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Animal Escapes

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AUCKLAND (Reuters) -An elephant briefly escaped from New Zealand's Auckland zoo on Friday after dropping a log.......

.........on an electrified fence and crashing through a gate.Twenty-year-old Burma, one of two elephants at the zoo, was free for about half an hour, forcing some road closures during the morning commuter rush, but posed no threat to people and did no damage to any other property.

The 2.8-tonAsian elephant, which stands about two-and-a-half meters (eight feet) tall, was found in a park behind the zoo and keepers walked her back to her enclosure to join the other elephant.

"When the keepers found her she vocally responded -- it was almost a 'thank goodness you're here'," said Maria Finnegan, the zoo's director of life sciences.

"She was a little shaken and both the girls were clearly happy to be reunited."

Burma had neutralized the electrified fence around the elephant enclosure by dropping a large log onto it, then climbed into a moat and walked along the perimeter fence before pushing through a gate to enter the neighboring park, she said.

"We think it was an opportunistic thing, not a deliberate action, she's realized the fence was not there and then decided to roam...."

Finnegan said the elephants had recently been allowed to roam their enclosure during the warm summer nights, but the zoo would now strengthen the fence and keep the pair indoors overnight under the control of keepers

http://news1.iwon.com/odd/article/id/380868|oddlyenough|01-23-2004::08:26|reuters.html
 
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We often here the out of palce animal explanation being escapes of exotic animals so here is a thread to track this kind of news:

14-Foot Python Still Missing In Neighborhood

Snake Has Not Eaten In 3 Months

POSTED: 4:04 pm EST February 17, 2004
UPDATED: 11:17 am EST February 19, 2004

Residents in Fruitland Park, Fla., are keeping small pets inside and watching their children after a 14-foot reticulated python snake escaped from its cage and remains missing Thursday in their neighborhood, according to Local 6 News.

Viki Miller said that her son's pet snake -- which has not eaten in three months -- pushed its way out of its cage, the knocked out a window screen and vanished into the Ridge Road area neighborhood.

Homeowners in the area said they are scared knowing a large snake is on the loose.

Local 6 News reported that the nature of the snake is that it is aggressive and could strike if cornered.

"She's big enough -- she can take you (reporter) down," Miller said. "She has the strength of five men."

The Lake County Sheriff's Office is not actively searching the area but planned to patrol the area.

http://www.local6.com/news/2853583/detail.html

Emps
 
Today's Gainesville Sun had an interesting article on the various exotic pets that have become permanent residents of south FLorida. There's a population of Nilem monitors in Cape Coral, Burmese pythons in the Everglades (the piece featured a picture of a gator cruising off with one that was going to be lunch), as well as any number of fish and birds and at least 3 species of monkeys.

This beastie in Fruitland Park is probably going to just go native. Or else something got it already. Not only are gators a threat, but there are huge wild pigs in that area as well.
 
Lively llama takes it on the lamb

http://www.thesudburystar.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=59809&catname=Local+News

While Greater Sudbury [Ontario] police officers see a lot in the course of their duties, at 2:30 a.m. Saturday they sure didn’t expect to see a llama running near the Lively turnoff.

Sylvie, a nine-month-old llama, was wandering on Regional Road 55 near Hillcrest St., amazingly unharmed.

After catching her, an officer led the lost llama to the nearby Walden Animal Clinic.

While the clinic has taken in its share of lost dogs, cats and wild animals, it had never taken in a lost llama before.

The llama spent the morning in a pen outside the clinic before its owner Sirpa Clendenning discovered she was missing and called the clinic.

Llama and owner were reunited by 11 a.m., none worse for the wear.

She believes someone, perhaps a child, set her pet loose from its shed next to her bungalow on Lloyd Street.

“Kids are always coming up here to see her,” she said.

Clendenning bought Sylvie about five months ago from a farm in Warren.

“I’ve always wanted a llama,” she said. “They’re very intelligent.”

They’re also incredibly friendly and make humming noises when happy. While llamas don’t bite — they only have bottom teeth in their small jaws — they can spit as far as 15 feet.

Clendenning walks all her animals each day, holding the leashes of her two dogs in one hand and the llama in the other. She has even taken her pack from their house on Lloyd Street to get a coffee at the Tim Hortons’ drive-through window.

