries.
Operatives at the training camps were taught how to carry out terrorist operations, including suicide missions, and were trained in how to avoid detection, he said.
At that time, the US government was tracking several top al Qaeda members, Anticev said, and between 1996 and 1998 made an attempt to arrest Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- the man who has been described as the brains behind the September 11 hijackings.
Anticev said the attempt, made "somewhere in the Middle East", failed after Mohammed was apparently tipped off.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371605


This is great. Families get relief there are pictures (Hi, Mom) of people who should not be hostages in the first place. Iraq has turned out to be the Islamic Heaven on Earth everyone has hoped for.

Family relieved at hostage video
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Ian Stuart
The Auckland family of hostage Harmeet Singh Sooden said today they were enormously relieved to see him looking in apparent good health on newly released video footage.
Mr Sooden's brother-in-law Mark Brewer said they were "pleased and relieved he is still alive but saddened the saga continues".
Mr Sooden, a Canadian citizen who lived and studied in Auckland, was captured in Baghdad along with Canadian James Loney, Norman Kember of Britain and American Tom Fox in November last year.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10371609


I am beginning to get the feeling Iran has no nuclear capacity, but, only threats of such. North Korea uses this type of strategy to get monies and garner favors it normally would not get otherwise.

Russia denies Iran atom offer
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Mark Heinrich and Parisa Hafezi
VIENNA - Russia today backed away from what EU diplomats said was a proposal to let Iran do some atomic research if it agreed to refrain from enriching uranium on an industrial scale for 7-9 years.
Russia abandoned the informal proposal, aimed at finding a compromise to the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, after Western rejection of the idea.
The United States and the European Union want Iran to shelve all work to enrich uranium because of suspicions that Tehran is secretly trying to make nuclear weapons.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10371612


N Korea says it won't be forced back into talks
08.03.06 4.00pm
TOKYO - North Korea will not return to six-way talks on its nuclear programme unless the United States ends its financial crackdown on Pyongyang's assets, the Kyodo news agency has quoted a senior North Korean official as saying.
Washington has cracked down on firms it suspects of aiding Pyongyang in counterfeiting and money laundering that it says help fund the North's nuclear programmes.
"Under such pressure, we cannot return to the six-way talks. Our position has not changed," Kyodo quoted Ri Gun, North Korea's deputy chief envoy to the talks, as saying.
He was in New York following separate talks with US officials.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371642


Two security staff arrested over UK robbery
08.03.06 1.00pm
By Jason Bennetto
Two members of staff at the security firm targeted in Britain's biggest robbery have been arrested - leading to the suspicion that the raiders had inside help.
The man and woman, who were sub-contracted to work for Securitas, were questioned about the £53m robbery at Tonbridge in Kent, police said yesterday.
Police have also revealed that they suspect that some gang members have fled abroad with a significant amount of the stolen cash.
So far detectives have recovered about £20m of the record haul.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371604


PhD graduate Melbourne's youngest at 21
08.03.06 1.00pm
A former New Zealand student has become the youngest PhD graduate at Melbourne University, at the age of 21.
Yao-ban Chan started work on his undergraduate degree at the age of 10 while he was being home-schooled.
Mr Chan moved to Melbourne from New Zealand when he was 16.
"I always liked maths, I always found it fun," Mr Chan told The Age newspaper.
He was born in Malaysia and raised in New Zealand and was largely home-schooled by his mother Peck-Woon, a microbiologist, and father George, a director with Heinz.
He completed his bachelor of information science by correspondence in six years.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371630


Pope appeals for release of kidnapped toddler
08.03.06 12.20pm
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict today appealed for the release of a sick 18-month old toddler whose mysterious kidnapping has gripped Italy.
The Pope, in a message to a bishop in northern Italy, called for the "immediate and unconditional" release of Tommaso Onofri and said he was praying for the boy's suffering parents.
The Pope condemned the kidnapping as "brutal" and said he was close to the family.
Tommaso, who needs an anti-convulsive medicine twice a day, was abducted by two men who broke into the family home last Friday in Casalbaroncolo near the wealthy city of Parma in northern Italy.
The boy's mother has appeared on television in tears to urge kidnappers to give him regular doses of an anti-epilepsy drug.
The Onofri family is not rich and investigators say that no ransom has been demanded so far.
Pictures of wide-eyed, curly-haired Tommaso wearing a blue and red clown costume, have been splashed on the front pages of all newspapers as politicians, priests, pop stars and football players have appealed for his release.
The anti-Mafia police have also joined the probe after a jailed pentito, or informer, said he had heard of a plot to kidnap someone in the area.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371615


Hollow victory as rural China battles march of capitalism
08.03.06
By Clifford Coonan
IN ZHEJIANG, CHINA - Si Xiaoyan weeps as she tells how her husband, Liu Huirong, was sentenced to five years in jail for taking part in riots last year in the town of Huaxi over the illegal granting of land rights to 13 chemical factories.
"I miss him," says Si, 31, tears streaming from behind her glasses as we sit in a brick farmhouse in the town in Zhejiang province.
Her sorrow is in contrast to the jubilation in the village in April last year, when 30,000 farmers stopped 1500 police from entering Huaxi and the farmers won the battle.
Huaxi became famous among activists in China, one of the first of many disturbances as rampant industrialisation led to clashes between the authorities and those left behind - the farmers and migrant workers who make up two-thirds of China's 1.3 billion people.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10371531

continued ...

The Blue Rose.

Developed by Suntroy of Japan from pansy genes.

Lim of Seoul, South Korea is a painter. His painting of nature attack birds. This painting is of a pine grove.

The Endangered Phillippine Eagle.

This is Pag-Assa, one of 500 pairs remaining.

A Royal Vulture in the Berlin, Germany Zoo.

Swan in a park in Pristina, Kosovo.