The dogs get a timbit [small doughnut]. The llama doesn’t.
 
hedgewizard said:
Today's Gainesville Sun had an interesting article on the various exotic pets that have become permanent residents of south FLorida. There's a population of Nilem monitors in Cape Coral, Burmese pythons in the Everglades (the piece featured a picture of a gator cruising off with one that was going to be lunch), as well as any number of fish and birds and at least 3 species of monkeys.

This beastie in Fruitland Park is probably going to just go native. Or else something got it already. Not only are gators a threat, but there are huge wild pigs in that area as well.

I had a look on their web site:

http://www.toledoblade.com

but couldn't find much.

I did find this similar report:

Article published Saturday, February 28, 2004

14-foot python survives Colburn Street blaze


For the second time in a week, Toledo firefighters came across something surprising while searching buildings after blazes. On Monday, it was a marijuana-growing operation. Yesterday, it was a nearly 14-foot-long Burmese python.

The household pet, found in an enclosed container, survived a fire that began about 11:40 a.m. in the lower unit of a duplex at 958 Colburn St.

The flames spread from the occupied lower unit to the vacant upper unit. It also damaged a neighboring house at 956 Colburn. Damage to both structures was estimated at ,000.

Rodney Ray; his girlfriend, Heidi Kirk, and three children live in the unit where the fire began. They are receiving help from the Greater Toledo Area Chapter of the American Red Cross.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040228/NEWS07/40228001/-1/NEWS
 
Did some tracking, it was a story from the NY Times that the Sun carried. Here it is (to save you all from having to register for their website):

Forget the Gators: Exotic Pets Run Wild in Florida
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

Published: February 29, 2004

IAMI, Feb. 28 — Burmese pythons are wrestling alligators in the Everglades. African monitor lizards, ill tempered and up to seven feet long, are splashing through canals in Cape Coral. Vervet monkeys hang around a car rental lot near Fort Lauderdale; South American monk parakeets wreak havoc on power lines; Cuban tree frogs have colonized everywhere, gobbling native frogs as they go.

The southern end of Florida, the most tropical state outside Hawaii, is teeming with exotic beasts. As if alligators, panthers and other native creatures were not enough, the steamy swamps, murky waterways and lush tree canopies here are a paradise for furry, scaly, clawed, fanged and otherwise off-putting things that have no business roaming this side of the equator.

"This stuff doesn't happen in New Jersey, it doesn't happen in Ohio, but in South Florida it happens constantly," said Todd Hardwick, whose trapping business, Pesky Critters, gets 60 calls a day from people with peacocks on their roofs, caimans in their driveways and iguanas in their tool sheds. "Miami-Dade County is probably ground zero for exotic animals that are on the loose and doing very well."

More imported animals are flown to Miami than any other American city but New York and Los Angeles. Breeders, dealers and owners of exotic pets abound. And when pet lovers find their boa constrictor or spinytail iguana has outgrown its cage, or they move or meet a mate who will not abide anteaters, piranhas or prairie dogs, South Florida presents the perfect dumping ground.

"Any place the public perceives as a large, wild, junglelike environment, that's where you'll see them," said Mr. Hardwick, who said he once caught a 22-foot reticulated python under a house in Fort Lauderdale, where it had retreated after swallowing a raccoon. "Miami is a fast, disposable society, which means whatever is the hot pet today will be my catch of the day next week."

Witness the Nile monitor lizard, dagger-clawed, blue-tongued and voracious. Monitors have multiplied so quickly in the maze of man-made canals around Cape Coral, a fast-growing city on the southwest coast, that a scientist at the University of Tampa won grants last year to study their ecological impact. Thirty-nine monitors have been caught and killed in the region since summer, said Kenneth Krysko, a University of Florida herpetologist assisting with the project.

"There's no question they are expanding their range," Dr. Krysko said. "They are scaring the heck out of residents, there's no question about that." He said the lizards end up abandoned because many pet dealers do not warn buyers how big and difficult they get.

"Any child can go to a pet store and buy a hatchling for $10," Dr. Krysko said. "It's really sad, because this is such a beautiful lizard, just a magnificent species. But no one realizes the ability this animal has to tear off your cat's head with one twist."

Scientists say the lizards do not pose a danger to humans unless they are cornered.

Cape Coral residents also worry that monitors are eating the eggs of burrowing owls, an endangered species that nests in the ground and is abundant, and beloved, in the area. But Dr. Krysko said it was too early to tell, since scientists have not yet examined monitors' stomach contents (the captured lizards are in deep freeze for now).

While Florida has become hypervigilant about the spread of invasive plants and trees like Brazilian pepper and Australian pine, it has been slower to address the problem of non-native animals, said Skip Snow, a wildlife biologist at Everglades National Park.

"When you're talking about things that move around, it's harder to detect them and harder to do something about it," he said. "There has not been an organized campaign to remind people it's not just against the law but terrible for the environment to release these things."

Nor is the pet industry a reliable partner in controlling exotic animals, because many dealers are not knowledgeable, said Jim Stinebaugh, a federal wildlife inspector at Miami International Airport.


Here are some links on other exotics in our lovely state:

http://floridafisheries.com/Fishes/Exotic List.html

http://wld.fwc.state.fl.us/critters/exotics/exotics.asp

This second site is really the best. Enjoy!
 
Skunk searchers thrown off scent

A search for a skunk is underway in the south Wales valleys - but sniffing him out will be a problem.

Alexander, the 12-week-old south American skunk, escaped through a window of his new owner's house.

But he has been "descented", so is unable to give out the skunk's traditional defensive odour.

Pet shop worker Jonathan Manley from Tonypandy, Rhondda, is desperate for Alexander to come home and is appealing for sightings of him.

Mr Manley, 23, said that Alexander slipped through an open window in the house after managing to climb onto a work top.

Alexander is still very nervous and won't come to people but it would be good to know where to start looking
Jonathan Manley

"We have only had him for about four weeks and he is still very shy," explained Mr Manley.

"So I let him out to try and tame him a bit and he managed to climb up onto the surface and got out of an open window.

"We live in the mountains and after he got into the garden he must have got out into the wild."

Alexander, who is described as a black and white "fluffball" is a bit smaller than the size of the average cat.

"My daughter Georgia who is three is missing him a lot and keeps asking where her skunk has gone," said Mr Manley.

"He will survive in the wild because he lives on fruit and veg but I am really worried that a fox or a dog will get him.

"I really hope that dog walkers or horse riders will look out for him for us.

"The only problem is that Alexander is still very nervous and won't come to people but it would be good to know where to start looking.

"He has been descented so smells a bit like a ferret."

Mr Manley said that he has always been fascinated by the creatures and had hoped to be able to take Alexander around local schools to show children.

"We really would like to get him back.

"They are unusual pets but they are becoming more popular now and there are more people breeding them," added Mr Manley.

If anyone spots Alexander please contact Mr Manley on 01443 421 349



BBCi News 04/07/04
 
Subway workers discover large snake on platform

It wasn't exactly a thing that went bump in the night. It was more like a hiss. But it took two shocked Toronto Transit Commision maintenance men by surprise.

Even though the subway doesn't run past 2am, that doesn't mean there's not a lot of activity on the tracks. Crews go through the stations into the wee hours, cleaning up the system and making sure everything's ready for the morning rush.

They're used to the usual garbage - discarded food, newspapers, and even the occasional rat in the tunnels.

But the pair traipsing through the Spadina station early Wednesday weren't expecting a huge orange and black snake with diamond shapes on its back, slithering through the northbound platform.

They're not sure where the creature came from, but they didn't let it get too far. They quickly scooped it up in a bag and called for animal control to come and pick it up.

But this snake in the grass -or rather, the bag - had other plans. While the workers were waiting for the experts, the slithering serpent somehow escaped from its makeshift prison, and was last seen disappearing somewhere into the great outdoors in the Annex. Perhaps it reached its stop, after all.

http://www.pulse24.com/News/Top_Story/20040804-005/page.asp
 
Lurcher's Houdini routine

Hi

(not exactly exotic animals but still animal escape story!)

source:
---------------------------

Ananova:
14:18 Monday 4th October 2004
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1127288.html?menu=news.quirkies

quote:
----------------------------

Lurcher's Houdini routine

A dog has been breaking out of his kennel at Battersea Dogs' Home and
releasing his pals for midnight feasts.

The lurcher, called Red, learnt to free himself and his companions to
carry out night raids on the kitchen at the animal shelter in south London.