Morning Papers - concluding

Zoos


Dolphin dies at the zoo
Rio, the Minnesota Zoo's eldest female dolphin died Monday night at approximately 9:30 p.m.
A necropsy performed last night at the University of Minnesota could not immediately determine the 35-year-old dolphin's cause of death.
Rio is an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. She came to the zoo in 1980 from the New York Aquarium. During the 26 years at the zoo, she gave birth to four calves. Her last male calf, Harley, died this past January after jumping out of his pool and fracturing his head on the concrete deck. He was 7 months old.
Two of her calves live at different zoos and one still resides at the Minnesota Zoo.
Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have been known to live up to 50 years in captivity and in the wild.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/14039371.htm



Zoo Dolphin matriarch dies
Rio, the matriarch of the Minnesota Zoo dolphin pod, has died.
The Atlantic bottle-nose dolphin was estimated to be about 35 years old. A dolphin's normal life span is about 50 years.
Her handlers noticed on Monday, that she had stopped eating. About nine o'clock Monday evening, she started showing signs of distress, but according to zoo veterinarian Jim Rasmussen, obeyed signals to swim into a smaller observation pool, where her condition continued to worsen until she died about 9:30.
"It was a very quick, acute death," said Dr. Rasmussen.
Rio's body was taken to the University of Minnesota where a necropsy was performed.
"The necropsy (animal autopsy) was inconclusive as far as the cause of death at this point," the veterinarian said.
However doctors collected samples during the necropsy, and are conducting tests which they hope will yield the cause of Rio's death.
Rio was the oldest of five Atlantic bottlenose dolphins at the Minnesota Zoo.
"She was a very quick learner," said Sue Gergen, Communications Manager for the Minnesota Zoo.
"She's been a favorite in the dolphin shows because of that. She learned behaviors very quickly and likeed to be challenged and she's really been a solid dolphin in the pod."
Rio had lived at the Minnesota Zoo since 1980. She gave birth four times over the years, the most recent calf died in a freak accident.
"Harley (a male born in June of 2005) was an unusually good jumper," said veterinarian Rasmussen.
"He was jumping at a younger age than most dolphin calves, and he could jump high and far."
Harley jumped out of the pool January 21, 2006 and hit his head on the concrete deck that surrounds the pool. He died of a skull fracture.
Communications Manager Gergen said the dolphin handlers are watching the zoo's other four dolphins to verify their good health.
She said the zoo will encourage its dolphins to resume their daily shows on Wednesday, March 8.

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=120196


Microsoft Announce Zoo Tycoon Expansions
Two full expansion packs and a further downloadable pack confirmed; released from June 2006...
Posted: 18:21 on 07 Mar 2006
By: Jon Wilcox
Microsoft Game Studios has today confirmed the development of two new expansion packs for Zoo Tycoon 2 (Zoo Tycoon 2: African Adventure and Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania), together with a downloadable pack, Zoo Tycoon 2: Dino Danger Pack.
Adding an extra 20 African animals such as the Meerkat, Zoo Tycoon 2: African Adventure will also include a Jeep Liberty vehicle to explore the ever expanding zoo territories such as the new Desert theme pack. Both the Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania expansion pack and Zoo Tycoon 2: Dino Danger Pack are also set to expand the experience further with, amongst other things, more scenarios and themes.
"With more than 5 million franchise units sold since the launch of 'Zoo Tycoon' in 2001, we are looking forward to shaking up the animal simulation space with these exciting new additions," said Neil Thompson, Director of UK Home & Entertainment Division. "These expansion packs provide a fun and enlightening opportunity for families to game together, while also providing fresh and innovative content for current 'Zoo Tycoon 2' enthusiasts."
Zoo Tycoon 2: African Adventure is set for a release in June 2006, with both Marine Mania and the Dino Danger Pack both expected later on in the year.
All three packs are currently in development at the home of Zoo Tycoon, Blue Fang; we'll have more on Zoo Tycoon 2's expansions in the future...

http://www.totalvideogames.com/news/Microsoft_Announce_Zoo_Tycoon_Expansions_9455_5583_0.htm



White Bengal Tiger Cubs Come To The U.P.
The DeYoung Zoo in Menominee County has a couple of new stars. They're two white Bengal tiger cubs who were just donated by a park in Orlando. The cubs are now living in a heated cage to help them adapt to the colder temperatures. Last weekend was their first time in the snow.
"They're both doing very well," says Bud DeYoung, the zoo's owner. "They've got fabulous appetites, they're both still on the bottle, but they've started on meat and they're full of mischief."
The cubs will soon grow to 300 to 500 pounds.
Officials say the cubs have been staying in their dens during their first days in the U.P., but as the weather warms up this spring, they'll become more active. In the summer heat, they'll slow down again.

http://www.wluctv6.com/Global/story.asp?S=4592540&nav=81AX



Combating the radical gay penguin agenda.
A children’s book “about two male penguins who raise a baby penguin” has been removed from the kid’s section of two public libraries after complaints it had “homosexual undertones.” The book is “based on a true story of two male penguins, named Roy and Silo, who adopted an abandoned egg at New York City’s Central Park Zoo in the late 1990s.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/03/07/radical-gay-penguin-agenda/



The radical gay penguin agenda must be stopped
Posted 12:23 pm
As a rule, I find conservative activists embrace a rather silly agenda, but they're particularly entertaining when they go after harmless children's books. In the latest example, children in Savannah, Missouri, need to be shielded from allegedly-gay penguins.
A children's book about two male penguins who raise a baby penguin has been moved to the nonfiction section of two public library branches after parents complained it had homosexual undertones.
The illustrated book, And Tango Makes Three, is based on a true story of two male penguins, named Roy and Silo, who adopted an abandoned egg at New York City's Central Park Zoo in the late 1990s.
The book, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, was moved from the children's section at two Rolling Hills' Consolidated Library's branches in Savannah and St. Joseph in northwest Missouri. Two parents had expressed concerns about the book last month.
Apparently, experts said these kinds of adoptions are fairly common in the penguin world, and the events in the book actually took place in real life. But the library director agreed to move the book so it would decrease the chance that the story would "blindside" readers.
Who could argue with such sensible thinking? Children might learn more about penguins' social structures, which might lead them to believe unattended baby penguins would be better off with two adoptive parents than not. It's clearly a plot by the radical homosexual penguin community to poison the minds of America's youth.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6792.html



Cheyenne Mountain Zoo staff care for new baby gorilla
The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo recently welcomed its first baby born to one of its own gorilla in ten years. However, the mother is not holding the newborn. Forcing animal keepers to play parent.
The baby was born in February. His mother, Kwisha, does not know how to care for him. In the past, many gorilla's in captivity were taken from their mothers for show purposes, according to some animal keepers. That was the case with Kwisha. Zoo staff is attempting to show her, and the other gorillas, how to care for the baby. Mandy Hollingsworth said, "Kwisha just doesn't know what to do she vocalizes to the baby she smells him, she likes him, she just has no idea she's supposed to pick him and carry him, so that's why we're having to do it."
17 people, including staff and volunteers, are needed to hold the baby gorilla, 24 hours a day. Slowly, they are attempting to reintroduce him to his mother and the other gorillas. When he is stronger, they will attempt to give him to Kwisha, or possibly a surrogate parent. Whoever seems to be the most interested.

http://www.koaa.com/news/view.asp?ID=4690



SA cheetahs relocated to Indonesian zoo
March 08, 2006, 07:15
A pair of cheetah (Acinonyx jabutus) have departed for their new home at the Surabaya Zoo in Indonesia aboard a Cathay Pacific flight bound for Indonesia via Hong Kong. The animals are expected to arrive in Indonesia approximately at noon tomorrow.
The two cheetah were sent as part of the co-operation agreement and exchange of animals between the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa and the Surabaya Zoo. On January 31, 2006, the National Zoo received a pair of Komodo dragons from this Indonesian zoo.
Mr Willie Labuschagne, the executive director of the national zoo, says it he is proud that such an iconic animal of South Africa will now be on display in one of Asia's zoos. "Africa has some unique animal species and the cheetah is undoubtedly one of these. We trust that the Surabaya Zoo's visitors will get as much pleasure from viewing these big cats as we have presenting them to the people of Indonesia".
The male is presently five-years-old and the female is four-years-old. Both animals were bred at the Hoedspruit Research and Breeding Centre for Endangered Species.
As part of the exchange agreement, one of the National Zoo's veterinarians, Dr Anza Kharibe, will be accompanying the animals to the Surabaya Zoo where he will assist the staff with the task of allowing the animals to acclimatise correctly to their new environment. He will also participate in training the staff there in proper cheetah care.

http://www.sabcnews.com/south_africa/general/0,2172,123389,00.html



More U.S. Zoos Closing Elephant Exhibits
Maryann Mott
March 2, 2006
After more than a century of displaying elephants, the Bronx Zoo in New York announced plans last month to shut down its elephant exhibit after the animals die.
The announcement comes at a time when some U.S. zoos are debating whether to continue keeping elephants in captivity.
Officials decided to close the Bronx exhibit for the benefit of Maxine, Patty, and Happy—all in their mid-30s and residents at the zoo for some three decades.
"Committing to elephants into the future would require us to build up a new herd, and there is no guarantee that our three girls would accept new elephants," said Bronx Zoo spokesperson Alison Power.
Given their age, the Asian elephants could remain on display for another 5, 10, or 20 years.
Growing Trend
A handful of U.S. zoos, including ones in San Francisco and Chicago, have recently closed their elephant exhibits.
Central Park and Prospect Park zoos, both in New York, stopped displaying elephants in the 1980s.
Last year, the Detroit Zoo in Michigan sent its aging and arthritic elephants—Winky, 52, and Wanda, 46—to a California sanctuary to live out their remaining years.
"Just as polar bears don't thrive in a hot climate, Asian elephants shouldn't live in small groups without many acres to roam," Detroit Zoo director Ron Kagan said at the time.
"They clearly shouldn't have to suffer the winters of the North."
What's more, animal activists are pushing hard to get zoos—most recently those in Los Angeles, Tucson, and Washington, D.C.—to close their elephant exhibits, arguing that captive environments do not meet the animals' physical or behavioral needs.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0302_060302_elephants.html



US to review treatment of zoo elephants
By Christopher Doering
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government plans to look into possible changes in laws protecting zoo elephants after an animal welfare group complained that many were kept in cramped conditions that caused arthritis and foot disease and could be deadly.
The Agriculture Department said on Friday it would seek public comment on a petition filed last month by the group, In Defense of Animals, accusing U.S. zoos of violating the Animal Welfare Act by keeping elephants in small, unnatural pens.
The decision came amid a growing debate in the United States over whether it is humane for zoos to keep elephants, which in the wild walk miles (km) a day.
The animal welfare group, which has targeted such places as the U.S. National Zoo in Washington, estimated that half of all captive elephants suffered from arthritis and foot infections, ailments it said were the leading cause of euthanasia.
The group said it hoped USDA, which is responsible for inspecting American zoos, would take action to stop abuse of elephants. It urged zoos where elephants were suffering ailments to give them more space or move them to sanctuaries.
"The USDA is acknowledging the gravity of concern over the poor conditions for elephants in our nation's zoos," said Elliot Katz, president of In Defense of Animals.
USDA said it would publish a notice in the Federal Register on the petition giving members of the public 60 days to make their opinions known. "There are a lot of people interested in this," USDA spokesman Darby Holladay said. "We'll review those comments and see if there needs to be any changes in the Animal Welfare Act."
USDA conducts annual and unannounced reviews of zoos and other animal exhibits, with those deemed in "noncompliance" receiving additional inspections, Holladay said.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, urged the National Zoo in January to send its three remaining Asian elephants to an animal sanctuary and close its exhibit.
The appeal came after the zoo put down an arthritic Asian elephant said to have been in worsening pain. The elephant named Toni was 40. Elephants can live to be 60 or older. The zoo said the enclosure had not been the cause of Toni's death.
PETA said zoo elephants were dying decades short of their expected life span from illnesses directly related to the large animals' lack of space.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006-03-04T012447Z_01_N03239696_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-LIFE-ELEPHANTS-DC.XML



Zoo elephant not happy about drop-in visitor
By Monica Ortiz Uribe Tribune-Herald staff writer
Friday, March 03, 2006
A 25-year-old woman was injured by an elephant Thursday afternoon when she climbed past barriers and entered its exhibit at Cameron Park Zoo.
"A witness said the girl wanted to play with the elephant," zoo director Jim Fleshman said.
Witnesses said the woman was struck by the elephant's trunk and then managed to crawl out of the exhibit through some bushes. City officials would not release her name.
The woman allegedly climbed over a wood and wire fence more than three feet high, then scaled an artificial rock structure between seven and 10 feet high before jumping down into the elephant exhibit. There is also an electric wire that she would have stepped over, zoo officials said.
Also, a moat extends around most of the exhibit.
Waco Fire Department and emergency crews arrived at the zoo at about 1:30 p.m. and took the woman to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center with minor injuries.
"She was laying out on a park bench," Waco Fire Capt. Greg Kistler said. "She had a really bad scrape on her right side and her arm was scraped up."
Kistler said the woman was visiting the zoo with a small child and another woman.
"Any animal in the zoo has a potential to be dangerous whether it looks like a fluffy little animal or something obviously as big as an elephant," Fleshman said.
The elephant's response to the woman is hardly abnormal, he said.
"That's how an elephant reacts to something they would perceive as a threat," he said, adding that even zoo staffers exercise care with the animals.
"We use cues and commands to get them to do things and reward them with treats," he said.
The exhibit contains two full-grown African elephants that have been at the zoo at least nine years.
Fleshman said the zoo will work with city safety teams to consider how incidents such as Thursday's can be prevented, though this is the first case of its kind during his six years at the zoo.
Different barriers separate visitors and zoo animals while allowing everyone a good view, Fleshman said.