His escapades came to light when staff set up cameras to discover how the dogs came to be running amok when they arrived in the mornings.

Video pictures showed Red escaping and opening the bolts on the other dogs' kennels. His kennel has now been made more secure.

Becky Blackmore, of Battersea Dog's Home, told GMTV: "It is really amazing because lurchers aren't particularly renowned for their intelligence.

"It is amazing that he has worked out how to get out of his own kennel but then also that he goes and lets all his friends out.

"They had lots of food, lots of fun and games and caused loads of mess."

---------------------

endquote

Mal F
 
Suppose it's time to pop my forum cherry here. This is hardly a first-rate scientific account, but...

I used to work at an animal research institute. Nothing of distinction, just animal care and eventual Health and Safety tyranny. Anyways, it was common knowledge around the institute that a group of macaques (monkeys) had escaped into the forest directly east of the facility two decades back. Only a few had been reclaimed, and it's believed that there still may be a healthy tribe of primates living in the Manzano mountains east of Albuquerque. No need for concern, but if anyone living nearby reads this, I can only advise you to hide your bananas, grease up your swingset (deters monkeys like nothing else!) and try to avoid reciting Rupyard Kipling at the top of your lungs in the middle of the night.

You never know who may heed your call.
 
f3nce said:
I can only advise you to hide your bananas, grease up your swingset

:eek!!!!: . Something lost in the translation possibly?.
 
Don't British kids get swing sets? Triangular frames with swings and sometimes other similar play equipment hung from the crossbar. F3nce is recommending ways to reduce the damage monkeys can do to your property. I can see where they'd have a wonderful time on a swing set, but if you grease the poles so they can't climb, don't they just jump into the swings and climb the chains? You can't really grease those, 'cause the kids would get it all over their hands.
 
I can see where they'd have a wonderful time on a swing set, but if you grease the poles so they can't climb, don't they just jump into the swings and climb the chains?

Observation has shown that primates are far from monogamous, so I've found that it's simply best not to interfere with their natural swinging tendencies...
 
f3nce said:
Observation has shown that primates are far from monogamous, so I've found that it's simply best not to interfere with their natural swinging tendencies...

Quite right, if anyone tried to interfere with my tendencies I'd get more than a touch annoyed..................ahh.........the other primates.........see what you mean.............mines the long black leather coat,third hook from the left..............;)
 
Five Wildebeests Escape From Ind. Zoo


Oct 19, 10:20 PM (ET)

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - Zookeepers, police and animal control officers followed five runaway wildebeests through a residential area Tuesday after they escaped from the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo.

Animal handlers were herding the zoo's seven wildebeests toward a barn where they are kept during the winter when five of the animals bolted, according to a press release from the zoo. The animals broke through a gate and jumped over a 4-foot-high fence and emerged onto a city street.

Wildebeests, which are native to eastern Africa, weigh between 300 and 400 pounds and can run up to 50 mph.

Zookeepers and officers in vehicles and on bicycles followed the wildebeests down the street, through a trailer park and an apartment complex.

Two of the animals that broke their front legs were euthanized after they were recaptured, zoo veterinarian Joe Smith said. The others were cornered in a back yard near a church.

Officials then shot the animals with tranquilizer darts and returned them to the zoo, according to the news release.

The wildebeests are a featured attraction at the Children's Zoo's African Veldt exhibit.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20041020/D85QSMM80.html
 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/southsouthwest/chi-0410220073oct22,1,3810331.story

Escaped Bird Dies After Its Capture

By Stanley Ziemba
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 22, 2004

The big bird had eluded police in Frankfort for days, flitting through cornstalks and dodging tranquilizer darts. On Thursday, he finally was captured by his owner, only to die as he was being driven home in a pickup truck.

The loss of the South American rhea nicknamed No Neck was "very upsetting" to Jackie Juby, 46, who has been raising the birds as pets with her husband, David, for 10 years.

"At least he's not going to hurt anyone now or get hit out on the road somewhere," Juby said as she placed the carcass on a bed of straw in a barn behind her home in the 21100 block of South 80th Avenue in Frankfort.

No Neck was the second rhea, which is similar but smaller than the ostrich and Australian emu, that Juby lost this week. He and two other rheas flew their back-yard coop when frightened by dogs. One died and one was captured by motorcyclists. When they returned the bird, they asked Juby for the dead one. They wanted to freeze it, they told her.