http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2006/03/03/20060303wacelephantinjury.html



Kilpatrick says he's trying for zoo deal
February 28, 2006
BY MARISOL BELLO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Fresh from his weeklong trip to Africa, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick weighed in publicly for the first time on the mess over the future of the Detroit Zoo, saying he was disappointed that the City Council rejected the original proposal to save the more than 75-year-old venerable institution.
But he assured zoo lovers Monday that he and his administration were working to get a deal approved by the council that would allow the Detroit Zoological Society to run the zoo's daily operations.
Kilpatrick's administration has said because of the city's mounting budget crisis -- which the council's fiscal expert says could reach a $200-million shortfall -- the city can no longer pay the average $5 million a year to run the zoo. Since the council voted down the mayor's plan, 7-2, last week, some changes have been made in the proposal's language.
"We're much further along today than we were last week," Kilpatrick said. "I understand they'll be voting on it Wednesday, and we'll all be working very aggressively for that day."
Kilpatrick said voting on the zoo was one of the easier decisions the council would have to make this year. He said there will be hard choices ahead over city services.
Earlier Monday, the council agreed to hold a public hearing Wednesday on the zoo issue. The 10 a.m. hearing is to be in the 13th-floor auditorium of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060228/NEWS01/602280399/1003



Racist E-Mails Cast Cloud Over Detroit's Debate on Zoo Funding
March 3 (Bloomberg) -- The future of the Detroit Zoo has become the latest racial flashpoint between officials of the majority-black city and its white suburbanites.
The zoo, located just outside the city in Royal Oak, is owned by Detroit, run by the Detroit Zoological Society and funded by park admissions and about $5 million in annual contributions from the City of Detroit that the mayor says he can no longer afford.
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick won city council approval March 1 to help close the city's $139 million budget deficit by giving full control and funding responsibility to the society. Before that vote, the city council had blocked an initial contract, sparking e-mails and phone calls with racial references from residents of mostly white suburbs. The mayor and eight of the nine councilors are black.
Worried that the initial council action might have forced the zoo to close, suburbanites, who make up two-thirds of zoo members, had sought assurances it would stay open.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=alzgaHXJ_MTU&refer=us



City Council approves zoo deal
March 1, 2006
By MARISOL BELLO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
After weeks of political wrangling, negotiations and shouting matches between elected officials and metro area residents, the Detroit City Council agreed this afternoon to transfer daily operations of the Detroit Zoo to the non-profit Detroit Zoological Society.
The council approved the transfer by a 6-3 vote. Under the transfer agreement, the city will retain ownership of the zoo and all its assets. The zoological society will essentially be the zoo management.
Councilmembers Barbara-Rose Collins, Brenda Jones and JoAnn Watson voted no on the transfer. But members Sheila Cockrel, Alberta Tinsley-Talabi, Martha Reeves, Kwame Kenyatta, President Kenneth Cockrel and President Pro Tem Monica Conyers voted in favor of the deal. Only Kenneth Cockrel Jr. and Sheila Cockrel had voted to support the original agreement presented to council nearly two weeks ago.
But while the council got it done, it wasn't easy.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060301/NEWS99/60301006



Detroit Zoo Will Stay Open
ClickonDetroit.com
9:53 a.m. EST March 2, 2006
After hours of debate, the Detroit City Council voted 6-3 Wednesday to keep the Detroit Zoo open. Under the agreement, the Detroit Zoo will be transferred over to the Detroit Zoological Society, and council members say Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's appearance may have made a difference.
"I suggested the mayor to come up and sell this issue, and I think that definitely helped," said City Council President Ken Cockrell Jr.
Under the terms of the agreements, the city is mandated to turn over $5 million within 15 days to the Zoological Society, Local 4 reported.
"I know this is critically important to the people of the city of Detroit," said Kilpatrick.
The next course of action is trying to retain the loss of $4 million in state aid. The City Council gave up the aid by rejecting the original proposal, Local 4 reported.
At this point, residents will not see any changes at the zoo, the station reported.
The zoo was expected to close May 1 under a shut down plan.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11627874/



Zoo euthanizes zebra with arthritis
Seattle
Woodland Park Zoo's 32-year-old zebra, Rosie, was euthanized Tuesday because arthritis in her legs caused stiffness and discomfort.
Rosie arrived at the zoo in 1977 and produced 14 foals. Her son, a 10-year-old zebra, and a 30-year-old female remain at the zoo.
Zebras may live up to 40 years in zoos.



Woodland Park Zoo's 32-year-old zebra euthanized
By Seattle Times staff
Woodland Park Zoo's 32-year-old zebra, Rosie, was euthanized Tuesday because arthritis in her legs caused stiffness and discomfort.
Rosie arrived at the zoo in 1977 and produced 14 foals. Her son, a 10-year-old zebra, and a 30-year-old female remain at the zoo.
Zebras may live up to 40 years in zoos.
"This condition was progressive over the last few years and treatment consisted of corrective hoof trimming at regular intervals and anti-inflammatory medications to help control the discomfort and the pain," said Darin Collins, zoo director of animal health.
"Once she stood, the discomfort and pain in her legs was quite apparent. The most humane decision was to euthanize her."
The zebras at the zoo represent the plains, or Damara species. Zebras live throughout eastern and southern Africa and inhabit open, grassy plains or well-grassed woodlands.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002837301_webzebra01.html


Tiger alert after break-in at zoo
Edinburgh Zoo was put on escape alert after teenagers tried to break into a tiger enclosure.
The three youths were chased out of the zoo by security staff who had become aware of a disturbance.
However, a zoo spokesman said they discovered the lock on a door into the enclosure holding Amur tigers had been tampered with.
The animal escape alert was instigated as a precaution but the tigers were found to be still inside the pen.
The break-in happened at about 1830 GMT on Sunday.
Iain Valentine, head of animals, education and conservation at Edinburgh Zoo, said: "It is extremely unlikely that anyone could get inside as there are several doors to penetrate, all with individual locks and padlocks."

The tigers were found safe and well, inside their indoor den, wondering what all the fuss was about

He added that the animal escape procedure was activated as a precaution and that no staff were at risk at any time.
"The tigers were found safe and well, inside their indoor den, wondering what all the fuss was about," he added.
A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police urged anyone who saw anything suspicious to contact them.
Amur tigers, also known as Siberian tigers, are the largest cats in the world.
Four years ago, a man was discovered in Edinburgh Zoo's penguin enclosure in the early hours of the morning, while in 2000 two panther chameleons were stolen in an overnight break-in.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4763138.stm



Chimps swing new £5.5m enclosure
A £58m plan to develop the zoo in the Scottish capital has been unveiled.
Edinburgh Zoo is starting the improvements by building a new £5.5m state-of-the-art chimpanzee enclosure.
The 20-year-redevelopment includes a new polar bear unit, which activists say reneges on a promise by the zoo not to replace Britain's last polar bear.
The zoo will be organised into four zones themed on different habitats - grasslands, woodlands, tropical rainforests and oceans/wetlands.
World-class attraction

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4742668.stm



Zoo celebrates deer new arrival
One of the world's smallest species of deer has been born at Edinburgh Zoo as part of a conservation drive.
The pudu, who has been named Jon by zoo keepers, is the first of his species to be delivered at the zoo since 2000.
Head keeper Darren McGarry said everyone was delighted with the tiny new arrival.
Edinburgh Zoo has been participating in a European Endangered Species Programme for pudu since 1985.
Jon, who is only 15cm long, was born on 6 February and is the first infant to parents Amber and Henry.
Mr McGarry said: "We are so happy to have a baby pudu again, as it has been a few years since the last one.
"Hopefully, this is the start of a new period of success with this endangered species at Edinburgh Zoo."
The moves are coordinated by the European studbrook keeper for the species who is based at Wuppertal Zoo in Germany.
The southern pudu live in lowland temperate rainforests in Chile and south-west Argentina.
Wild populations are most at risk through the destruction of their lowland forest habitat and natural predators such as pumas and foxes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3497963.stm



Baby hippo 'a ray of sunshine'
Lizzie was born at the zoo last week
Edinburgh Zoo has unveiled its latest addition - a baby pygmy hippopotamus.
Lizzie took centre stage at a photocall just over a week after she was born at the zoo.
She is the third infant to be produced by her mother Leah, aged eight, and her father Fred, 26.
Lizzie weighed seven kilos at birth and has been gaining a steady two kilos every day since then.

"She certainly helps to brighten up a cold, dark winter's morning"

Both mother and baby were said to be doing well.
Head keeper Darren McGarry said he had found the infant when he went to check on her mother.
"All the keepers were very excited," he admitted.
"She certainly helps to brighten up a cold, dark winter's morning - she's a real ray of sunshine."
Edinburgh Zoo is part of a European conservation breeding programme for pygmy hippos.
The species is an endangered species in its native Africa.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2571219.stm


Key-hole surgery saves giraffe
Pioneering key-hole surgery has saved the life of a female giraffe at Edinburgh Zoo.
Sapphire the giraffe made "a rapid and good recovery" after the operation, said a vet who works at the zoo.
The animal stopped eating last October and an x-ray revealed a fracture in her lower jaw bone.
Veterinary surgeon Paddy Dixon, from the University of Edinburgh's Royal School of Veterinary Studies, performed the operation.
He used a key-hole surgery procedure developed for horses but never before tried on a giraffe.
Before Mr Dixon was consulted, vets briefly considered putting Sapphire down because the severity of the break made it impossible for her to eat.
She started eating the day after the surgery in November and in January a second operation took place to remove the wiring that had been placed in her mouth.
The zoo's leading vet Anna Meredith said: "We are very grateful to Professor Dixon and his expert assistance with the surgery on Sapphire, and absolutely delighted that she made such a rapid and good recovery."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3490809.stm



Zoo's lioness dies of cancer
One of Edinburgh Zoo's more famous animals, Jody the African lioness, has died after being diagnosed with cancer.
Officials say that after a post mortem examination her body will be offered to a museum for display or teaching purposes.
Jody was 11 and had been in Edinburgh for six years.
She is not going to be replaced by another African Lion because the zoo is to take part in a conservation breeding programme for Asiatic lions, whose population in the wild is described as "critically endangered".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2481531.stm


Mongooses Go on Display at National Zoo
Mar 1st - 8:49am
WASHINGTON -- They're frisky. They groom each other. And they climb through the holes of their concrete termite dens.
What are they? Banded mongooses. Three of them are on exhibit at the National Zoo.
It has been nearly 30 years since the National Zoo exhibited these small, catlike carnivores.

The National Zoo adds to its collection with three mongooses. (Photo courtesy of National Zoo)
If they seem familiar to you, it's because you may know them from Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book."
The National Zoo is one of two animal parks in North America to exhibit the social animals, according to a news release from the zoo.
There are more than 30 species of mongooses living in Africa, Asia and southern Europe, as well as some Caribbean and Hawaiian islands. The zoo's Web site says they were introduced in the Caribbean and Hawaiian islands to control rats and snakes but ended up causing several species of birds to go extinct.
You'll find the mongoose exhibit right across from the naked mole-rat exhibit.


Authorities probe theft of money from NEW Zoo
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
SUAMICO — The Brown County Sheriff's Department is investigating allegations an undisclosed amount of money is missing from the NEW Zoo.
The county's legal department asked the sheriff's department to investigate Monday after an internal audit. A zoo employee was placed on administrative leave, but county officials did not confirm the person's name or position.
Chief Deputy John Gossage of the sheriff's department said he could not confirm or deny that money was even missing, but that is the nature of the allegations.
Tax dollars are not used at the NEW Zoo. The 2006 budget is $1.38 million, all of which came from donations, admissions, concessions, grants or other fees.
More than 215,000 people visited last year. A popular new giraffe exhibit opened in December at a cost of over $500,000 raised by the zoo's NEW Zoological Society, a nonprofit fundraising group.
The society's donations are spent on capital projects and animal acquisitions for the zoo and are not mixed with the zoo's budget, said Patty Voight, executive director.

http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060301/APC0101/603010704/1003/APC01



Animal lovers sharpen claws over plans for zoo expansion
ANIMAL groups have hit out at Edinburgh Zoo's plans to add elephants, orangutans and manatees to its collection of animals.
Dr Robert Atkinson, head of Wildlife at the RSPCA, said: "Research shows that elephants in European zoos suffer from poor welfare. The RSPCA is shocked that Edinburgh Zoo may foolishly reverse the enlightened decision it previously made to stop keeping these majestic animals."
Under a 20-year masterplan for the Corstorphine attraction, zoo bosses are also understood to be considering bringing in a new polar bear to replace Mercedes, currently the only one in the UK.
Advocates for Animals
director Ross Minett said: "It is simply unbelievable that Edinburgh Zoo is even considering adding animals such as elephants, orangutans, manatees and more chimpanzees to its collection - this on top of its disgraceful plans to continue keeping polar bears."
David Windmill, chief executive of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, has said more polar bears may be brought to Edinburgh, but only if sustained depletion of the polar ice caps meant there was a strong conservation reason to do so.