She lamented, "Maybe they want it for Thanksgiving dinner."

In their native South America, rheas live in the wild and are raised by farmers for their meat, Juby said. Because of their exotic looks and the fact they pose little or no threat to humans, rheas mostly are pets in this country, she said.

"He [No Neck] was sort of feisty at times, but mostly docile and tame," Juby said. "He was fun to watch strutting around in the pen we built for the rheas in the yard. Everything was fine until last Friday."

On that day, a group of dogs entered the Jubys' sprawling back yard and managed to get inside the rheas' pen. The three birds, each weighing about 100 pounds and standing 5 to 6 feet tall, bent a section of wire fencing around the pen and took off in different directions.

Soon after, the two cyclists spotted one rhea, tackled the fleet-footed creature and returned it.

The second rhea was confronted by police and animal-control officers and apparently went into shock and died along Lincoln Highway, Juby said.

No Neck wound up in a large cornfield about 3 miles to the west of Juby's house, where it eluded police and animal control officers armed with dog nooses, nets and tranquilizer guns for six days.

On Thursday morning, No Neck was spotted south of Lincoln Highway in the Hunters Woods residential subdivision. Juby, accompanied by Frankfort police, managed to get a net over the bird.

"We held him down until my husband came from work," Juby said. "We then tied him up and placed him in the truck. A couple of blocks from home, he just collapsed and died.

"Maybe if I tried to gently lead him back home he would've survived. I don't know. I guess the shock was just too much for him."

Frankfort Police Chief Robert Piscia was sorry about the bird's demise.

"It's really too bad," he said. "We took up a lot of time and effort to catch it and return it home alive. It should have been a better outcome."

Juby, who has been fascinated by exotic birds and animals since she was a child, said she hopes to obtain more rheas next spring.

"She looks so alone out here," Juby said as the remaining rhea paced back and forth inside its pen.
 
Giant flesh-eating lizard safely home after scare
CP 2005-07-18 02:22:12

GUELPH -- A giant flesh-eating lizard that spent three days on the lam after it escaped from its owner has been found and returned home.

The nearly two-metre long, 24-kilogram Asian water monitor lizard, named T-Rex , had been loose in Guelph since early Friday.

The reptile's owner, Fred MacPherson, awoke to find the gate to the lizard's backyard cage open and its rope-leash snapped.

Police were warning locals that the lizard could pose a danger to children or small animals.

But MacPherson said T-Rex was returned home last night after being found in a neighbour's yard.

"I'm relieved to get him back and relieved that no harm came to him or anyone. He's not a bad guy. He's the same as any animal, he'll defend himself if cornered."

The huge lizard is black with a white underbelly and a white neck. It is shaped like an alligator and has a snake-like tongue.

Neighbour Geoff Martin, 20, said he was concerned for the safety of his pet cat while the lizard was roaming free. He said he has seen the lizard loose before, chasing MacPherson's dog down the street.

Asian water monitors are fast on the ground and can swim underwater for over half an hour.

MacPherson is legally allowed to own the lizard, but police said he may have been liable if it caused any damage while it was loose.

Copyright © The London Free Press

London Press
 
I see a load (100+) of boar have been let out on Dartmoor, I do like some of the emotive language:-

Villagers under siege in the Exmoor boar war.

In the shadow of Exmoor, the tiny village of West Anstey (pop: 100) is besieged. By the beasts. They escaped - 100 of them, hairy, weighing up to 440lb, males with razor-sharp tusks, most of the females heavily pregnant - after a raid on the Woodland Wild Boar farm which has been blamed on animal rights extremists.

By last night 40 had been corralled, but that still left 60 wild boar at large, striking fear into much of West Anstey. They terrified the local postmistress. They ripped up fields with their snouts and left farmers fearing for their livelihoods.

Children and family pets were ordered indoors. Old ladies were told to be careful if they went out on to the moor.

Christine Pennells, the landlady of the Jubilee Inn, said: "I was helping two draymen deliver beer. This massive one came from nowhere. It barged the cellar door and got its nose in." Her husband Robert added: "A customer saw seven of them walking down the lane on Boxing Day."