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=307642006



Taronga Zoo's condor learns to fly
Lesley the Andean Condor is learning to fly - all nine kilos of her.
The South American bird, the world's largest bird of prey, spread its three-metre wing span over the northern Sydney suburb of Mosman, as Taronga Zoo bird trainers prepared her for the zoo's daily free flight bird show.
Two-year-old Lesley showed no stage fright in front of her first crowd, leaving her trainer to fly over a Mosman park and land on a bench in the same park.
Zoo trainers have started Lesley on an intensive 15-week training program to teach her to fly on command, rewarding her with mince balls and mice.
"At the moment they (the trainers) are working on her take-off technique," Taronga Zoo spokeswoman Danielle McGill said.
"Condors are the heaviest birds in the world so just getting them up in the air is a big challenge."
Trainers believe the youngster has the right temperament to be the star of the zoo's free flight show.
Lesley and her parents Bruce and Connie, who also live at the zoo, are among just six Andean Condors living in captivity in Australia.
The bird has been listed as an endangered species by the US Fish and Wildlife service since 1973.



Zoo upgrade to create more room for animals
By Li Dapeng (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-02-28 05:44
FUZHOU: Animals in Fuzhou Zoo in the capital city of East China's Fujian Province will soon have a more spacious home.
The zoo will be relocated to a much bigger site in the city, which covers about 53 hectares, more than 10 times larger than the current one.
With an area of only 4 hectares, the zoo is regarded as the smallest in the nation's capital cities, said Chen Guichun, director with the zoo's administration section.
Having been living in small and humid cages for a long time, many animals have become emotionally disturbed and often behave abnormally.
"The poor conditions affect the normal living environment of the animals and their reproductive capacity," Chen said.
"Some of the animals, such as wolves, swans and mandarin ducks, have not even bred after coming here."
Founded in 1956, the zoo now has more than 900 animals including some nationally protected species such as South China tigers, Asian elephants, leopards and red-crowned cranes.
Due to the limited size, the sanitation conditions are not good enough, although workers have made great efforts, Chen said.
"The zoo should be great fun for children to come and visit, but now fewer and fewer kids come to visit here."
Situated in the downtown area of the city, the zoo has also caused problems for nearby residents.
"It's terrible that every day we have to suffer the odour from the zoo," said a woman surnamed Lin, who lives close to the site.
"The roars of lions and tigers are so scary at night for my child," she added.
At present, the environment evaluation of the new site and bidding for the new design are expected to finish in March.
The construction will begin next year, which is predicted to cost at least 50 million yuan (US$6.22 million), according to Fuzhou Municipal Bureau of Parks.
The new site, located north of the central area of the city, with rich plant resources, will be developed into an important tourist spot, said sources with the bureau.
"The new zoo will not only offer a better living environment for animals, but also a more advanced condition for scientific research in wildlife protection," said Chen

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/28/content_524661.htm



Birdflu detected in Ukrainian zoo - officials
27 Feb 2006 18:10:29 GMT
Source: Reuters
KIEV, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Parrots and pheasants have died of bird flu at a zoo in southern Ukraine, prompting officials to slap a quarantine on the facility's bird enclosures, officials said on Monday.
But Ukrainian media quoted veterinary officials as saying the strain of flu detected was the H5 type -- and not the particularly dangerous H5N1 strain. Cases of H5N1 have already been detected in Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula.
"We have recorded deaths of birds -- three or four pheasants and several parrots in two of the enclosures at Odessa zoo," a spokesman for the zoo in the Black Sea port said by telephone.
"A quarantine has been set up in all enclosures. The zoo has been declared a zone of heightened risk."
The official said the deaths were recorded on Saturday, but there had been no contact with humans as the zoo had been closed for the past week due to cold weather.
"The main thing is that there is no confirmation from laboratories in Kiev that this is the pathogenic form dangerous to humans," he said. "It is standard bird flu."
He said a plastic screen had been drawn around the aviaries to guard against any spread of the virus. Experts said the zoo birds may have been infected by coming into proximity with sparrows and other wild birds.
The H5N1 virus has been detected in about two dozen villages in Crimea since the outbreak was discovered late last year.
Sanitary workers, dispatched to the region immediately after the outbreak, have already destroyed well over 200,000 birds in Ukraine -- both privately held and at industrial plants.
The country's top veterinarian last week said Ukraine had begun testing several types of vaccine for H5N1, but would take no decision on mass vaccination of poultry pending the results.
Officials predict more outbreaks once migratory birds return to Ukraine in spring on their northward flight paths.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L27563078.htm


Zoo's Red Panda Finds Mate Online
UPDATED: 10:46 am PST February 27, 2006
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- There is living proof that you can find love online. At least that is the case for a red panda named Fagan at the Kansas City Zoo, television station KMBC reported.
The zoo went online to find Fagan a companion. The Minnesota Zoo responded that its Betsy might make a good mate.
"So we were just hoping the two would click and they have," zoo supervisor Cinnamon Williams said.
Betsy is now living in Fagan's pen.
"We did see them breeding. We won't know for sure for at least a couple of months," Williams said.
KMBC reported that red pandas are the size of raccoons. They only breed between January and March.

http://www.theksbwchannel.com/family/7506664/detail.html


Zoo Wants China To Lower Panda Rental Fee
POSTED: 9:56 am PST March 6, 2006
UPDATED: 10:23 am PST March 6, 2006
SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego Zoo wants to pay less to lease giant pandas from China.
Zoo officials say paying $1 million a year for the animals is too much.
Giant pandas are on exhibit in San Diego, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and Memphis. Officials at Zoo Atlanta and The National Zoo in Washington have said that they may be forced to close their panda exhibits if China doesn't lower the fee.
The Chinese government said it is open to discussions about the lease payments.
The zoos have proposed cutting the yearly least amount in half to $500,000.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/money/7746587/detail.html



Chicago Considers Banning Mistreated Elephants
by Kari Lydersen
After all three of the Lincoln Park Zoo’s elephants met untimely deaths, wildlife experts urged the Chicago City Council to embargo captive elephants in the interest of sparing them physical and psychological misery.
Chicago; Mar. 6 – Winifred Kiiru cried the first time she saw an elephant in a zoo.
In her native Kenya, she says, children rarely saw elephants but grew up revering them. When Kiiru visited zoos in the United States as part of her work as a wildlife ecologist, she was shocked to see the huge animals confined to small areas and suffering physical and psychological problems.

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=2893



San Diego, 3 other zoos want to pay China less for renting the animals
By Jeanette Steele
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
The San Diego Zoo may have the hottest panda program in the United States, but it says it cannot continue to pay $1 million a year to rent the black-and-white fur balls from China.
The zoo is among four nationwide that have told China they want to renegotiate the fee when their contracts are up, starting in 2008.
“There have been serious discussions by representatives of the four zoos to ask if there are ways that the price of keeping pandas can be negotiated downward,” said Don Lindburg, head of San Diego's Giant Panda Conservation Division.
Zoos in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., say they will close their panda exhibits if a more affordable deal can't be reached.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060305-9999-1m5pandas.html



ANTIQUES: Jean McClelland: Chewing gum company's tin Chiclet Zoos coveted by collectors
Gum chewing, popping and bubbling has been a favored habit for more than 100 years in the United States. Chewing gum as we know it began when a New York inventor got together with a Mexican exile in 1869.
The Mexican national, Rudolph Napegy, just happened to have once served as an undersecretary to General Santa Anna of Alamo fame. Napegy was looking for someone to help him find a use for a rubbery fluid harvested from trees in Southern Mexico. The inventor Thomas Adams was able to do just that with a recipe for chewing gum. It was a popular treat from the get-go.

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060305/LIFE/603050338/1004



Save the Detroit Zoo
By Bianca Jacobs Contributing Writer
When I was a kid, my mother would take my younger brother and me to the Detroit Zoo. Since it was the summertime and we were on vacation, we hated to go. We wanted to enjoy our break, but my mother had other plans. She wanted to fill our lives with culture and broaden our surroundings by exposing us to things outside of television and video games.
We would go to the museums, the library and the different parks in the area, but the zoo was different. It wasn’t just about looking at the animals. It was about watching life.
On Feb. 18, the Detroit City Council turned down a proposal that would keep the Detroit Zoo open. In a seven-to-two vote, the council denied a plan to turn over daily operations of the zoo to the nonprofit Detroit Zoological Society. So, for now, there are plans for Detroit Zoo to close its doors. Since the Kilpatrick administration is trying to come up with another proposal that might please them, the council has decided to go back and vote once more on the fate of the zoo. Hopefully, the council will have a change of heart, but the fate of the zoo is still unknown.

http://www.southend.wayne.edu/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2260



Visitor hurt while trying to play with zoo elephant
WACO, Texas -- A 25-year-old woman climbed past barriers and into an elephant's zoo exhibit, then crawled out with minor injuries after the 6,000-pound animal smacked her with its trunk.
"That's how an elephant reacts to something they would perceive as a threat," said Cameron Park Zoo director Jim Fleshman.
After saying she wanted to play with the elephant, the woman climbed over a 3-feet-high wood-and-wire fence, scaled an 8-foot-tall artificial rock structure and bypassed an electric wire before jumping into the exhibit Thursday afternoon, Fleshman said. A moat extends around most of the exhibit.
After the woman got out, fire and emergency crews took her to a hospital with minor injuries, including scrapes on her side and arm.
The woman's name was not released.
The exhibit contains two female African elephants. Only one of the elephants struck the woman.
Both animals were stressed after the incident and were moved to a private area, and one did not want to return to the exhibit even later in the day. But both were back for visitors to see Friday, Fleshman said.
"They're not used to somebody being in their space," he said.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-el06.html



N.C. Zoo wants $6 million from state to pay for improvements
ASHEBORO, N.C. State zoo officials have asked the General Assembly to pay nearly six (M) million dollars for improvements, including a children's center, an ampitheater renovation and new barns.
The state hasn't given the North Carolina Zoo money for capital projects in 14 years. The zoo has relied since then on private money and state repair money to add buildings.
The zoo is using at least six (M) million dollars in private donations to help pay for an eight (M) million dollar expansion of the elephant and rhino herds and exhibits scheduled to open next year.

http://www.wwaytv3.com/Global/story.asp?S=4593101&nav=menu70_2



KOA petting zoo to close after 30 years in Missoula
MISSOULA Missoula's only petting zoo has closed.
The city has been encroaching on the once rural landscape of North Reserve Street, but the four-legged creatures of the K-O-A Campground zoo have been safely tucked behind the wall of box stores.
But in coming weeks, a new street will go through the area. It will border the campground zoo, and will connect the shopping district with a new subdivision being built behind Home Depot.
K-O-A officals are concerned the new street will become a busy thoroughfare, and that new housing will go up along the campground fencing.
They decided that would be too stressful for the animals. So K-O-A's miniature horses, goats and other barnyard animals have been farmed out to loving new homes.
It's the end of an era. The petting zoo had been in operation about 30 years at the Missoula K-O-A Campground.

http://www.kbzk.com/Global/story.asp?S=4591926



Zoo begins process of winding down
Larger animals will be moved this spring
TRAVERSE CITY - The zoo will reopen this spring, but its menagerie could be meager.
Clinch Park Zoo is slated to close by Labor Day 2007, and the city commission pledged $58,000 and the Grand Traverse Zoological Society $75,000 to move the animals to new homes.
The animal exodus will begin this spring, when wolves, cougars, bobcats, fox and coyotes are scheduled to leave for the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota. City manager Richard Lewis said the zoo will open for the season but without an admission fee and with an unknown number of animals.

http://www.record-eagle.com/2006/mar/06zoo.htm



Zoo Wants China To Lower Panda Rental Fee
POSTED: 9:56 am PST March 6, 2006
UPDATED: 10:23 am PST March 6, 2006
SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego Zoo wants to pay less to lease giant pandas from China.
Zoo officials say paying $1 million a year for the animals is too much.
Giant pandas are on exhibit in San Diego, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and Memphis. Officials at Zoo Atlanta and The National Zoo in Washington have said that they may be forced to close their panda exhibits if China doesn't lower the fee.
The Chinese government said it is open to discussions about the lease payments.
The zoos have proposed cutting the yearly least amount in half to $500,000.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/money/7746587/detail.html



Wishing a happy birthday to zoo
Baltimore animal park marks its 130th year with treats and free weekend admission
By Rona Marech
Sun reporter
Originally published March 5, 2006
The polar bears did champion backstrokes, then lazily lumbered ashore. A leopard curled up in the sun. The penguins waddled in unison. The new baby chimpanzees, all tiny sweetness, had the cuteness market cornered.
And thousands of human creatures gawked, pointed and squealed yesterday at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.
The zoo, which turns 130 this year, threw itself a birthday bash yesterday, celebrating with free admission, scores of zoo-themed cakes, music, party hats, icy treats for the polar bears and a pat on the back from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
Despite the wind and cold, people began lining up almost two hours before gates opened, and by the end of the day, zoo staff counted more than 10,000 visitors.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.zoo05mar05,0,2442068.story?coll=bal-local-headlines