Mrs Pennells is afraid to let her red setters out, fearing the boar would make "mincemeat" of them. "Our one and three-year-old granddaughters are staying," she added. "They can't go out at all. I'm still frightened."

From the pub window yesterday, it was possible to see hairy forms in the field opposite, snouts churning the ground.

Jo Howard, 45, the postmistress, said: "This big one ran past 18 inches away. I turned and saw another four of them trotting towards me. I screamed, and jumped into my car."

And this could be just the beginning. Alan Dedames, 38, who owns Woodland Wild Boar, thinks wild boar will be roaming Exmoor for decades.

"Ninety per cent of my females are pregnant, and it's a Garden of Eden of nuts, roots and mushrooms out there for them. You have got a wild boar population in Devon and Somerset now."

When the Sunday Telegraph arrived Mr Dedames was taking a telephone call about another sighting. "Where? But that's 30 miles away!"

As he showed us how the raiders had cut apart yard upon yard of 5ft high boar-proof wire fencing, we were surrounded by angry neighbours. "I've got 120 lambs ready for market but I can't sell them now," said Keith Bavin, 62.

Gabby, the woman beside him, scowled. "I was intimidated by your animals," she said. "I was chased. I only felt safe coming here on my tractor."

Mr Dedames, whose farm is two miles south of Exmoor, claimed he had been hamstrung by confusion over livestock movement regulations introduced after the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak.

He discovered the crisis on December 22. "My girlfriend saw them first, all over the road. £200,000 of stock has wandered off. I am out of business."

He struggled all night to retrieve boar, before someone claiming to be from Devon trading standards telephoned about livestock movement rules on December 23.

"He told me: 'If your animals stray onto another farm, that farm is on standstill, and nothing can move off it.' It meant a £5,000 fine for every animal I retrieved.

"It's bureaucracy gone mad. I don't know if I'm facing a £5,000 fine for every boar I take back - and officials I need to talk to have been on holiday."

Mr Dedames admitted: "I had everybody screaming, I didn't know what to do, it was Christmas Eve, I thought 'b******s.' I went to stay with friends."

He tried to explain to the neighbours about the fines and counselled against "hysteria", explaining that boar would not attack unless cornered or wounded. Gabby conceded that the running boar might have been dashing away frightened.

Wild boar became extinct in Britain in the 16th century, but a handful of captive animals escaped when storms damaged their enclosures in Kent and East Sussex in the 1980s. Before last week, there were about 500 feral boar in England.

It wasn't until Friday that the legal problems were resolved when the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs granted Mr Dedames an emergency licence allowing him to round up his animals.

"We were only told of this situation on December 29," a spokesman insisted.

Mr Dedames was left planning to enlist the local hunts for a boar round-up. He was not optimistic. Each family group of about eight would take 20 people to round up.

Some boar had not been seen at all, others were miles away. Mr Dedames sighed. "At least they will remember me: 'Dedames, he had the farm where the boar came from'."

Source:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... boar01.xml
 
These ones are quite domesticated,search on here for my other posts on Wild Boar and on the CFZ Site.(Can't be arsed to link,you'll have to do it yourselves !) ;)
 
The problem is that this was one of the largest releases known in the UK, the owner admits that many (most?) of the sows were pregnant, and this is an area that was affected a few years ago by foot and mouth.

For those of you that don't know all the pigs act as foot and mouth virus factories when infected, they produce more virus than any other animal, and a group this big will, by definition spread out quite quickly. If we get foot and mouth back a population of this size would potentially really assist the disease in spreading.

Economically there is also the fact that the boars break into pig farms and "rape" the sows there. The offspring are not as valuable as ordinary domestic pigs. There is also the damage done to fields, hedges, etc.

This liberation is potentially more harmful than any that have happened so far.

Chris. M.
 
Indian Zoo Clueless About Missing Bear

Somebody lost the bear
by Staff Writers

New Delhi (AFP) Apr 12, 2006
It's big, black and dangerous and could be roaming about the Indian capital. New Delhi zoo would like to hear urgently from anyone who spots a Himalayan bear missing since February. The story is embarrassing zoo authorities who Tuesday declined official comment.
But one official, who asked not to be named, scoffed at explanations offered so far to the Indian media that the female bear may have tried to tunnel her way to freedom.

The zoo official said the bear may have been poached or died from carelessness.