Gladys Porter Zoo researcher tracks wild lemurs in Africa
BY KEVIN GARCIA
The Brownsville Herald
March 5, 2006 - For more than two weeks, Jennifer Chatfield was stranded in the Madagascar rainforest off the coast of Africa.
While many Brownsville residents might be put off by the idea of sleeping under a canopy of frogs, chameleons, snakes and other creatures, Chatfield said the experience reminded her of growing up in Texas.
“Instead of my chores being ‘take out the garbage and clean your room,’ they were ‘take out the garbage, clean your room, feed the lemurs and clean the cages,’” she said. “It was pretty normal.”
Before her African adventure, Chatfield, senior veterinarian at the Gladys Porter Zoo, grew up in the 4-J Conservation Center outside San Marcos, a home for rare and endangered species and, more specifically, a haven for furry little primates called lemurs.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/features_more.php?id=69607_0_7_0_C



Why zoo's survival is a bear necessity
JAMES DOUGLAS-HAMILTON
THE recent announcement by Edinburgh Zoo of a £58 million expansion plan has re-ignited some of the ethical arguments for and against keeping wild animals in captivity.
Going back to the beginning, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, whose flagship project is Edinburgh Zoo, was founded in 1909 by Thomas Gillespie, one of Edinburgh's leading lawyers. He gathered together sufficient support to enable the society to purchase the 85 acres on Corstorphine Hill with assistance from the council's city fathers.

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=331392006



Wolf's missing leg puzzles zoo
March 4, 2006
BY ANDREW HERRMANN Staff Reporter
Brookfield Zoo officials Friday were unable to determine how a wolf lost one of its legs, nor could they find the missing limb.
In the meantime, two wolves have been removed from the part of the exhibit where the wolf was mysteriously injured.
On Wednesday, keepers discovered a male wolf bleeding, his right front leg severed beneath his elbow. Officials don't believe the incident was the result of a fight.
The zoo separated its Mexican gray wolves into two groups in December after a pack attacked a younger wolf. Three younger wolves, including the one currently recuperating from the injury to its limb, were placed into a different part of the exhibit.
Zoo spokeswoman Sondra Katzen said keepers have emptied the area where the younger ones lived because "we want to make sure the exhibit is safe."
'Hilton' search turns up nothing

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-zoo04.html



Zoo fundraiser puts animal lovers behind the scene
By AMELIA NIELSON-STOWELL
Deseret Morning News
[oas:casperstartribune.net/news/regional:Middle1]
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- While gently petting a giraffe's muzzle, Lyn Hargis reached her arm to the creature's mouth, holding a carrot in her palm for a lunchtime treat.
"Wow, your tongue's nice and soft," she said as giraffe Daphne licked her hand for the snack.
Hargis watched Hogle Zoo's five giraffes as they observed their new friendly guest. "They all have different personalities," she said.
It was an experience usually reserved for trained zookeepers, but now the Salt Lake zoo is letting the public get a behind-the-scenes look at the beautiful -- and often dirty -- work of zookeepers.
As part of a fundraiser for the zoo's conservation efforts and the Utah chapter of the American Association of Zookeepers, a member of the public can pay $225 to participate in the Keeper for a Day program. The guest spends the day side-by-side with a zookeeper, participating in enrichment activities, cleaning cages, preparing diets and even getting up close to some of the zoo's friendliest beasts.

http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/articles/2006/03/04/news/regional/f5ce239a486dd5b08725712600628f85.txt



Elephant Exhibits Endangered?
(CBS) Elephant exhibits are always among the most popular at zoos across the country. But animal rights activists and zoo managers are facing a growing debate over whether these giant creatures belong in the confines of a zoo at all.
The Early Show resident veterinarian Debbye Turner examined the issue and found there are no easy answers.
Most people would never have the opportunity to see an elephant up close, other than at a zoo. But these animals have complex needs, and not every zoo has the space or resources to meet those needs.
Turner visited the Oregon Zoo, where Bob Lee watches over seven elephants, a routine that includes a nearly daily dose of exercise for each of them. Not only do the animals need the activity, they need the stimulation of the sights and sounds of other animals, what Lee calls elephant enrichment.
"The enrichment part is all the things she gets to see," Lee said during his daily walk with an elephant named Chendra. "Let her see other animals, let her get excited by people and events. That's the thing that really makes a difference to her."
But even all these routines can't mask the fact that zoo elephants have limited space.
"Elephants simply do not do well in captivity. They're very social animals and they're used to living in herds," said Michael McGraw of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "No matter how big zoos make their enclosures, no matter how much money they spend trying to improve the elephants' quality of life, it will never compare to how these animals are able to live their lives in the wild."
Mike Keele, deputy director of the Oregon Zoo, concedes that elephants don't belong in every zoo. "What they need to do is take a look at their program, take a look at their staff, take a look at their resources, take a look at their community support, and decide, is this a species we can help best? And, if not, then they shouldn't have elephants."
Turner says animal rights activists are alarmed by a number of recent elephant deaths in places such as Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo and the National Zoo in Washington. Last year, after two of their elephants died, the San Francisco Zoo closed the elephant exhibit.
Bob Jenkins is the director of animal care at the San Francisco Zoo and said, "The decision here was made solely on what we could provide the animals." In their case, Jenkins says space was not the problem, money was.
"It's a money issue, plain and simple. A good elephant exhibit is very expensive. You're talking $12-15 million dollars or more," he said. "So the decision was made to move the animals out."
Instead of sending their elephants to another zoo, San Francisco shipped theirs to an elephant sanctuary in northern California, where the animals have hundreds of acres to roam. The sanctuary also has elephants from the Detroit zoo, which recently closed its exhibit. To some activists, that's a rallying cry.
"PETA is calling on all zoos to follow the lead of the Detroit Zoo and the San Francisco Zoo and retire their elephants to sanctuaries and permanently close their elephant exhibits," said McGraw.
Turner points out that at zoos across the country, elephants remain among the most popular attraction. And Bob Jenkins agrees that it's a sad loss for the community. "The zoos themselves would be fine if they don't have elephants. I think it's the people and the community who will really lose out," he said.
While not everyone agrees with PETA on this issue, animal rights activists are getting credit for improving awareness and helping to spur an effort to give elephants more space and improve their conditions. Many zoos are either spending money to enlarge their elephant habitats or, as the Bronx Zoo recently announced, are phasing out their elephant exhibits altogether.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/27/earlyshow/living/petplanet/main1347443.shtml

concluding ....