An unidentified keeper told the Indian Express the bear -- weighing between 90 to 110 kilograms (198 to 242 pounds) -- had been missing since February 22.

A couple of days later, two keepers found a tunnel which they believed had been dug by the bear possibly to escape from an enclosure surrounded by a water-filled moat, he said.

Two men were immediately sent into the tunnel to look for the animal but they gave up for fear of attack, the report said.

On March 3, zoo authorities tried to smoke the bear out but failed, leading them to think it had died underground. A digger was being called in to check.

But the zoo official who spoke to AFP said black bears do not tunnel.

The bile of the black bear -- found in the lower reaches of the Himalayan Mountains -- is used in Chinese traditional medicine and believed to cure rheumatism.

Experts say there were an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 bears in the wild.

"A bear of that size housed in a moated enclosure filled with water just cannot simply disappear," the zoo official said.

"And Himalayan black bears are not diggers like the sloth bears. These are excuses to cover up the real story of what happened to the bear. But unfortunately, we may never know."

Recently two jaguar cubs died in the zoo after consuming disinfectant left lying around by some careless keepers, he added.

Bear
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Indian_Zoo_Clueless_About_Missing_Bear.html
 
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Emergency workers are hunting a crocodile which has escaped from a travelling circus in southern Ukraine.

It went missing in the sea at Mariupol, close to Ukraine's border with Russia.

There have been a number of sightings of the animal, including a photo in a local newspaper, but all attempts to capture it have so far failed.

The crocodile, named Godzilla, was being paraded on a beach in Mariupol on the south coast of Ukraine when it suddenly ran into the Azov Sea.

But despite its name, the creature has been keeping a low profile.

Elusive creature

Godzilla, who is only is one metre long, is said to be scared of humans.

More than two months after its escape, a local newspaper in southern Ukraine has printed a picture of what it says is Godzilla.

The photo appears to show a small crocodile resting on a rusting boat.

Emergency workers are now trying to catch the animal.

But Godzilla is proving elusive and has not been tempted by slabs of meat left on the shore.

A Russian news agency has claimed that the team is planning to use live guinea pigs to lure the crocodile out of the water.

However, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's emergency ministry denied this and said the workers are just going to sit and wait for Godzilla to wander onto the beach.

Source
 
Dead.

Now, children remember: A crocodile is forever, not just for Christmas.
 
Are you sure? It's not just for tax reasons...?

What about Bindi then? Or that nice Mr Dundee fellow?
 
There's an idea, we could use Bindi as bait. Or maybe Bob.
 
For me this is odd, because I inadvertantly predicted it last week. I was reading my niece "The Tiger Who Came to Tea" (a British staple for children - for those unaware, a tiger comes to a little girl's home, and stays for tea, eventually eating all of the food in the house, drinking all the water in the taps, all her dad's beer, etc, before politely saying goodbye and leaving.) Now, at the end of the story, the girl's father comes home, and faced with no food they all go out to a cafe for tea, instead: at which point I joked that the tiger ambushed them, having lured them into neutral territory.

Lo and behold....

Tiger escapes at California zoo

One person has been killed and two others injured after a tiger escaped from its cage at San Francisco Zoo.

All of the victims were visitors to the zoo, a spokesman for San Francisco emergency services said.

It is not clear how the tiger, which was shot dead during the rampage, escaped from its pen.

The incident occurred in a cafe as the zoo was closing at around 1700 (0100 GMT). Local media initially incorrectly reported that four tigers had escaped.

Emergency services spokesman Lt Ken Smith said that they were called to the zoo at 1715 following a report that a person had been attacked by a tiger.

In response the zoo was evacuated and armed police officers and firefighters sent to the scene.

.......

Police shot the tiger as it was mauling one of the victims who survived, Lt Smith said.

The two injured people were described by Lt Smith as being in a critical condition.

The three victims were men in their 20s who were together at the zoo, San Francisco Police spokesman Steve Mannina said.

Margie Shafer, a reporter from local radio station KCBS, told the BBC that the attack occurred when the tiger entered the Terrace Cafe, a restaurant about 60m (yards) from the tiger enclosure....

From Auntie Beeb.
 
My son lives in San Francisco. In true Brit style, I can only add phew, thank goodness he's in L.A. for xmas.
 
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